Your Frik Unik originated in your primal brain and is nested in your subconscious.
When you understand why it’s there and how it functions, you can embrace it to repair the balance between body and mind.
The oldest part of your brain, the reptilian brain, plays an essential role in your survival. It is responsible for certain instinctive reactions (fight, flight, freeze, please) whenever you are confronted with ‘threats’. Such reactions go through, in principle, a specific cycle of chemical, neurological, bodily, energetic processes:
The duration of this cycle depends on the situation and on how the body deals with the ‘threat’. Whenever the cycle is not fully completed, the energy that has been generated can get trapped in the body.
In acute situations, these instinctive reactions are crucial. Unfortunately, all kinds of circumstances (long-term stress, trauma, unprocessed emotions,…) can ensure that your nervous system remains in a heightened state of alert, often with negative consequences for both your physical and mental health.
When this cycle is repeatedly activated, the brain begins to develop patterns and strategies to handle future ‘threats’ in a quicker and more effective way. Coping mechanisms, behavioural and thought patterns, cognitive strategies,… mostly develop unconsciously as a way for your system to protect you.
And behold the unique mix that your Frik Unik is: a relentless warrior whose only task is to guarantee your safety. Frik Unik forms the filter through which you perceive the world around you and co-determines how you think and act.
Although your Frik Unik strives for a noble goal, certain survival mechanisms can, in time, also end up getting in the way. You react on automatic pilot because your system doesn’t believe that it’s safe, even though the initial ‘threat’ is long past.
Everything you have ever gone through, together with the emotional charge of that moment, is stored in your subconscious’ database. Whenever your Frik Unik believes that a situation in the present displays similarities to a ‘threat’ from the past, it immediately springs into action with thoughts, feelings, certain types of behaviour,… Often, these don’t serve you anymore, because there no longer is a ‘threat’.
Your rational self does perhaps know that the situation is safe, but your Frik Unik doesn’t take your word for it. It needs helps to break the cycle in which it is stuck. Fortunately, your brain is a flexible instrument and you can get to work on your Frik Unik via the subconscious.
