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5 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Was Rewiring My Brain

Writer's picture: Dr. Connie BoczarskiDr. Connie Boczarski

Updated: Jul 29, 2023

1. Fight/flight is a different physiological state than freeze. Understanding this and

knowing how the different states show up for you is incredibly helpful. It allows you to identify what state you are in so you can tap into the science behind what you are feeling and not be so afraid of the symptoms that are happening. Being able to label what you are experiencing as fight/flight or freeze can do wonders to decrease fear.


It also allows you to choose your tools more wisely. Some rewiring tools are helpful no

matter if you are in fight/flight or freeze, and some are not. Many of the tools that are realistic to reach for when in fight/flight are not realistic to reach for when in a deep freeze state. In addition, several of the tools that help to calm the sympathetic activation of fight/flight will put you deeper into a freeze response if you use them when in freeze and vice versa.


2. Overwhelm feeds the old, unhelpful pathways in the brain. Add it to the list of thoughts/emotions/behaviors you are trying to notice and interrupt. The brain goes into overwhelm very easily with limbic system impairment and it’s important to recognize that this isn’t supporting your recovery and is a pattern that can and should be gently interrupted.


3. Doing 3 practice rounds from a grounded and calm place is probably a better choice than doing 4 from a place of stress, pressure and adrenaline. Doing an hour of practice each day is only a piece of the puzzle. How you engage with doing that hour of practice is also important. It’s counter-productive to do an hour of practice if you are doing so in a way that just creates more stress chemicals and further drives the maladapted stress response you are trying to calm down.


4. You will feel stuck at times. Everyone does. This is normal. How you respond to feeling stuck is what is important. It's common to fall back into old patterns when feeling stuck and this often leads to you then actually becoming stuck. Start being curious about your patterns when you feel stuck so you can make a different choice when this comes up, because it will.


5. Recovery is hard and messy at times for EVERYONE. It’s easy to go on social media or other forums and think that everyone else is gliding through recovery with ease and grace. They aren’t. Everyone has hard, crappy days when they are rewiring their brain, not just you. Believing that everyone else is having an easy recovery process makes those hard, crappy days even harder and more upsetting/demoralizing.


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5 Comments


Guest
Nov 05, 2023

Connie:

Great information...looking forward to learning what tools are appropriate for flight...fight.... and freeze states.

Thank you.

Linda Stacey 😄

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Guest
Mar 20, 2023

Oh I love this post, thankyou thankyou thankyou. Quick question!!! Can you give a couple of examples of helpful things for the different FFF states the body goes into? Distraction is feeling a bit like pushing through.

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Connie
Mar 21, 2023
Replying to

A good rule of thumb is to remember that with F/F our system is activated and doing things to help calm it can be helpful. With freeze, our system is going into shut-down or immobilization and doing things to help get some motion back into our system is a good choice.

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Stephanie L.
Mar 10, 2023

Wow. Reading this was a breath of fresh air. I felt myself getting grounded more and more as I read. Thank you so much for this. Right now I'm really working on the mental and emotional patterns, seeing them more and working to interrupt them. It's a true gift to see that, even in this, I'm going to have my win days and my not-so-win days...lol. But becoming more curious and conscious of these patterns that have been running in the background, that's a real win and I'm feeling to celebrate that.

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Connie
Mar 13, 2023
Replying to

That is absolutely a real win and I'm taking a moment to pause and celebrate with you!


I'm so glad this blog post helped you feel more grounded and more comfortable with the ups and downs that come with repatterning not only the physical stuff, but also the mental and emotional stuff too. 😊

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