Somatic Moves for Releasing Fear
Katie Hendricks calls them "Fear Melters"—and they help.
At a Carissa Schumacher journey several years ago, she described the idea of an energetic switchboard, to which we’re all plugged in. “What you power, powers you,” she offered. “Are you going to power joy, spaciousness, and peace? Or are you going to power hatred and fear?” (I wrote about this a bit more in “Managing Our Collective Anxiety.”)
This metaphor struck me as particularly apt—and not just because I love the movie Inside Out. It feels quite real. After all, most of us can feel the contagion of other peoples’ emotions: The way that laughter is infectious, how sleepy yawns can circulate through a group as if on cue, or how time spent with a highly anxious friend can ratchet up one’s own nervous system in response.
Right now, fear and anxiety are not only palpable, we’re soaking in them—and same with rage. Even if we’re working hard not to feed any of this, it still feels like we’re drowning in it.
A few weeks ago, I was with my friend Courtney Smith, a coach who is my co-author on Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness: A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self (out this Summer) and she told me about Katie Hendricks’ “Fear Melters.” (You can hear my podcast conversation with Katie here: “The Upper Limit Problem.”) This is a set of four simple physical moves to release fear from the body—and as Courtney and I practiced together and laughed (they’re goofy, they have funny names, and you will feel a little silly for the first 30 seconds or so), I could feel that my system liked them and wanted more. To that end, it’s hard to determine the dose—I do them, as a giant mixture, until I feel “done.” Sometimes I shake my legs out while I’m brushing my teeth, or when I’m sitting in my car waiting to pick up my kids. It doesn’t really matter, try them and see what feels right.
While Hendricks identifies “Four Flavors of Fear”—FIGHT, FLEE, FREEZE, FAINT—Courtney and I feel like there are five (+ FAWN), which we dive into in Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness: A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self. For the purposes of the Fear Melters, though, you can group FAWN & FAINT together and use LOVE SCOOPING for both—or see which one feels right.
You can watch Katie do these on her site, which is probably better than my descriptions below.
FEAR RESPONSE: FLEE
Most of us are familiar with the instinct to turn and run, or to get away from a situation or a person as quickly as possible. It sometimes helps to trigger the sensation in advance of using the Fear Melter if it feels like stuck or stagnant energy. This is how I feel about experiencing the fires earlier this year—I know I’m not in immediate danger but I still feel like I’m on high alert because I wasn’t able to process it all then.
Fear Melter: ROOT
You get low with this one, sort of in a bouncy half squat, though the primary impulse (IMHO) is to send stuck energy right into the ground. This is probably even more potent done barefoot outside.
FEAR RESPONSE: FIGHT
We know this posture and can usually channel it: When you’re gearing up for a verbal brawl with your partner or shaking your fist in road rage, you’re typically tight, constrained, and holding yourself up high, with your back up.
Fear Melter: OOZE
As the name suggests, you sort of wave your body around slowly. As Court pointed out, what’s wild about this one is that you’ll struggle to stay angry and in a “fight” stance while you do it. Try to be mad and ooze at the same time—this gives you an inclination of how coded our bodies are to emotions.
FEAR RESPONSE: FREEZE
This is another fear response that you might need to evoke or trigger in yourself before using the Fear Melter—this is one of my go-tos in stressful situation. I literally stop moving, or hope that someone looks past me/doesn’t notice me, or that if I’m unresponsive to whatever is going on, it will just go away. (I hate when people yell, it freaks me out—same with honking or any other loud, startling noise.)
Fear Melter: WIGGLE
This is the equivalent of body shaking that a gazelle might do after escaping a lion. Just jump around shake, ideally in a highly unstructured way. Put on some music, it helps. You can do this while you’re just sitting around too.
FEAR RESPONSE: FAINT & FAWN
Fainting is playing dead, though the way this typically manifests is feeling sleepy, yawning, or like you just need to crawl into bed. Any type of numbing is akin to a faint response. Fawn is the instinct to tend and befriend, to convince the person who is scaring the shit out of you that you’re really no threat at all. There’s lots of research to suggest that women are conditioned to respond in this way: If I’m nice to him, he won’t hurt me.
Fear Melter: LOVE SCOOPS
The idea behind this one is to resource yourself by scooping armfuls of energy toward yourself. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do this, it’s more about the intentionality.
Yes, these are super goofy, but if you are feeling stuck, try them—the first one, in particular, really works…you just might need to push past your own resistance until you feel your nervous system release. Let me know how it goes.
Power peace, my friends.
Wow!!!! I LOVE Somatic Therapy soooo much so coming across this piece…THANK YOU!!!! 🥰🌸☀️🙏✨❤️
These are amazing. I think they will all work at some level for everyone. Trick is to keep on the ready because fear doesn't give us enough time to think fully rationally. In general, yoga therapy would say movement in any form is better than no movement at all. You don't have to listen to them dribble on. You can say, let's circle back and then go for a 10 minute walk. Get some water. Deal with it in a more equanimity-minded stance.