Unfreezing the Freeze Response: Releasing Trauma Stored in the Body

We often hear about fight or flight, but freeze is the quiet survival response that can linger long after the threat is gone. It’s the part of trauma that can be the hardest to notice—when your body feels stuck, numb, or disconnected, even though your mind knows you’re safe now. You’re not lazy or broken. Your system is just doing its best to protect you in a way that once worked, but no longer serves you.

What Is the Freeze Response?

When our nervous system perceives danger and neither fighting nor fleeing is possible, it can shift into freeze—a state of immobility, numbness, or dissociation. It’s not a conscious decision; it’s your body’s way of surviving the unbearable. This response often shows up later as chronic tension, emotional shutdown, or that feeling of being “stuck” in life.

Why Trauma Gets Stored in the Body

Trauma isn't just a memory—it’s an experience that lives in the nervous system. When a traumatic event overwhelms your ability to cope, the unprocessed survival energy can get trapped in the body. This might look like shallow breathing, muscle tension, collapsed posture, or a sense of disconnection from yourself and others. Traditional talk therapy doesn’t always reach this place, because the freeze response is more physical than cognitive.

The Role of Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy helps you slowly come back into contact with those frozen places—not by pushing, but by listening. We track sensations, breath, and subtle shifts in awareness. We move at the pace your nervous system can tolerate. Over time, this helps your body complete the responses it never got to finish, so you can come out of freeze and back into flow.

This is not about re-experiencing trauma; it’s about building safety in the present. That might mean learning to notice the moment your shoulders relax or letting a single tear fall without shutting down. These small openings are where big healing begins.

How Ketamine Can Support the Process

In my work, I blend somatic therapy with ketamine-assisted sessions. Ketamine can soften the grip of freeze by quieting the survival brain and increasing neuroplasticity—your brain’s ability to form new, healthier patterns. During a session, you might finally feel a sense of safety in your body, or be able to witness a memory without being consumed by it. When paired with somatic support, these experiences can unlock powerful shifts.

Ketamine doesn't do the work for you—it creates a window. Somatic therapy helps you step through it with awareness and care.

You Don’t Have to Stay Stuck

If you’ve been living in a frozen state, it can feel like you’ve lost access to joy, movement, or even your own voice. But that frozen energy can thaw. Not all at once, and not by force—but with the right support, it’s absolutely possible.

You are not your trauma response. You are someone who adapted to survive. And you can learn, gently and gradually, to come back to life.