3 powerful steps to let your guard down in your relationship
By Orit Krug | April 24th, 2019
Do you put up a rock-hard wall every time you have a disagreement, but wish you could let your guard down in your relationship instead?
If you find it difficult to let your guard down in your relationship, you might find it hard to believe that you can respond with calmness and compassion for your partner, even when you’re having an argument.
Yes, it’s possible to open up and give love instead of defending yourself. But it will probably feel impossible until you change the way your nervous system reacts.
When your nervous system is storing old trauma, it will often react impulsively to anything in your environment that feels emotionally or physically threatening, even if you rationally know that you’re safe.
For most of my clients, they react in a freeze response. The freeze response is an ancient survival mechanism that makes our bodies very tight and tense in order to protect ourselves (in primal times, this tension made us unappetizing to eat by predators – too rough to chew!). Many people go silent or feel numb in this state.
You’ll know you’re in freeze when you suddenly become like a “deer in the headlights” mid-argument. Your partner may even say something like, “Hellooooo, can you just say something?” but you feel like you literally can’t say anything.
Let your guard down in your relationship in 3 powerful steps.
1. Notice when your freeze response happens
Your freeze response gets activated by similar triggers every time. It could be that ONE word your partner says, the way they approach you when they’re frustrated, or the subtlest look on their face that makes you immediately put your guard up.
Before you try the next steps, try to pinpoint exactly when this usually happens for you, because that’s when you’ll need to put this strategy into action.
For me, it’s usually when I’ve already had a pretty bad week and I haven’t slowed down at all to take care of myself. I’m already on edge.
Then my husband says the littlest something that triggers me and I freeze. I become really tense and I feel like I just can’t respond in that moment.
Identify when this happens for you and get really specific about what exactly happens in those moments leading up to your freeze.
2. Mimic the freeze response with your body
We’re just going to mimic and PRETEND that we’re feeling this full-body tension to embody the freeze response. (DO NOT actually put yourself into a real state of fear and don’t try this unless you’re confident that you can follow step 3 immediately after – watch the video above instead and practice it along with me for the first time).
Let’s do this with our arms and our hands today because it helps to practice with just one part of your body. Tense up your arms and really FEEL that body tension. Stay in it for at least 30 seconds.
Then, try it a few more times. If you feel comfortable, try it with other parts of your body as well. You can even take a deep breath in and allow your entire body to tense up.
3. Melt away the fear and move
Imagine that there’s icy snow on the ground. As the sun comes out and it gets warmer outside, the snow slowly melts and trickles away. This is how I want you to think of melting away your tension and fear.
So once you mimic the freeze response with your body, imagine melting it away with movement. This will probably feel like a slow, gradual softening of your body, followed by smooth and fluid movement.
It’s also important to notice what specific action helps you begin to melt.
For me, a big exhale helps me feel into it. It helps me to really indulge in this melty-ness and I usually end up expanding and opening up my body too so I can just release it all (it’s best to see how this happens in the video above).
Practice this consistently and frequently if you want to start changing the way you react in your relationship.
It’s way more effective to practice this when you’re already feeling calm, cool and regulated because that’s when your brain and body are going to be able to process this new strategy.
Then, when you get into conflict with your partner, your body will ALREADY be prepared to melt away the tension so you can respond with calm assertiveness and compassion instead.
If these movements feel good for you right now but you notice that, still, it doesn’t work as soon as you get into a disagreement with your partner, then that’s a sign you have old trauma stored in your body.
Trauma stored in the body will prevent you from experiencing any change in your physical behavior because your nervous system will not feel safe to let your guard down.
Please note that this 3-step strategy is not designed to access or release trauma.
Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.
Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.
Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.
This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.
This is NOT true!
Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing in a way that truly lasts, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.
My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).
You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.
Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:
- Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
- Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
- An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.
