I have been writing on here about how I am trying to get out of a freeze state…out of immobility. Here is a link to the Polyvagal Chart I have been talking about: PVChartv10q.pdf. I am struggling to go through the deactivation process, which is the downward arc going from red to green on the chart. I think one thing I need to do is release stored action energy, which is the energy of an uncompleted threat response. I had written in a recent post about the imagery of how there is a balloon filled with toxic energy and you are trying to let the air out of the balloon slowly rather than all at once – that’s the process of titration…taking things in steps. If you have had energy stored like that over time, it becomes harmful to you. The difficulty is that anything can trigger that stored energy, but you can’t regulate it. So it’s similar to if the energy in the balloon was flammable and you were walking into a room where there was a flame. You feel out of control of the energy…and like anything could cause it to ignite. You could think of it in terms of feeling like the energy in the balloon has electrical currents and you are walking close to water. But thankfully there are ways to work with that energy. While I’ve been working with the energy in this balloon, God reminded me of a passage in Exodus when God turned the bitter waters into sweet waters. This was during the time the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. Here is the passage:

The Waters of Marah and Elim

22Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah. ^f ) 24So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

25Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.

There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

27Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

(Exodus 15:22-27)

I have been praying for God to turn the bitter waters sweet. Part of what happens if I start to release that stored action energy…an uncompleted response…is that I have to accept that I wasn’t able to change something. You had energy cued up to take an action to prevent something from happening and when you realized you were not going to be able to take that action, the energy got compressed and locked away. So you are frozen in time before that moment happened. So the challenge is…can I accept life the way that it has happened…without dissociating or pretending things happened differently? That is what I am asking God for help about. And it’s very important to remember to call on Him. He is waiting to hear from us. He is waiting to help. See how Moses cried out to the Lord when they were in distress. Look in Exodus 15:25 where it says, “Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.” Moses cried out to God, and God answered and made the bitter waters sweet.

I found this hymn called “Bitter Waters” by John Newton – Learning to Live by Faith that I thought was very interesting. In it, John Newton writes that the cross is the tree, or piece of wood, that turns the bitter waters sweet. Verses 5-7 say:

5 The cross on which the Savior died,
And conquered for His saints;
This is the tree, by faith applied,
Which sweetens all complaints.

6 Thousands have found the blest effect,
Nor longer mourn their lot;
While on His sorrows they reflect,
Their own are all forgot.

7 When they, by faith, behold the cross,
Tho’ many griefs they meet;
They draw again from every loss,
And find the bitter sweet.

This is very powerful imagery we can use in our meditation time as we continue to pray for God to transform these stored energies and help us release them…and help us accept things the way that they have happened.

Last week, I was talking to my acupuncturist about deactivating and she said it made her think of learning to drive a stick shift in a car…and how people stall when they are having trouble shifting gears. That really resonated with me. I think I am having trouble shifting gears. I’m stalling when I am shifting between states and when I am trying to deactivate. If you look at the Polyvagal chart, you will see that in order to get from the red to the green again, you have to go through the yellow. So it can be very difficult to get out of the red/freeze state because when you touch into some of that yellow energy it can feel like too much, and then you go right back into red again. And you get stuck in a fight/flight-freeze loop without ever fully deactivating into the green…without ever really getting into a relaxed state again before something else stressful happens. I’m writing about these things as a patient, not a practitioner of these techniques, so I might not be saying things correctly. I drew these charts to try and get things straight in my head. I think this chart shows what I was just talking about:

The line that goes back and forth between red and yellow is called the Squiggle of Trauma. What you are trying to do…what the goal is…is to be able to fully deactivate and stay on the Squiggle of Life, which goes between green and yellow. Here is a chart of the 2 Squiggles:

You can see how that if you live on the Squiggle of Trauma, your heart rate and breathing rate will be affected. If you are able to live most of the time on the Squiggle of Life, you will be in a more relaxed state that is conducive to healing.

So, you can have the problem of touching into that yellow energy and going right back into red. I think that something else can happen also when you touch into the yellow. I think what I do sometimes is that when I touch into the yellow and it feels like too much, I try to deactivate too quickly. If you think of deactivating in terms of landing a plane, deactivating too quickly would be like jumping out of the plane when you hit the turbulence of the yellow. It feels like a free-fall…it changes too much too quickly instead of titrating the energy…and then you loop back around into activation. Again, I’m not sure if this is the correct way to say it…but it’s what it feels like. Here is a chart for that:

When I drew this chart, it made me think of a game on the Price Is Right called Cliff Hanger. Here is a link to a clip of it: Yodely Guy Gets VERY CLOSE to the EDGE During CLIFF HANGERS – The Price Is Right 1982. The mountain climber moves up the mountain in increments equal to the amount of however many dollars off the price of an item the contestant was in their guess. The climber can go up to 25 steps before going off the cliff. In this clip, the climber stops at 21…the contestant wins…and he doesn’t fall off the cliff. Thinking of this game made me think both about how it feels to go over the cliff and about how it would help to develop stopping points. The freeze state is not bad, and you will have times where you go into it. If I can work on shifting gears more easily, that will help with changing states. But I am trying to break the fight/flight-freeze loop…that’s when you go into freeze when you don’t really need to. So if I can develop stopping points in the activation process, which would mean that I was noticing that I was getting triggered and be able to stop the activation process, I wouldn’t have as much to deactivate from. I’m thinking it would look like this…where if you could stop at earlier points on the activation arc, you would be able to start deactivating sooner:

You would have new pathways…new experiences of being able to regulate the energy. And you would only go into freeze when you really needed to. I’m going to keep working with it and hope to see improvements with this flare up soon. I’m going to be trying to learn how to land the plane slowly and gently…how to go through the deactivation process in steps.