From Stuck to Safe: A Deeper Dive to Rewiring Your Nervous System After Freeze & Fawn

Season 4- Episode 53

If you’ve ever felt frozen in stress or stuck in people-pleasing mode, you’re not alone. But knowing why you freeze or fawn is just the first step—the real transformation comes from learning how to shift into safety and resilience.

In this follow-up episode, we’re diving into:
 How to gently move out of freeze & fawn without overwhelming your system
 The power of nervous system flexibility (and how to build it)
 Daily practices that help you feel safe, strong, and in control

Your nervous system isn’t meant to stay stuck—it’s designed to adapt. And with the right tools, you can start creating a sense of safety from the inside out.

If you haven't already, check out Five Ives to see how strategies like this can be applied to adults, especially in the workplace. Five Ives works with staff in high burnout jobs to help them incorporate regulation strategies into their daily routines.

Try at Home Tip: Pick one small way to practice nervous system flexibility from some of the options provided in this episode.

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Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer:

“I would say that I need to make talking about the nervous system my job and then I remember that it already is I love this I y'all. I am such a hippie at my spirit level. But my work, and like what my my brain loves to talk about is is the nervous system like. There is nothing that excites me more than listening to learning about talking about. It is an obsession. It's a healthy obsession, but it's an obsession.

So last episode, I broke down what freeze fawn state looks like from opposing ends of the nervous system. So if you've been with us for a while, or if you're new, I'm in this nervous system series, and I'm really breaking down all parts of it, because I think this is one of the most profound impactful systems and ways to heal talk therapy. It has its time and its place, but I feel like what it's missing is the integration of the entire body and the nervous system, and more than just the brain itself. I feel like I'm such a big believer, and I don't believe that one modality works for all. I believe that there are a lot of nuanced components that need to work together for ones owns healing. So I'm a firm believer in talk. Therapy can be supportive and can be helpful. But you also need some like somatic work, and and your body movements and releasing and and things like that. But I also feel strongly about food and nutrition and dietary things, and how that influences your body's ability to function well, and even move through healing. And then just the biological systems beyond. Just the brain is like the nervous system. It's connected to the brain. But how do we use these systems to heal. And how do we integrate movement and nutrition and the like psychological, brain-based strategies, but also the nervous system strategies. But the nervous system feel like. We don't do enough nervous system work. I feel like we're not educated enough, not aware enough. Therapy doesn't integrate nervous system work enough. And that is a problem. So let's talk about. How do we go from stuck in a state, a nervous system state to safe? Because that's really what's happening here in so much of the world. And in students and children and in relationships and family systems. We're feeling unsafe even on a subconscious psychological level level. And then things are not going well, and that causes deterioration of self, of parenting, of romantic relationships and separation and divorce and feuds, between family systems and problems at work. It all is interconnected. So let's dive deeper into rewiring your nervous system. But specifically, I want to extend from last episode. We talked about what does the freeze and Fawn State look like in both sides of the nervous system.

So if you've been here with me, we talk about the nervous system as this like stacked tier 1, 2, 3, not even tier stacked 3 in the middle is your window tolerance. How much can you tolerate before you go up, or you go down, you go up to the sympathetic side or down to the parasympathetic side, and if you're like me, I go up. I am much more like tense, defensive, ruminating thoughts, anxious thoughts, anxious person, I resonate with that so much more versus if you are more likely to go down to the parasympathetic side. You may be more like dissociative, disconnected, more prone to depression. Opposite sides, different ways, but both not bad. They were designed to save you. They were designed to keep us alive. So there's good reason for this system. But I want to specifically talk about whether you go up or you go down. You can end up in a free state from both ends of the spectrum they look a little bit different. What's going on internally. but they feel kind of the same. So if you have ever felt frozen in a state of stress and overwhelm or stuck in this like people, pleasing mode. you are not alone. Knowing why you freeze or why you fawn is just the 1st step. Because awareness is great. We need that. We need that first. But the real transformation comes when you learn how to shift yourself both reactively and preventatively into safety because it builds resilience. So in this episode we will dive into how to gently move out of your freeze Fawn State without overwhelming your system, and we will talk about how to create a flexible nervous system which is resilience, and then we'll talk about daily practices that you can integrate to help you to feel safe and strong and in control.

Last time we talked we talked about these freeze fun. So if you haven't listened to the episode, I would highly encourage you to go back and listen. But these are the moments when your nervous system kind of locks up, or it keeps you in this stuck state of people pleasing. And you're maybe wondering of like, okay, so if this has been like my existence forever, or for as long as I can remember, how do I actually change this? And can this even be changed? Or is this. Just how I am understanding your nervous system is one thing, understanding like the scientific parts of it, the sympathetic versus the parasympathetic stepping into awareness of which side you're in that that's the 1st step that's huge but rewiring it. That's actually where the real transformation happens. rewiring how you have wired yourself, or you've been conditioned to be wired is possible. So we're talking about exactly just that.

How do we start shifting out of these automatic patterns because it isn't subconscious like we've got this huge big old brain that has a part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, and the logical, rational cerebral parts that some of the animals. Mammals beneath us in the chain don't have. It's a bittersweet characteristic because of it. We have evolved as humanity and have made some amazing things happen in this world. But that same system that helped us to grow has and can work against us. So basically, our system has shifted into these automatic patterns to keep us safe on a subconscious level And we need to shift back into a regulated state and access our conscious so conscious functioning about 5% of our life, our existence, our utility usage of our brain. So much of of what's going on is is on the subconscious level, which is kind of wild when you think about it. And it's the subconscious that's the automatic patterning that's driving us.

 So how do we build this nervous system? Flexibility or nervous system, resilience or just resilience in general. how do we build it? So we don't keep getting stuck in the same stress response or the same stress patterns, or the same again, kind of like unconscious actions. So if you ever felt trapped and you felt like my gosh, I keep learning more. but I keep doing the same thing. I keep acting the same way. I'm going to tell you how to break that, and I cannot wait.

So let's talk 1st about why we get stuck in this freeze, fond state. And just to kind of reiterate what the last episode said is that basically if you're like me and you're more prone to anxiety, and you are more prone to go up in a sympathetic side. There can be a state in the sympathetic side where you become so overwhelmed that your body enters into a freeze or fawn state. But what's going on internally is like your heart rate's still up. You still feel like you're in danger. So it's still this like heightened state, tense state, but just like an overwhelmed like, now I'm frozen because I just don't know where to go versus if you're more prone to be on the parasympathetic side and land in that freeze fond state that's more like dissociative, disconnected, and it's almost like your internal body systems are starting to shut down a little bit. So if you can see, it's very different, like the the lower tier is like shut off, shut down, disconnected, whereas the freeze fun in the top tier is more like I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do, so I'm just gonna freeze and stare because I don't know what to do. So you might resonate with one you might resonate with both.

But let's talk about why it's so hard to just snap out of either of those States, because when you get that far down and you get that far up, you are like lodged in there. Your nervous system isn't making a mistake. When it puts you there. It's actually doing this because it's doing its job. It's just working off of an outdated instruction manual like. There there are. Let's just go to this this way. Let's do this. There's a an infamous saying that I'm sure you might have heard. If you haven't well, here's the 1st time you'll hear it. It goes. Neurons that fire together wire together. So if your nervous system has learned on a subconscious level. That freezing or fawning, whether it's up or down keeps you safe. It will keep choosing that response because it's familiar, and you have subconsciously conditioned. Your brain and body or your environment has to do that even when it's not actually helpful anymore. This is what's so, this is what blows my mind about the nervous system. So let's say. you know, eons ago this system was built. It's doing its job. It it saved us from like saber tooth tigers. Let's say it's all sabre tooth tiger. So you went into this like very overwhelmed state. And somehow that saved you. So that's that's why we're still here today, the problem is in today's world. There are things that are triggering us and setting that system off that are triggering us. To think that we're unsafe, or for the system to kick on. And we're not actually unsafe anymore, but because our brain and body has been conditioned and not just from eons ago from escaping saber-toothed tigers. Our brain and bodies have been conditioned to be this way because of stress, because of overwhelm because of society, because of trauma because of chatted trauma because of abusive relationships. It could be oodles of things and lots of them combined. But either way, our history both like before we're born. And and after we're born because you've got the epigenetic system which we'll go into another timehas conditioned you to act this way or to be this way, or to show up this way. And that's not wrong. We just need to become aware of it and then change it. So your neurons together your neurons that fire together, wire together. So if your nervous system has learned again that freezing or fawning is what keeps you safe, it will keep choosing that response even when it's not actually helpful. And this is like a good visual or like a metaphor, to explain this, think about. I don't know if you're familiar with this. But like I grew up in Pennsylvania. So I'm driving down a dirt road, and I've, we, our family system has been driving down this dirt road for 50 years. Well, you know that when you drive down the dirt road for 50 years the tracks become worn. So when you're driving your truck or car down the road, and you're on the tracks. Feels like it's smooth sailing. It's easy the moment you try and turn or drive, or get off of those very worn tracks. the tracks will actually pull you back in and your brain is the same way your neurons that have wired together and fired together that have connected. They're so strong, and they're so used to getting the same feedback from you and from your external environment that they have fired and wired together so deeply that it's become like that dirt road. And the moment that you try and stop doing the thing that you don't want to do anymore. It just pulls you right back into those tracks. And that's perfectly normal. So we just have to keep with it. Do little micro things and keep driving off the tracks. Keep driving off the tracks, keep driving off the tracks, and soon enough those tracks will be rewritten. They will be Redone on the new pathway on the healthier pathway. It just takes a lot of time, as you can imagine, to get yourself there, because it took a lot of time to get you where you are now. Okay. So we get stuck in safety loops. If fawning has protected you from conflict in the past, your brain will default to that safety loop. If freezing has kept you from feeling too much pain, it will keep you from hitting the brakes. The problem isn't the response itself. The problem is that we don't always have the flexibility to choose a different response. This is where I struggle, because so many programs or people are talking about, just like especially people of addiction, of any form of addiction, because addiction doesn't have to be what we think it always is, which is alcohol, abuse or drug abuse. Addiction could be work, addiction, addiction could be porn addiction, addiction could be any other sexual addiction. There are so many different types of addiction. Sugar can be an addiction. Eating can be an addiction. People think that people that have become wired this way can just choose a different path. That is not true. It is not easy as just choosing. It's little micro changes and support and community and therapeutic programs and movement and nutrition all the things together that will slowly move you off of the old pathway and on to the new one. So the goal isn't to stop freezing or to stop fawning again. They're healthy responses. It's to teach your nervous system that other options are possible. And how do we do that? We do that by gently micro ways to expand our capacity for safety. Essentially, we teach our body and brain and nervous system how to leave those zones that we're like lodged in and come back into the window of tolerance, and not only do we teach it how to get back into the window of tolerance, we teach the window tolerance how to get bigger and stronger and grow. And that way we stay in it more, we're breaking these stable states that have been created.        

Okay, so let's talk about what does creating micro safety look like? Because that's the next step, micro safety. How do we start the rewiring process? How do we start this new driveway, this new pathway. How are you there? Your nervous system does not shift through forcing it. You can't just wake up tomorrow and be like I'm going to do it differently doesn't quite work that way, because at some point your brain, your nervous system, is going to pull you back into those old pathways. But it's these shifts through tiny moments of felt safety. So let's break it down into fee. Freeze, freeze, and fawn. Let's go freeze first.st So if you are a more freeze based person. try small micro structured movement, walking in a straight line, rocking side to side, even stretching your body can help your body realize that it's not actually stuck. It's it's moving things through cellularly. And the act of actually like being unstuck helps you internally become unstuck. Temperature shifts can also be really good to bring you out of freeze States, holding something warm, splashing some cold water on your face, putting a rag in the fridge or freezer. I recommend fridge, because I don't like cold, so freezer is too cold for me. It wakes up, wakes up, shocks your system in a gentle way. There are bigger ways to do this. You can cold plunge. I would be very mindful of doing that for nervous system regulation. When you're like I want to go from here again. Big big shifts are not sustainable. Not that cold plunging is bad. but maybe work your way up to cold plunging, maybe just start with a cold rag, then splashing some water on your face, then putting your hands in cold water, then maybe a cold shower, and then plunge your whole body into the cold water. Also practice low pressure decision making. So even something as small as do, I want tea, or do I want coffee helps to rebuild, build your ability to take action. So like pausing and and not just like making a decision like, if I'm making dinner. And I'm like, Okay, I've got like 5 things in my fridge to choose from. I might ask myself, do I want that meal or that meal? And just like, really sit with it for a hot second here and be a little bit mindful of it, and just pick one. So like I gotta rush, I gotta get one done. I need to pick a meal and just pick one low pressure. I'm making a decision. Feedback is not really wrong unless you have, maybe like a child that's like, I didn't want that. But the feedback from you yourself isn't really can't like make a wrong choice when it's for you.

Okay, what if you tend to be a fun person? If you didn't hear the last episode freeze versus fun is freezes is what it sounds like. Fun is when you're more like submissive people pleasing. Do everything to make everyone happy. Walking on eggshells. Those kinds of things. The 1st thing that I would suggest is micro boundaries, people that tend to fawn. And I'm 1 of these people was one of these people have worked a lot to get out of this state struggle with boundaries, because you want to make everyone happy and making people happy keeps you safe. not always because it's a sacrifice of your own self. So instead, here's how you can work on setting micro boundaries is instead of saying No, because no feels hard and big and harsh and heavy instead of no try something like let me think about it. Not. Can I think about it? You're not asking for permission. You are telling someone I'm not sure. Let me think about it, and actually giving yourself a little bit of time to think about it. I don't know how many times I have said yes, because in the moment I'm like, I don't know if I do, or I don't want to do that, but it seems like in order to not upset that person, or to make them happy. I'll just say yes, and then later, regretting and being like, I wish I hadn't said yes to this, and then I don't have the boundary to be able to say. I said yes, and I shouldn't have. And now I'm going to say no, and I'm so sorry I just go I have learned to instead s aylet me think about that for a minute. I'm not sure and then actually respond with my body and my brain and my nervous system really desire and want. I also encourage practicing, checking in with yourself, especially before answering someone pause. When you're asked a question about something you're not sure about, and ask, what do I actually want right now, or what do I think I might want this weekend, or next month or tomorrow, or whenever we tend to just feel like we have to answer immediately as people pleasers, what would it look like to actually pause and think? What do. I think I want the last one is grounding techniques. So fawning pulls you into external focus bringing attention back to your body.So when you press your feet into the ground. It really helps to anchor you, which is why they call it a grounding technique. So I walk barefoot a lot. There are lots of other types of grounding techniques. But how? How do you pull yourself back to the present? How do you pull yourself to the here and now, and and you can do a quick search of this or chatgp this chat, gpt this or pinterest this whatever you do and search grounding techniques or regulation techniques or calming techniques. There are hundreds of thousands of them. You might even want to search specifically grounding techniques for people who tend to fawn. I'm sure that there are a lot of specifics for even just that specific type of of response.So I gave you basically 6 different things to do here, whether you freeze, or whether you fawn, and they may sound like they're small or like they're insignificant. But again, it's the micro changes, the micro safeties that really start to build a system in the other direction. They are the powerful acts that sustain us. So each time you send your nervous system a tiny new little signal safety signal and doing something different. This different thing is going to keep me safe. You're rewiring these old patterns, but think about that dirt road you have to keep doing that enough times that the road is rewritten, that the road is Redone. So you need lots and lots and lots of doses of these.

Okay, so let's talk about. Now, you've got some micro practices. What are ways that we can build into nervous system flexibility, because the real magic happens when we start to build the flexibility. So what is flexibility with the nervous system? It doesn't actually mean you can flex your body very wildly. I am the most inflexible people I know, but what it actually means is the ability to move in and out of stress states without getting stuck. Essentially, your nervous system is trainable. We can train it to be more flexible like we can become self-aware of like I have become dysregulated. I'm going to do something right now to get re-regulated. I get back into my window of tolerance. I have now set this pattern of not getting stuck, but training myself to come back in, and I will again move out, because it's normal to go out of my nervous system, and I'll move back in, and I'll just toggle between moving in and out and moving in and out is totally fine. That's totally healthy. That's what we want. What's not healthy. What's not good we don't want is to move out and stay out too long or get stuck out.

So how on earth do you build nervous nervous system? Flexibility?Here's how to build it very. Your nervous system states on purpose. I used to do this with kids all the time when I was working with them. So it looks a little different for a child as it does for an adult, but for a child it looks like I might do something to intentionally activate my nervous system.so kind of like stress my system out on a micro level. But I'm prepared to do it. Therefore I'm prepared to get out of it because I'm doing it in a controlled environment. So if you're a person who is always in Free State, you could practice intentionally activating your system by like jumping up and down for a few seconds. So your your heart rate's going to go up. Your body's gonna like activate, or you could play like really upbeat, fast paced music, and your body's gonna like rhythmically regulate to that. So it's gonna take you into a heightened state when you enter that heightened state. Then think about before you even get into that state. What am I going to do to calm my state? Back down? And then you implement the practice. So it seems weird because it's like a controlled environment. But I might like jump around to some music and get my heart rate up. And then I'll be like, okay. Now, I'm gonna do some deep breaths. Or now I'm going to do some type of like self hold, or I'm going to say a mantra, or whatever it is that I do to re-regulate. But I'm going to do it right after getting myself into this heightened state. That's a little micro dose that's telling your body you're safe in a practice controlled setting. That done, over and over and over again, trains your nervous system to do the opposite of what you've always done. If you are in Fawn State, I would suggest practicing stillness. Just sit with your hands on your lap and just be maybe sit in the sun maybe sit outside, but I laugh because this is so hard for people that are in fond state. I am one of them. I'm so eager to help and please and and do everything that I need to make everyone else happy, that I really struggle to just be. And I have had to work at this practice so hard. But it is okay to just be. In fact, it's anti-societal to just be society says like, Do more, be more, make more have more. Go, go! Do the opposite of that. A lot of us are getting stuck in fond state, because society is driving us to stay in fond state. Use your voice to regulate and not to like firmly set boundaries and yell at someone. What I mean by use your voice is, activate your vagus nerve, humming, singing, even reading out loud. It vibrates like the back of your throat, and that stimulates your vagus nerve, and it helps your nervous system to regulate so intentional like ritualistic like, if you can do it regularly, like every morning when you wake up, or after you have your coffee, or in the car on the way to work whatever it is. Hum, sing, maybe don't read aloud in your car on the way to work, but you could sing or hum, and you could read in the morning, or read before bed, or whatever it is. But typically we read, or we listen to audiobooks, we don't actually do it out loud. What would it look like to actually read it out loud? Create safety rituals. We're like integrating these pack, integrating these practices into your life are are so well done when they're in a ritual meaning like it's a routine that you keep doing day to day to day to day and your nervous system really craves predictability. It really craves routine. It craves rituals, it craves patterning. That's why it has been patterned to do the opposite of what you wanted to do all this time. So can you create some rituals that are like stabilizing healthy rituals that integrate some of the grounding or some of the vocal things, but it could even be something like a 3 move morning stretch. It could be something where you light a candle at the end of the day and read a couple pages of a book. It could be holding something that is comforting. It could be holding your child, I mean, I think about some of these things I'm like I could probably couldn't light a candle and sit and read a book. I have a pretty wild of a boy toddler, but maybe I don't know. Maybe it's a good practice to get in place with him, holding something comforting. Maybe him maybe something else. I have a heated blanket I really love. So that's a safety ritual for me. It could be like a 10 min Pilates exercise that I do with him while while he's here, do really do I do it? But he he plays part in it that way. I can integrate him, and I'm not neglecting him either in the evening but these little ritualistic practices of routines in the morning, or at lunch or end of the day or evening, these really help to anchor safety in your body. That's why. For kids it works so well to have an evening like bedtime routine. It's the routine. The routine regulates their nervous system. The nervous system helps them to get into a sleep state. The sleep state helps them enter into sleep.

Okay, also try also try taking up a little bit of space, small, doable things that take up some space. For example, boundaries. If that feels scary to you, try it in a low stakes environment first, st try it with a friend who, you know, is not going to blow up when you you say no, or ask for more time to think about it and if taking action feels overwhelming to you maybe start with the smallest step possible. What is the smallest step? Because the reality is when you are in a survival state, and your nervous system is wrecked. Everything feels overwhelming. So the only way out is to take the teeniest, tiniest little micro step possible, and that will propel you forward, and you can keep going. This is not about fixing you or fixing your nervous system, because your nervous system isn't broken. It's just as Dr. Wood would say. Got a little glitch. It's been patterned to work the wrong way. Kind of work against you, I mean. Well, it's working the right way. It's just not working in favor of you. So we're just gonna shift it a little bit. We're gonna help it a bit, rewire it, make it more flexible and resilient. Give it some new experience that it can learn that safety exists in more places than it thought.

Okay, so here's what I want you to take away from today. You're not stuck. Your nervous system is always learning. It's always adapting to to you and your environment. So when you start giving it you information, new signals. new experiences of safety. It will start to shift. But be patient because you're not going to wake up the next day and be like, well, I'm shifted. No, it's the dirt road. So this week pick one small way to practice nervous system flexibility. Maybe it's saying let me think about it instead of an automatic Yes. Maybe it's moving your body when you feel stuck or frozen or overwhelmed. Maybe it's simply noticing when you want to default, to freeze or fawn.

And if you took something powerful away from this episode, I highly encourage you to share it with someone, share the episode share. What powerful thing is that you took away? Share what you learned, share what changed for you, because the reality is healing does not happen in isolation Healing happens in community and connection, and people sharing and people working together and people supporting each other

So to wrap up our show and give you a try it at home tip, which is choose one of the tips above.

And that's it for today's episode of returning to us podcast, if you are looking for more support in the areas of stress and trauma. And maybe it's behavior in a school system or trauma, sensitive, brain-based supports for the workplace. We would love to be a part of your your journey. So we created the 5 Ives with Dr. Jessica Doring and I. So if you want to learn more about the work that we do and how we coach programs and how we have supports for programs like medical police and education and nonprofit either go to our website FIVE, IVES. And contact us that way or shoot me an email, Lauren, at 5 ives.com. and don't forget to lock in what you learned right away by applying it, by making a plan for it, by getting an accountability, Buddy, for having a conversation and having, like a podcast club about this episode, or all the nervous system episodes. But the only way that you are going to see the results is, if you take action from what you learned until next episode. I am Lauren Spigelmyer, and thank you for joining me.”

 

Calming & Coping, Emotional RegulationLauren SpigelmyerComment