The Strategy of Softness - Thawing the Freeze Response Amidst the Global Winter

 

December 5th. Afternoon. The afternoon stretches out slowly, gray and heavy, as if time itself has lost the desire to move forward, stalled in some intermediate zone of twilight and expectation. The light in the room is scarce, muted, and in this half-shadow, I sit and look at my hands. They are here, before me, physically present, yet I feel them strangely alien, as if the blood has retreated from them, afraid to reach the periphery of my being. They are cold. Not just superficially chilled, but deeply, bone-chillingly cold, as if they carry the memory of a long winter that is not a season, but a state of mind.

My whole body is encased in an invisible embrace of ice, in a tormenting, paralytic state of 'not having.' Until now, I thought I was simply exhausted, that I had surrendered in the face of a difficult daily life. But today, in the heavy silence of this afternoon, as the street noise fades behind the windowpane, I grasped the cruel, yet liberating, truth about what is happening to me. I am not broken. I am frozen.

I understand this condition with every fiber of my being, because it is not merely a metaphor but a physical reality, weighing down my hands and feet like lead. What I am experiencing—the numbness, the slight paralysis, the inability to move emotionally or physically—is the body screaming while the mind attempts to fall silent in order to survive. Let me remain for a moment right here, at this difficult, painful point of recognition. Let me not rush to "fix" it immediately, to run toward false positivity, but rather to comprehend the deep, archaic logic of this state.

In essence, this is the "freeze response." The psychoanalytic perspective reveals an ancient mechanism here: when the psyche perceives the threat as too great, and internal and external resources as too small, it activates the most primal defense reflex. There is no money, prices are rising, the world is becoming increasingly expensive and inhospitable—this is a signal of mortal danger to the primitive brain. When the animal realizes it cannot fight (because the enemy is invisible and abstract—inflation, crisis, markets) and cannot flee (because there is nowhere to go, the crisis is pervasive), it "plays dead." It freezes.

This is the biology of despair. The blood retreats from the extremities—which is why I feel them numb and cold—and gathers in the center, the core, to sustain the vital organs. My body is attempting to save me by reducing energy expenditure to the absolute minimum. I am in a state of deep hibernation for survival. I have curled up around my heart to preserve the little remaining warmth, sacrificing movement, sacrificing expansion, sacrificing feeling. My God, how logical and how tragic simultaneously. I try to "re-tune" mentally, to meditate on abundance, to call forth the flow of blessings, yet my biology screams that it is a harsh winter and I must sleep lest I starve. How can I release the flow when I have turned into a block of ice? How can I be a conductor when I am a clogged pipe?

And the world outside... Oh, the world. It is noisy, demanding, and seemingly merciless in its insatiability. I look out the window and see not just streets and buildings, but the weight of the collective shadow. Inflation, crisis, soaring costs—these are facts, yes, but on a spiritual level, this is a manifestation of collective fear and deficit. When I look at prices in the store or listen to the news, I involuntarily join a massive, global egregore of panic. This is an energy vortex, dark and sticky, that feeds on our attention and fear. It is difficult not to be sucked in when the facts hit directly at the wallet, the table, the bread.

But I must understand one thing, and I write it here as a solemn vow: When I contract along with the world, I become part of its problem, not the creator of my own salvation. Contraction does not protect me; it makes me invisible to possibilities. When I am paralyzed, I cannot see the "way out," even if it is right in front of me, because the eyes of fear see only the threat. The spasm closes not only the wallet but also intuition—the only instrument that can guide me through this labyrinth. Numbed hands cannot receive gifts. Paralyzed legs cannot take a step toward new opportunities. If I remain in this state of spasm, I myself am locking the doors I pray will open. The cold does not protect me; it slowly kills me.

And here I stand, facing the great paradox of my time. I must perform the bravest act of rebellion a soul is capable of: To remain soft in a world that is growing increasingly hard. To warm my body, even though the economy is blowing cold wind. To preserve the tenderness of my heart while the numbers become cruel. I tell myself that the environment "is not conducive," and this is absolutely true. But no one ever re-tuned because conditions were ideal. People re-tune in spite of the conditions. This is the alchemy of the spirit.

You do not wait for the storm to pass to relax. You relax so that you can navigate the storm. A tense body sinks faster; it is heavy as stone. A relaxed body floats; it is carried by the waves. I choose to be the reed, not the oak. The oak tries to withstand the storm with hardness, with pride, with resistance—and the wind breaks it. The reed is soft, it is humble. It bends to the ground, it allows the whirlwind to pass over it, but it does not break. And when the storm passes, it straightens again, unharmed. My softness is my strength. My relaxation is my highest strategy for survival.

I realize that what I feel as "numbness" is, in fact, accumulated, frozen terror. The terror of the small child who fears they will not be fed, that they will be abandoned. The financial crisis today merely presses this old, age-old button of trauma. To "cope," I do not need to fight inflation—that is a battle of David against Goliath where I stand no chance with weapons of force. I need to take care of this stiffened body.

I start with the small things. With the physical. With the primitive. Warmth as medicine. I do not try to think positively; my mind is too frightened for affirmations. It will not work while the body is in shock. I need physical warmth. I get up slowly, as if learning to walk again, and make myself tea. The steam rises into the air like a prayer. I wrap myself in a blanket. I must literally, sensorially tell my nervous system: "Here, within this meter around me, it is warm. Here, it is safe."

I begin to rub my hands and feet. I touch myself. Psychoanalytically, this is an act of re-integration—I am reclaiming the body I had abandoned in the ice. I tell myself softly, almost whispering: "I am here. I exist. I have not disappeared." Contraction comes from projecting into the future—what will happen tomorrow, how will I pay, what will I eat? But abundance—or at least the calm that is its foundation—lives only in the present moment. In this second, I breathe. I have shelter. My heart beats.

This is not a denial of reality. I know that taxes are rising. I know my income has fallen. But precisely because of this, I have no right to lose myself. This is a strategic preservation of vital energy. Because if I allow fear to completely paralyze me, I lose my ability to act adequately. My "re-tuning" now is not about becoming rich overnight. My re-tuning is to stop dying of fear while I am still alive. To restore sensation to my fingers so that I may grasp the hand that (perhaps) the Universe will extend to me at the most unexpected moment.

I formulate my new prayer, a mantra for the body, not for the mind: "I see the chaos outside. I acknowledge that it is difficult. I respect my fear. But I refuse to allow the world to shackle my heart and my limbs. I am a living conductor. Even if the flow is thin now, I will not plug the pipe with spasm. I will remain soft so that the solution can find me. I choose to melt the ice with my own tenderness."

It requires enormous, quiet courage to remain gentle in harsh times. But precisely this gentleness is my shield. Iron breaks in the storm. I will be the water that takes the shape of the vessel but never loses its essence. I will be the breath that enters and exits, regardless of the price of bread. I will allow the energy to return to my limbs. The world can wait. I am more important than the crisis, because without my consciousness, my world vanishes.

I forgive myself for freezing. It was a defense mechanism, an attempt at self-love in the strangest way. But now, slowly, very slowly, like the melting of spring snow, I choose to return to life. I choose to feel. Even fear, even pain—it is better to feel them than to be a numb article. The world may be in crisis, but my inner world is not obliged to be a battlefield. I am here. I am alive. And as long as I breathe, there is hope. The warmth is returning. And with it—I am too. Amen.