The Influential Nonprofit Episode 45: What it means to freeze someone
Freezing has its origin in trauma and it means seeing people as “frozen” or unchanging. It’s when you keep your perception of a person despite the passage of time, or even despite them being a different person now.
Change starts with you. Determine if you are freezing somebody in your life right now. Being able to recognize that and shift your perspective allows others to also shift their perspective about you.
See if the relationship is worth time, effort, and discussion. If you decide that it is, have a conversation with them about it. Be honest about your feelings but at the same time, be detached from the outcome.
Believe in who people truly are and not who you think they are or who you need them to be.
“That’s what happens, we see someone in a moment and we capture that moment, take a picture and we freeze them.”
“When we freeze somebody, we deny them the full expanse of expression. We think anything beyond what we believe them to be is not the truth — and we know the truth and they are actually not living their truth. This can be really damaging for us and for other people because we’re not allowing people around us to grow and develop, we’re not seeing the next evolution of people and recognizing them for that and people are also holding us down and keeping us frozen in a specific place in time.”
“I can’t ask somebody to up level and be better unless I’m willing to go first. ”