For a long time, I thought being in a freeze state meant shutting down completely. Not moving. Not speaking. Not functioning. But over the years, I’ve come to realise something very different.
Many of us are living in what is often called functional freeze. We go to work. We answer emails. We care for our families. We smile. We make dinner. We meet friends. We might even have sex. From the outside, everything looks fine. Yet somewhere inside, we’ve become disconnected from ourselves.
We’ve become so good at functioning that we’ve stopped noticing what we’re feeling. We override the quiet whisper of our body. We push through tiredness. We say yes when something inside us is saying, “mmm I’m not sure.” We keep going because that’s what we’ve learnt to do. Not because we’re broken. But because, at some point in our lives, our nervous system learnt that functioning felt safer than feeling.
I know this, because I’ve lived it.
Recently, I had a session with a pelvic floor practitioner. Before anything else happened, she simply rested her hands on my belly. There was no rush. No agenda. No trying to fix me. She stayed with me, gently massaging my abdomen while I listened to my body. At some point, I heard myself say:
“Now I’m ready for you to enter me.”
Those words didn’t come from my mind. They came from my body. I’ve had internal treatments in the past where someone entered too soon. I didn’t stop them. I didn’t know how. Outwardly I stayed present, but inwardly I quietly left myself. This time was different. When she entered me, I didn’t just feel her meet me. I felt myself meeting me. Nothing needed to happen. Nothing needed to be achieved.
There was simply an extraordinary sense of being met. Later, I realised something that has stayed with me ever since. The reason I could receive being met so deeply was because I had learnt, little by little, to meet myself.
People often speak about surrender as though it’s something we should simply do. My experience has been very different. I’ve learnt that surrender isn’t something I force. It’s something that naturally happens when my body no longer feels it has to protect me. My nervous system decides when it’s safe enough. I don’t. That changes everything.Instead of asking,
“How do I surrender?”
Perhaps the question becomes,
“How can I create the conditions where my body no longer needs to hold on quite so tightly?”
For me, one of those conditions has been surprisingly simple. My hands.
Most of our lives, our hands are busy doing. Typing. Cooking. Cleaning. Holding. Helping. Fixing. Giving. They’re incredibly capable.
But they’re rarely invited to simply listen. One of the most profound practices I’ve discovered is waking up the hands. Not to become better at touch. Not to perform.Not even to create pleasure. But to come back into relationship with sensation. To come back into relationship with myself.
For me, my hands became one of the first places I learnt to meet myself again. Sometimes that meant running my fingers slowly over the bark of a tree. Sometimes it was tracing the veins of a leaf. Sometimes it was holding a warm mug of tea. Sometimes it was exploring the smooth curves of one of our glass tools. The object itself wasn’t the point. The relationship was.
When most of us pick something up, our first question is, “What do I do with this?” What if we asked a different question?
“How does my hand want to meet this?”
Notice its temperature. Its weight. Its texture. Does your hand want to wrap around it? Stroke it? Rest on it? Stay completely still? There is no right answer. Then perhaps your other hand becomes curious. Perhaps your forearm. Your cheek. Your lips. Your shoulder. Not because you’re trying to make something happen. But because you’re allowing your body to lead.
Every moment becomes another opportunity to ask,
“What feels true now?”
This is no longer about doing. It’s about listening.
One of the greatest misunderstandings I see, particularly for women, is the belief that receiving means doing nothing. I’ve discovered something different. We can receive through our own action.
When my hand slowly explores the texture of a leaf…
When my fingertips become curious about smooth glass…
When I allow my body to choose the pace…
I’m not performing. I’m receiving information. I’m receiving sensation. I’m receiving myself. Choice by choice. Moment by moment. My skin begins to wake up. Not because I’m trying to create a bigger experience. But because I’m no longer overriding what is already there. My body begins to trust that I’ll listen.
And that trust changes everything.
People often assume our tools are designed to create pleasure. Pleasure may arise. But that has never been the heart of why we created them. We created them as invitations. Invitations to slow down. Invitations to become curious. Invitations to explore your whole body—not just your genitals. To let your hand discover the coolness (or warmth) of glass. To notice how your arm wants to move. To explore your face, your neck, your chest, your belly. And, if your body genuinely says yes, to allow your pelvis and genitals to become part of that same conversation.
Not as a goal. Not because you should. Simply because every part of your body deserves to be met with the same patience, respect and curiosity. Our tools aren’t there to tell your body what to feel.
They’re there to support you in listening to what your body is already saying.
Perhaps functional freeze isn’t the absence of feeling.
Perhaps it’s the absence of being met.
The beautiful thing is that we don’t have to force ourselves out of it.
We can begin with something very simple. One breath. One hand. One moment of contact. One question.
You don’t have to force your body to open. You don’t have to make yourself surrender. You don’t have to become someone different. You can begin by meeting yourself exactly as you are. Sometimes that’s where healing begins. And sometimes, that’s where we finally come home.
With love
Lisa ❤️
