The moment words get stuck.

The last couple of weeks was an exploration of how silence lives in the body and how the body learns to go quiet to protect us. This week, we will move the focus on a specific moment that many of us will know very well: the moment when you know inside what you want to say, but the words get stuck. This can be a response due to prolonged stress, overwhelm or a trauma response.

It is in that moment that your body seems to have a different idea than your mind. You know exactly what you want to say, be that an opinion, a feeling or a question or request, the words just don’t come. 

Why words can get stuck.

The moment words get stuck, is the moment when we experience this as an important somatic response. It is not a lack of courage or intelligence. It is the nervous system detecting potential risk and activates the protective patterns. 

These patterns can show up as:

A tight throat or jaw

Short of breath

A sensation of being frozen

Mental blankness

The freeze response

The freeze response is a reaction to the situation you find yourself in and is a form of hypo-arousal. This is a state of the body where the prefrontal correct, the part of your brain that helps you to think critically, goes offline, while the limbic system, which drives survival behaviour by responding to a threat with strong emotion, takes over. That means that any information going into the brain can’t be processed the logical and cognitive way. 

These reactions in the body happen ever so quickly, before your mind had time to figure out what is going on. Recognising that this is a protective response, can be the first step to feeling compassion for yourself and your body. It is not a case of not being able to speak, but that your body has been trying to keep you safe. It is about learning when these protective reactions are not longer needed to keep you safe and when they are definitely appropriate for a certain situation. 

Relational awareness in the stuck moment.

Feeling stuck in speech often shifts when the body experiences relational safety. When someone is attuned, calm and open, the body can start to relax protective patterns. Even small moments of attunement can reach the nervous system and over time you will learn that your voice is safe, helping those stuck moments become less frequent or intense over time. 

This attunement can happen with a trusted relationship or with your therapist. 

Somatic practice; micro-moment reset.

If you would like to try out a gentle practice when you feel words can get stuck, sign up below to receive the workbook that accompanies this blog series.