The frozen sensation is often the root cause of negative self-cognitions. When a person is frozen, they are incapacitated. An extreme example of this is when a person is close to a ledge and is too frozen to take a step back—a step that is ordinarily not a problem. So a person with an Embedded Feeling of frozen may feel incapacitated whenever the frozen sensation is triggered. Once a person senses their incapacity to do something, feelings of anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and procrastination behaviors emerge.
For example, Molly had meetings with her lawyers who will helping her with her business. Molly's anxiety would become so intense that she couldn't think. Once the frozen sensation underlying Molly's anxiety was released, she no longer had any problems with anxiety.
The connection between the frozen sensation and anxiety is that when a person has to do something but can't—because they sense their incapacity—they become anxious that they can't do it. The frozen person also procrastinates to avoid the possibility of anxiety.
One of the consequences of the frozen sensation are negative self-cognitions. A person who can't be effective in the world will likely have cognitions such as "I'm not very good at what I do," "everything is just too hard for me," "I just can't do what other people can do." If treatment focus is only on the negative cognition, the negative cognition can be resistant to change—because the underlying sense of incapacity is still present.
On the other hand, once the frozen sensation underlying the behavior and cognitions is released, the feelings of effectiveness in the world makes the negative cognitions seem silly. It's not that hard to identify if the frozen sensation is the root of the problem. Ask the person if when they imagine doing the behavior that elicits the negative cognition if they sense a feeling of frozen or if they feel paralyzed. If the answer is "yes," use the Frozen Release Protocol to release the frozen or paralyzed sensation.
