Practice of the Month: “De-Stress with Freeze-Frame”

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Welcome Members once again to the June Edition of SGM. Kevin Schoeninger here.

In the second week of each month, we review a specific book/product/or tradition for the practices that it offers. The key to our personal transformation is to apply our insights by practicing them daily. This month’s material is drawn from the book “The Heartmath Solution” by Doc Childre and Howard Martin.

If you remember from last week’s message, we’re talking about how to unlock the hidden power of your heart as taught by the Institute of HeartMath. Research from HeartMath shows us the tremendous power of the heart to affect every system in the body and brain as well as the way that we think and feel. The heart’s electromagnetic field can be measured as up to five thousand times the strength of that of the brain.

When your heart is in a state of coherent rhythm it will automatically optimize and synchronize your brainwaves and other physiological systems. You experience this state of coherence as a feeling of relaxed ease. In addition, when you consciously access your heart’s intelligence, you will feel connected to your authentic self, to your intuition, and to those around you. Heart intelligence coordinates your mind and emotions and facilitates open communication with your deeper self and with others.

The HeartMath Solution backs these claims with extensive research and, more importantly, it gives us specific practices to self-initiate heart intelligence and activate our heart power. The centerpiece of the HeartMath Solution is the Freeze-Frame technique.

“Freeze-Frame offers you a scientifically researched, user-friendly method to add coherent heart power to whatever you do.” P.86

It is a way to interrupt a stressful event or negative emotion and reconnect to your heart and the positive entrainment that your heart offers. You can use this technique whenever you are in the middle of a stressful situation, anytime that you are caught up in fear, anger, overreaction, judgment, or blame, or anytime that you feel out of sorts and not aligned with your highest aspirations and most authentic self.

“Freeze-Frame can be done anytime, anywhere, whenever you want to stop stress in its tracks and get quick intuitive access.” P.86

The term “Freeze-Frame” comes from the analogy that your life experience is like a movie. You experience a stream of moments (like frames in a movie) that you weave together into a narrative that makes sense to you. Yet, you often don’t realize that you are weaving this story. You take your experience at face value, thinking that what you are experiencing during any given moment is “the way things are.” From that perspective, when something happens that you don’t like, you see yourself as a victim of circumstances. From that perspective, you are powerless.

However, when you realize that you are telling the story of your life and attracting the events before you, you realize that you can step into your story-telling and change the course of events and your experience of them. Freeze-Frame is a tool that enables you to do this consciously.

“The Freeze-Frame technique gives you the power to stop your reaction to the movie (of your life) at any moment. It lets you call a time-out to gain a clearer perspective on what’s happening in a single frame. By helping you align your head and your heart, it gives you quick and efficient access to heart intelligence.” P.66

Freeze-Frame is a “strategic move to call a time-out and regroup your internal team—your head and your heart. . .The brief mental time-out it gives you allows you to gain access—on the spot—to the balancing power of the heart and the revitalizing insights of heart intelligence.” P.67.

O.K. so you’re sold on the idea right? You’re ready to give this a try. So, here are the five steps of Freeze-Frame from page 67 of The HeartMath Solution:

THE FIVE STEPS OF FREEZE-FRAME:

1. Recognize the stressful feeling and FREEZE-FRAME it! Take a time-out.

2. Make a sincere effort to shift your focus away from the racing mind or disturbed emotions to the area around your heart. Pretend you’re breathing through your heart to help focus your energy in this area. Keep your focus there for ten seconds or more.

3. Recall a positive, fun time or core heart feeling you’ve had in life and try to re-experience it.

4. Now, using your intuition, common sense, and sincerity, ask your heart, “What would be a more efficient response to the situation, one that would minimize future stress?”

5. Listen to what your heart says in answer to your question. (It’s an effective way to put your reactive mind and emotions in check and an in-house source of commonsense solutions!)

 

For those of you who have been with us at SGM for a few months, you may recall the 3Rs technique: Recognize, Release, and Return. Freeze-Frame has the same components from a heart-centered point of view.

In Freeze-Frame you stop yourself in the middle of a stressful experience by recognizing your experience of stress. Rather than just being swept along in the currents of stress, you call a time-out so that you can regroup. Each person’s version of stress is unique, so you’ll need to learn to recognize your own stress-recognition cues. You can widen the term stress to include anytime that you feel negative, misaligned, or out of sorts. We each have our dominant reactive patterns. The more you get to know yours, the easier it is to step in and short-circuit those reactions.

To release yourself from the stressed-out or misaligned state, you shift your focus to your heart and breathe there to focus your energy in that area. Then you recall a positive core heart feeling to further shift you away from your stressful feeling.

Finally, you return to your heart intelligence, by asking your heart what is the best response to this situation and listening for your heart’s answer.

Let me give you an example of how I’ve used this technique recently. I have a seven-year old son Will. Will was born four months prematurely and lived his first four months in intensive care of the hospital. His name is Will, as in “Will to live” and “strong-Willed.” When he was born, the doctors said not to have too high hopes for his healthy survival, maybe 10% chance. He didn’t know Will. Will came out kicking and screaming and his determination was obvious from his first seconds of life in this world.

Because of Will’s premature start he has had some physical challenges with eyesight, speech, hand-eye skills, and with concentrated focus. However, his Will-power, vitality, and imagination are in no sense lacking. He is an emotional and creative powerhouse. When he goes to do something it is full-out! I give you all this background to set the stage for what it is like to parent him—great fun and, sometimes, emotionally challenging.

So Will is playing an “Indiana Jones” video game on the computer. This game has been great for his hand-eye skill and his ability to concentrate. However, he can get really obsessed and frustrated with it. He can end up slamming the computer mouse and yelling in frustration.

I’ve had a variety of responses to that, some effective, some highly reactive and escalating. I’ve yelled, “Will! Turn it off! Relax! You’re stressing me out!” I think it’s safe to say that yelling at someone to relax and then blaming them for your stress is not a solid strategy. That just makes both of us feel bad and doesn’t teach him anything.

It’s in this context that I’ve used Freeze-Frame effectively. When he yelled, threw the mouse, and slammed his fist down on the desk, I first checked my stress response. I focused into my heart and took a couple deep breaths there. Then I looked at the I.V. “trackmarks” on his arms and remembered my compassion for what he’s been through. I felt how precious he is to me. I centered into these core heart feelings. Then I calmly spoke from my heart:

“Hey Will, you’re really frustrated with that Level Three aren’t you? That level’s a real challenge.”

“Daddy, I’ll never win it!”

“It’s O.K., Will. Let’s take a little break and walk around the room. Take a deep breath. Remember that you’re playing for fun and it’s fun because it’s a challenge. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be as satisfying.

Remember when you mastered Level Two, how good that felt? Remember that feeling? Now when you sit down to play, enjoy the challenge of it. Can you visualize yourself having fun and mastering Level Three?”

“O.K. Will that help me win?”

“It will help you enjoy playing and when you enjoy playing you’ll do your best. It will help you master the game.”

Will walks around the room. He takes a deep breath. He sits back down, stares at the screen for a moment, and begins playing again. This time, he gets as far as he’s ever gotten on Level Three.

“I’m going to master Level Three the way that I mastered Level Two,” he says.

“I think I’ll try this again next time,” I say to myself.

This week experiment with Freeze-Frame during any experience of stress and see what happens.

I’d love to hear your comments, questions, and experiences in the Comments section below.

Next week, we’ll explore Heartmath’s “Cut-Thru” technique to help you deal with long-term, intense, emotional patterns. You’ll learn how to access the “power of neutral” when you are overwhelmed by emotion.

Until next time,

Happy practicing,

Kevin