Uncover The Functional Freeze’s Role In Your Healing Journey

I am going to share with you a graph that I have created that shows the three different states of the nervous system and how the nervous system goes into that freeze response so that we can understand a functional freeze response. And you will be ready for this interview. This is my graph that I created when I was going through my health experience where I was very deep in a functional freeze. I would even say it was not so functional anymore because I was in bed, I was sick, had chronic fatigue, overweight, and an autoimmune condition. And what happens is that I could tell that there were different energy levels and I started to map out my energy level based on what I was learning about my nervous system. And this is how I mapped it out. And then as I layered on more training this is what I have come to understand about the freeze response and the trauma response in the body. Ideally, we are starting in the parasympathetic though obviously for many of us we are not, I was not at that time. I was either up here in sympathetic and stressed. And we have to go there first in order to go into what is the freeze response. 

And when there is a trigger and it takes us up into that sympathetic state, this is in response to a threat, the danger, perceived or real, it does not have to be real like any stuff that we make up in our brains. But we sense danger and we respond with a sympathetic or stress response and this is where there is a higher energy level, this is where we can feel the most alive and be our strongest, I mean, this is where we can become superhuman, superwoman with everything that we can do and get done and accomplished because we are up here in this very high energy state, but what happens is that is unsustainable. And if the body is not able to regulate itself and bring itself back into a time of rest and being able to process what has happened and integrate what is ,it will reach a point where in here I have my two points. It will be either too much too fast or too little for too long and the body has to shift down into a different gear in order to sustain life. This is protective, this is a protective mechanism to help us survive like keep our body alive and not have a heart attack, not faint. These are very physiological changes. Of course, we only recognize it more on the emotional level and on the level of what our body feels like. We are not recognizing that this is a physiological safe but what happens is that our body, our autonomic nervous system, goes into this freeze response. 

And this freeze response does not mean that you are standing there frozen. It can be a functional freeze response where we continue doing everything in our life and we can still do quite a bit as we are going to talk about in this interview. But you have this sense of exhaustion, you have this sense of heaviness in your body, this is where you can feel depressed, you do not want to get out of bed in the morning, you can develop physical health symptoms, some of which we are going to talk about in this interview, chronic pain being only one of them. You can have thoughts of what is the point. And on a physiological level, your metabolism has shut down because your job is to conserve energy in order to survive. 

This is the functional freeze response. We are going to talk about what this process is right here coming out of the functional freeze when this has been what you have done for a lifetime, when you have survived as a lifetime of going in and out of that freeze response to just get through and survive, what does the healing journey even look like? Because we can even develop physical health symptoms that are new as we heal, isn’t that interesting? You are in for a treat. If this is still all new to you and you want to learn more about the three states of our nervous system on my website, traumahealingaccelerated.com, you can come here and you can find the resources that I have for you. And you would scroll down until the resources section and there you will find the essential sequence guide. This is where I lay out and I do some additional teaching on those three states of our nervous system, and then the step-by-step process that we need to in order to walk our body out of that freeze response. And if this is all new and you may want to start with this guide the steps for identifying and heal trauma. Again, talking about the three states in the nervous system here and what trauma is, and how you can identify it and I have a quiz, an assessment guide in here. Those are your two guides that will be helpful for you if you are just starting out and not sure about the three states of the nervous system yet or this functional freeze. 

And with that, I am super excited to share with you that I have Irene Lyon to go over this conversation with me in this discussion point. Now, Irene is a fantastic person. Now I am so excited to go over this conversation with Irene Lyon today. Irene is someone that I consider one of the top nervous system experts. And the work that she does is quite incredible because of the different trainings, but also because she continues to be a student of her own journey. As again, you will learn in this interview. She teaches people around the world how to work with their nervous system to transform trauma, heal the body and mind, and live all creative lives. And today her online programming classes have reached over 9500 people, 9500 people in over 90 countries. Irene has a master’s degree in biomedical and health science. And also has a knack for making complex information understandable so that you can walk away understanding this is what is happening in my body and this is what I can do. She has extensively studied and practices the works of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Peter Levine, and Kathy Kain. And in her free time, she can be found walking the beach, eating good food, and even going to a place where I would spend some summers in my childhood up in Hope BC Canada. And with that, let us jump into this interview and talk about functional freeze and what the healing journey really looks like.

Irene, one of the things that I absolutely love about you, first of all, you and the work that you do is you are continuing to study your own healing journey and then share that with others. And we have come to know just how nonlinear this healing journey is, that there is not this end date that you might be able to expect if you go to the doctor and we get to the end of treatment and then they say, okay, you are done, you are all done, there is nothing else to do. And you talk about this functional freeze. And I find so many people are living in a functional freeze. I have lived so much of my life in a functional freeze. And I think it would be so helpful for people, even though this will be a more advanced conversation than just the person who is starting out with the trauma work, it is so important I think for people who have already started the work to understand what is the functional freeze? How would they know of their in the functional freeze? And then we can start to peel back the layers of what it means to come out of a functional freeze. Start us off. How would you describe it? And how would someone know like, that is me?

Irene Lyon, MSc

Well, If I am really bold and I will be bold, I would, if I was a betting girl, I would bet that the bulk of folks living in what we would call Western society, however we want to name that, where we have houses and heat and running water and we have to work jobs that make us get up before the sun and we have to feed our children when we really do not feel like it but we have to, all these things, most of us are living in some form of functional freeze. Now, I generalize but I am now almost on the other side of this. And we have talked about your journey and it is like, yup, you certainly have been and all those things going through medical school. And I will tell you what I found out about me and then I will talk a bit more about this. I was in my somatic experiencing training and I think the second year down in Carlsbad and I was at the beach, I was outside having some sun and so beautiful and I started to feel these tingles down my legs, like, what is that? Something biting me, sandfleas, or having a stroke, like, what is going on? And I got in my car and drove, I was planning to go have a session with one of our assistants, an SE session, and as I am driving down that highway I am still feeling these, it is almost like water was coming down my legs, and I get to her office at La Jolla and I said to her, “There is something’s weird, I keep feeling these things and I do not know if I am okay or what this is,” and she just looks at me straight in the eye, Aimie, it is like, “Honey, you have been in functional freeze your entire life.”

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

This is you waking up.

Irene Lyon, MSc

And I was like, I do not remember if I cried or laughed or just was in a bit of shock but this was already after beginner SE training, intermediate SE training, and I think we had just finished the first advanced I had been through Feldenkrais training, traveled the world, I have two science degrees, I was a very accomplished kid, all these things, this is all the clue of functional freeze. Wow, you have done a lot in your life, that is crazy, all my surgeries, and injuries, and I used to paraglide and jump off of cliffs skiing, and all these things. And I went, okay, I did not realize in that moment, that would have been like 2009-ish, how much more I still had to do to get myself into regulation. Now, bear in mind, I was never the person that had autoimmune or gut problems, I always slept well, I had relationships, and I did not have always the best relationship, that is one clue. I got into a relationship, it was not abusive but it just was not the right fit because I was living in a functional freeze. That was 2009, it is now 2023, I can not do math in my head but that is a good chunk of years. And I would say each year from then up until just this week there are still layers of this functional freeze coming out. 

Now, if we think about freeze like a tiger, we use that example, the tiger is chasing you, not that really happens very much here living in the city, but I definitely came across bears and cougars living in the mountains, so that happens, heart rate goes up, you feel the stress, and you know you can not socially engage with that bear, no vengeful bagels is going to help you there, so I am not going to fight it. Cougar, you would fight actually, you have to scream and get really loud but you usually would flee, but let us say you freeze that probably not going to end well. Think about it this way, humans technically aren’t walking around in a freeze state where they are just, I mean, we see some people that have that look and you can see it in the eyes, you can see it in the effect but they are still driving, they are still cooking food for their kids, they are still going to work, they are still cleaning themselves, they are paying their taxes, they are not in true freeze because true freeze would be completely frozen.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Paralyzed, not doing anything.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Exactly. As humans live like that, what happens? Because I think this higher brain of ours can micromanage the situation we can compartmentalize that survival stress and just keep going. It is the same reason my classic example with my students is you stub your toe really badly on a coffee table, how many of us keep going and curse the coffee table and are limping and limping and then we are disoriented, we are putting ourselves into a bit of a we can say functional freeze to just keep pushing. Think about human life from birth to what we typically do with babies. I know it is changing which is a good sign but still for the most part babies are not given to mama right away, not skin-to-skin, they are taken away and swaddled up and put in a warm thing. And to baby or infant who has their first accident, they fall, they are crying, how many parents come up and say, You are fine, get up, get up, just keep going? And this child is like, well, I am not fine, I hurt, I feel the pain but you are telling me I am okay. Okay, I guess I will keep going.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And this is clearly what you want me to do.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Exactly.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

You want me to be this. You want me to do this.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Exactly. And because let us say at that age of four or five we are starting to make sense of the world the kid is like, okay, I have to be good because this is my connection, this is my survival, I’d better put myself into this place and they do not know it is functional freeze but little Johnny is going into functional freeze when he wants to wail and cry and okay, better hold it in. We have seen kids do that, I mean, I know I did that. My first accident, I broke my arm and went over my handlebars, I was age five and the friend I was with would not help me, I had to like, suck it up and walk up the street with a broken arm, all of these things.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

That is how you talk about how the brain micromanages a situation. And it sounds like it not only compartmentalizes it but it is able to disconnect from that compartment. And say, you need to be put on pause, I can not pay attention to you right now because this thing over here is more necessary for our survival, I have to get home, it does not matter if I have a broken arm, it does not matter like I have to get home because that is my greater drive for survival and it can completely cut us off from that compartment. But then, I mean, in that compartment, stay cut off, stay disconnected and we just accumulate more and more disconnected parts of us along our lifetime.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Essentially, yes. And I think it is a large piece to offer to someone who is never considered this and they are like, I never cried like the people that say it is very hard for me to cry. That is a very good sign that functional freeze, this functional freeze ruled their life. Now, of course, there is some people that will say, my God, I can cry at anything and I would say, okay, well, that shows but you can cry at anything that also shows that there is a little bit too much activation and things are overflowing in the system, there is too many pieces that have been stored inside. You can say the lion needs to be let out of the cage, it is needing to get out. And there is no one definition I think for functional freeze other than it is just how we coped and managed and how we have created everything that we have created on this planet. There is been a push and there is been an overworking, it is just all of these pieces. And in many ways, it is how I think humanity just is. We have function, and I say that with air quotes, in this breezy survival stress state. But what occurs is there comes a point where the system can not handle all these pieces that are inside anymore. And then this is often, Aimie, and you know this and many of the people watching this, that is when a massive symptom pops up or that is when an autoimmune condition pops up, or a cancer, or a heart something, arrhythmia, or a gut thing, or absolute fear that makes no sense. 

The first time I realized how serious it was for me, I was driving through the City of Vancouver and I have no trouble driving, I love driving, and I have never been in an accident, but I was going over a bridge and I have no fear of heights and I started to have a panic attack like, where is this coming from? So bad that I had to loosen my clothes, take my shoes off because I was sweating so hard, and rolled down the windows, I managed to get my husband on my cell phone to talk to me so I would not, I do not know what would have happened, I got over the bridge, I got off onto the side street, actually, it took me two hours before I drove back home and I did go to the hospital because I am like, this is not like me and he actually made me and they did a stress test and they are like, your heart is completely fine, you are healthy, I am not sure what it was. My senses, my system felt being trapped, I was a little rushed to get to where I was going, little more stress trapped. And knowing my history it mimicked the times when I was trapped physically in small spaces as an infant and as a child. And it was just one of these little hidden layers that we were just talking about that it does not ask for permission, it does not say, okay, today we are going to release this, it was the perfect storm, we would call it declarative memories, the somatic sensation, all these things. And the system was like, we are going to express the high level of activation that you probably felt when you were an infant but you could not do anything about it. I probably went into shutdown as an infant in the case I am talking about and I obviously survived because I am still here because some infants don’t when they’re left alone too long. But this was just more of an oops on my parent’s part and it came out as an adult. And that was like the piece that opened the dam, it was about five years ago this occurred. And since then these blips of sympathetic activation, my guts done weird things and I have a good gut, this does not make sense, I had acid reflux for like three weeks that made no sense. 

But you see the interesting thing is that if a person does not understand their physiology they might go to the doctor and what are you given? I forget what they are called. Yeah, to block the acid but that is not what you need, this is just the system is in dysregulation momentarily trying to figure itself out. And knowing what I knew, I am like, okay, this isn’t a gut problem, I have never had a gut problem, this is my system figuring out a new level of regulation because it was just released this massive ball of survival stress. That makes sense?

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Makes a lot of sense. And when I think of the functional freeze, the more that I have encountered the different layers, and we are going to definitely talk more about this, I have had more and more compassion for myself for how much I was able to do.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yes.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

While in a functional freeze. And I do not remember having that level of compassion for myself when I first learned about the trauma response. And I learned about the freeze response and I was like, this is me. It was more just a level of recognition. But then as the layers have continued to surface every layer, for me just gives me a new layer of compassion for all that I was able to accomplish while having all of these different compartments of myself completely dysregulated and cut off from myself until they were just as like little piece of me, but boy, was she running and working hard to get everything done.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yeah.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And what I hear you saying is that the healing journey is not cannot be planned. It is not like we can have a checklist of, alright, these are all the events that happened to me, Irene, like, let me start with childhood, these are all the events that happened to me and I need to go through each one and we are going to schedule them out, we are going to work on this one this month then we are going to work on this.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Sounds like a root canal. There is not a step-by-step list.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

There is not a step-by-step list nor is there a timeline. It sounds like the work is creating the environment for those memories and those compartments to feel safe to open up. And you don’t even realize the layers and all the layers that you have when you first start this journey.

Irene Lyon, MSc

No. And I think this is where each journey is unique, it has to be because from what I have seen and this comes down to a person’s resources and ability to have time. And sorry for the single moms that have five jobs and do not have time. The chances of your system really letting out the functional freeze pieces, it just would not happen until there is more space and capacity. Because the unconscious and I do not know if it is the unconscious mind or the autonomic system, but God or who knows something, it will not let your system pop out a layer unless it knows there is space for it to occur.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Can you say that again? Because that is so important.

Irene Lyon, MSc

I will try. The system will not bring up a layer, it will not pop out a bottle of old stress. And I am going to say typically because there is obviously exceptions to everything, but it typically would not offer you on a platter this massive dragon of a trauma to work with if it knows you are not going to have time. Like that bridge example, I did not need to be at work that day, I was actually going to get my haircut, it was nothing insane and I was able to take time to rest after that. And I also had a supportive husband. This would not have happened when I was in my first marriage where I would not have had help and I think my unconscious system knows that, it knew that. It is almost like a bit of a tango, a dance between, okay, I have got a billable capacity of some knowledge, I am big on people learning about what their system is, how it works, and all the weird things that might occur. And when the sister knows and there is obviously the practices of learning how to settle, learning how to orient, learning how to feel the ground and have containment, less exercises and all the things that you and I and our colleagues teach as these resources are built, as the capacity is built in your human system. And as you learn more about it and as you say, yes, it is really an intentionality of I would like this to change and I would like to heal then we can say it starts to tick over a little quicker. And again, this is where awareness and wanting it is super important. 

Someone who has no idea that they have a nervous system and has no interest in knowing they have a nervous system and does not want to work on the old stuff because they were fed the lie that it happened in the past, it does not matter anymore, that is fine, that person will probably not do the work to restore full regulation to their system. And as we know and part of the summit, they will probably get sick, there will be a disease that takes them and makes them sick. How many people do we know who just say they just died of old age? Someone asks, the person died, how did they die? They expecting it to be a heart attack, a cancer, a dementia something like that. And this working of getting out a functional freeze, working on our traumas, working on all the layers, the education that it takes to do it, it is like this parallel that is occurring with other individuals who are interested in it. But if you are on this path it is almost like, I do not know, like, do you think you could go back and be ignorant to all these things now that you know what you know? My sense is probably not.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

I mean, once you see this you can not unsee it.

Irene Lyon, MSc

It is impossible to unsee it. And if you try to unsee it, I am going to again rage a guess. That would be very conflicting. And that will breed more illness because you should be doing something and you are not. There is some other parts that I would like to talk about in terms of functional freeze, but I will pause there to see if you have any afterthoughts on that.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

My question for that is around the awareness and not even wanting it and not having the space for it. And I hear you say that is the more that we go on our healing journey and connect with our body become what I call becoming the expert in your own nervous system. It almost sounds like what you are describing is that I can trust the process that I do not have to go digging for, okay, What is the next thing that I need to work on? It is just me living my life, me driving to my hair appointment. And just in the process of me living my life then the thing that is ready for healing will surface by itself. I do not need to control that process or even try to look for the next thing to heal.

Irene Lyon, MSc

I think it depends. I agree, yes. I agree with that, especially when let us say a person’s functional freeze happened pre-verbal, the wiring for that if start it in utero it started even before conception in the parents, and obviously, we know that is accurate and you have done interviews with people on that, that is a real thing. But let us say someone knows that they were a preemie, let us say someone knows that they were abused, let us say someone knows they had a horrific surgical event, an accident, shock traumas, broken bones. There isn’t anything wrong I think with putting out into the field. I want to resolve this. If I think about what tipped off some of my freeze starting to come off, the layers, it was doing some body work, I was getting regular role things  slash cranio sessions with a really good skilled practitioner. He actually did the first training with Peter in Vancouver back in the 90s back in the day. He also had the trauma lens on board. And I will never forget he was working on my skull at one point and I said to him, I said, “I feel like you are doing surgery on me right now,” he was like, “Well, I kind of I am.” He is working with all the bones and all the fluids and the fascia. And that opened up something that brought me through the last five years and I am still working on it of all the times I was concussed and had whiplash which are countless from my sport. And I did not realize until after that session how much darn stuff I was holding. And I had already done years and years of Feldenkrais and other bodywork, but for whatever reason, and this was about five years ago, it was time and some of the layers can be intentionally like, okay, I know there is something. 

Basically for anyone that is had accidents and you did not have body work afterwards and you did not really rest afterwards, there is probably some old tension force, vector patterns, fascia that is so gripped that you actually do not feel any pain. And here is the clincher, when you start to unravel these layers of freeze, you will feel pain and it sucks. It sucks so bad because you just want it to go away and you go, why did I open up this can of worms? But here is the thing, you do not want that tension trapped in your fascia, in your bones because it is going to limit your ability to move which eventually will limit your ability to be independent, do exercise, all the things. I wanted to put that in there because it is not just panic that a person might feel or in society or activation or a gut problem, not problem but dysregulation in the bowels, an immune system that might go haywire for a while, it can also be the bones, the fascia, the muscles, the tension patterns that honestly going and trying to get massage when you have these pain patterns. In my experience, it might soothe you in the moment but it just snaps back. You have to work with the activation, you have to work with the grief, the sadness, the anger, the loss, all the things that would have happened in that accident but also all the things that did not happen after the accident. My mother never cared for me, they made me go to school even though I was so much in pain, it is kind of this endless we can say path of all the things that never happened. But when you intentionally go into it as an adult be prepared for not just maybe the physical pain but the emotional holding that never got to release. And that is good, you want that stuff to come out.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And these are things that you do not always know what all will come out.

Irene Lyon, MSc

No.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Part of the healing journey is what I am hearing you say is that you need to be open to your body doing some strange things that you do not understand.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yeah. And that is, again where education is so pivotal. Because if you do not know that this is what that might be. And I am not saying do not have pain killer,  you need to. I have taken my share of Advil, I have rubbed my share of Tiger Balm on things. Sometimes you need a little bit of support, sometimes you need that hot bath, nothing wrong with that kind of thing, nothing wrong with getting some soothing bodywork. But you have got to process the energetic, the emotions, the survival stress, the abandonment, all the things that might go in conjunction in parallel with let us say that one accident, or in my case, it was nearly two decades of shock traumas that I just kept putting myself into over and over again.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Because if we do not process and integrate this it seems like we would still then keep that compartment closed off and disconnected and we have not actually fully resolved and opened that place up for there to be the regulation and the flow.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yeah, exactly. And if I use myself as an example I will bet again that if I had not gotten into the somatic experiencing work when I did. Then if I had just stayed in Feldenkrais and at that time I was in fitness and nutrition I might be living with fibromyalgia right now. Probably would be because if I think about the kind of pain that I have experienced the last five years where it is fully spinal, fully fascia, I can barely move in the morning, tender sore points, just all these things that is exactly chronic pain. I know darn well that I would be diagnosed with that. And when I think about say, fibromyalgia, we use that as an example which is so high right now in Western worlds. If I think about Robert Scaer, the late Robert Scaer who wrote in his book “Trauma Spectrum” there is a whole section on fibromyalgia. And he was convinced that that is a result of cycling between autonomic sympathetic and shut down at the pre-verbal level where that infant is not being met and it does not know what is going on and it is spiking and it sets the tone, not just in the nervous system but in the skeleton, in the fascia, in the movement patterns, in the entire system and then, of course, that person grows up and then a big stressor occurs and then they get all of this chronic pain. 

It is an interesting one because someone might say, this does not make sense, I have not had the accidents that Irene had, it is like you do not have to have done sport it can also be intense survival stress from infancy in childhood that is trapped. And that functional freeze to go back to that has kept you going and has kept you safe. And then what often occurs Aimie, and then be interesting to see if this what you have seen in your clients and students is the symptoms come out when life gets better, when there is more safety, when there is more money in the bank, when there is a good relationship. Because again, like I said, the system goes on, we can let down, now we can process. It was not safe to process this stuff when I was working five jobs, going to school, and trying to raise my kids. And then that is where people think they are going backwards.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

I see that a lot with the fatigue. People come in and they have pushed themselves so hard for so long that their body literally is living on fumes at this point, living off of deprivation, living off of negligence. And they can not keep this up anymore. And yet then when they start this work and we start to open things up, the fatigue does not go away immediately.

Irene Lyon, MSc

No, it can get worse. 

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

It can get worse.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yeah.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And again, the knowledge coming back to how much you are stressing the importance of knowing that this is how the body processes stuff, that this is not a setback, that in fact when you start to feel those tingles in your legs, feel like water is running down your legs like this is a good thing, feeling your legs. And I have seen that I have to shift that framework for people so that as they experience these things that they would normally consider a setback we start celebrating because, look, your body is waking up, you are feeling things. It is the same thing that I tell them that will happen with a diabetic who has lost the feeling in their toes because their nerves have started to deteriorate. When we get them on the right medications and their blood sugar starts coming down then the body can start healing itself. And guess what they feel first, they feel pain but they feel pain in an area where they have not felt anything. This is actually something to celebrate.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yeah. It is hard to celebrate something that feels so crappy. But it is true. If celebration is too much for someone, know that you are on the right path to healing.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Exactly.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Trust me, it is really tough when you are feeling like this and you just want it to go away, and you have to give yourself some grace. And that is where I said sometimes it does help to have something resource-wise that maybe cuts the pain a little bit that offers yourself something that will give you a little bit of resource that is extra as opposed to white-knuckling it. Because the thing is, we also have to give the system rest when it is healing, we can not just keep going and going. There needs to be moments where the system. I mean, the lingo, the energy wells, and somatic experiencing lingo, the moment you have a new well where there is a bit more capacity you need to stay in that well long enough for it to really be solid before you push yourself to another level of capacity. And that I think does not get taught enough in the mainstream and this is why we are seeing a lot of disasters with people going to certain retreats and why people are getting blown up with plant medicine and breathwork and all these things. There has not been enough foundation. And the well is just being blown apart. And all those pieces that we talked about at the top of our talk that have been hidden inside have just been catapulted either into that person’s psyche or into their body or a bit of both and that is why we will see psychosis sometimes after some of these things where a person cannot contain because everything has just been blown out of the water. To finish that thought because that is a little bit of a tangent. This is why it is so important for people to understand what could be could potentially be lurking. And this is why we see these disasters in some of these situations where too much is being done too soon. We just do not know what the system is storing. And some people might have success with that stuff and some people might not. And that is where I think safety and ethics, that is a whole other story. But it is very important to take these things slow.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

What I hear you saying is that when we bring in space, when we create space in our life, that is when the body has more space to bring things up that need healing, that have been waiting for that space. It is helpful to have time. Time and space will allow us to invite more of that healing work to happen. And then the knowledge piece is so important.

Irene Lyon, MSc

So important.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

As things come up we at least have a framework to understand it. And we won’t have that impulse to just focus on the symptoms and go to the doctor and take a medicine and go down that route only we will be able to have a framework of understanding like my system as a whole is shifting. Something is happening and it’s how can I support all of it in this healing process and being able to see, as we were talking about earlier, being able to see the progress as things surface. This feels different, this does not feel the exact same thing as last time that something surfaces. I am seeing progress as my body has gone through these cycles of discovering the next layer and then settling and then discovering the next layer and settling that there is progress even with all of the layers that we have yet to uncover.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yes. And what you said just there, progress is an important word because you do need to monitor all of your systems. When you start let us say, healing, working with the nervous system, working with this functional freeze, and whatever way you might work with it you want to kind of have a tab on all the physiological systems. This is, again, we are learning about your body even at the base level is important. How is your urination, how are your bowel movements, how is your immune system, how is your sleep, how is your clarity of thinking, are you going outside, how is your energy, name all the systems in the body, there is so many of them because we do not want the system. If you think of all those systems, there are dozens. We want to ensure that all of those systems are integrating with that shift, I am using my hands here, so that another shift doesn’t occur too soon because if it doesn’t those systems are not going to know what happens and then maybe all of them bounce back or some of them bounce back and it is not perfect, it is not going to be perfect. 

Yes, when I mentioned how I had that acid reflux, I am going to bet if I could go back in time, I was dealing with a layer and I probably still did not have enough space and time just because I am busy, I am doing things and if I had just rested for five days, that may not have happened. But was that possible? Probably not. Who knows? Again, if you find that more than 50% of your systems, physiological systems, this is not a science, I am just making this up right now, but let us just say 50% of them are continuing to be sluggish and get unwell. That is a sign too much is happening too fast. But if all of them are going forward but there is a little weirdness in your sleep which is actually a very common thing, your sleep will get disturbed when you come out of functional freeze guaranteed but everything else is moving forward I think that is good. That is another thing. Do not ignore the fact that your bladder feels a little more pressure. Possible that it is just freaking out a little bit because you are not in deep dorsal shutdown anymore. But again, you got to listen to that. Does that make sense?

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Makes so much sense. And as we wrap up, what would be your final words of encouragement for someone who maybe like us is a professional? Because I have many of those professionals who are in my biology of trauma training now and this is them. They are still having layers and still recognizing that I have a larger degree of functional freeze and what I want to have in my life, I want to be even more present for myself, for the work that I do, the people that I work with but I am still feeling like there is a lot more to do. And what would be your words of encouragement for them on their healing journey knowing all of this that you have had in your experience with your own?

Irene Lyon, MSc

Well, for those who are working with other people, as you all just speak to that population, that cohort, in order to continue to do the work for others you are going to have to take the long road to becoming the Jedi. Luke from Star Wars did not figure it out in the first movie, it took him many movies, many years to master his force. The force, we use that analogy. If anything, notice the energetic, notice this your psyche, notice your survival physiology that might be going into more survival physiology worrying about the fact that you are still dealing with all these things. And this is where mindset is a little important as you have to catch yourself in these loops and be able to catch yourself provide space and go, I am putting myself into this boat of feeling doom and this is never going to get any better and why? Why me? I have dealt with this too so I get it. And that is where you have to really real in those thoughts because they will impact the body. And just know that this is just another layer and this is part of it. And then the final thing I will say which we talked about before we press record which I think is important is we have to understand that this level of functional freeze that many of us are working with has never been worked on before in the history of humanity. That is a really important thing to understand. And we do not have a map for this at all. And we are creating that map right now. The more all of us who are in this work can really be patient and intelligent and see this as this new art form that we are working with, this new healing form, I do think that things will actually get easier but we have to treat it like it is this precious new thing that we have all discovered. And just be patient with ourselves.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

It’s like we are on the cutting edge of what it means to live fully alive.

Irene Lyon, MSc

100%.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Exciting.

Irene Lyon, MSc

Yes, I think so.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

What a powerful interview. You can see why I love Irene. And for us to be able to share with you real-life experiences from our own experience of working with our own nervous system. Hopefully, this will give you both hope and some guidance and some understanding for understanding your own nervous system as you are on your own healing journey. Because we are itched on our own healing journey. Everyone has work to do to improve their health, the flexibility, and the aliveness of your nervous system. And with that, this concludes this interview. Thank you for joining me. I will say that I do know that this is a lot of information. And you know that this was an advanced conversation, this is not an entry-level conversation an advanced-level conversation. If this is over your head do not worry this is when I would recommend that you purchase the recording so that when you are further down the road and this would be a conversation and discussion that would really land for you at that time because you have done more work, just purchase the recordings and then you can have that peace of mind that you have everything that you need for your healing journey. You can come back to it whenever you are ready and it will make more sense or, like we talked about in this interview, you will have more time and space. With that, I am your host, Dr. Aimie for this summit. And I will see you on the next interview.