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Why you can’t motivate yourself (and it’s not laziness. Your nervous system might be stuck in Freeze response)
- Amy Cotterill
- Aug 6
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 12
If you’ve been feeling unmotivated, disconnected, or stuck, your nervous system might be trying to protect you.
There was a time in one of my old roles where I kept thinking I must have become lazy.
I’d still get the work done. I showed up. I did what I knew would get me by.
But the spark had gone. The energy to go beyond the minimum just wasn’t there.
And I hated that.
I didn’t want to sit around feeling like this. I wanted to care. I wanted to feel something again.
But I couldn’t.
I felt distant from everything, like I was there, but not really there.
At the time, I was so hard on myself. I thought I’d lost my drive and all motivation in life.
Now I know what I was experiencing had nothing to do with laziness.
It was a freeze response. A form of shutdown in my nervous system, I just didn't know what this was yet.
What is the Freeze nervous system response?
Freeze is one of the body’s survival responses.
It happens when your nervous system doesn’t feel safe to fight or flee, so it shuts down to conserve energy.
This is what’s known in polyvagal theory as the dorsal vagal state.
It’s the same response you see in animals when they play dead to survive.
The system downshifts into low energy, low engagement, and low emotional availability. You’re still functioning, but internally, everything has gone quiet.
Why Freeze isn’t laziness
There’s a big difference.
Laziness is when you don’t want to do something because you can’t be bothered.
Freeze is when you do want to do it, you know what needs to happen, but something in your system, your body, has slammed on the brakes.
It’s not a lack of discipline.
It’s your nervous system protecting you from perceived threat.
Why does it happen?
The Freeze nervous system response is triggered through something called neuroception - your body’s constant, unconscious scanning of the environment for cues of safety or danger.
It doesn’t rely on logic. It doesn’t even ask for your permission. It just responds.
Sometimes the perceived threat is clear. But often, it’s subtle and emotional:
Fear of judgment or failure
Chronic pressure or overstimulation
A history of being ignored, overruled, or pushed too far
The weight of “holding it all together” for too long
When your nervous system detects that there’s no safe way to move forward, it doesn’t push through.
It shuts down.
The brain’s role in Freeze
When your system perceives a threat, your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for logic, planning, and decision-making) can temporarily go offline.
That’s why you can know what to do, but still feel completely unable to do it.
In these moments, your limbic system, the emotional and survival-processing centre of your brain, takes over. And if there’s no path to resolution, the system drops into dorsal. Into freeze.
You might feel like you’re just tired. Like you’ve lost your spark.
But under the surface, your body is trying to keep you safe in the only way it knows how.
How Freeze can show up
This isn’t always a dramatic shutdown. It often arrives quietly, and over time.
You might notice:
Struggling to start even small tasks
Feeling emotionally flat, checked out, or foggy
Withdrawing from people or things you care about
A growing disconnect between what you want and what you can do
Numbing out through scrolling, food, or distraction
A sense that you’re just getting through the day, not really living it
Over time, this can deepen into:
Burnout that doesn’t resolve with rest
Chronic low energy
A loss of self-trust
Emotional detachment
Disconnection from your purpose or direction
And if you’ve been feeling this way and beating yourself up for it, the first thing to know is... it’s not your fault. It can rarely be fixed by mindset and just "thinking harder."
It runs deeper than that.
So how do you shift it?
Freeze doesn’t respond to force.
You can’t override it by trying harder or “snapping out of it.”
To shift out of dorsal vagal shutdown, the body needs to move toward the sympathetic state - the part of the nervous system that supports movement, engagement, and action (when it’s regulated).
This doesn’t mean hustle. It means body-based work that helps you gently reconnect with sensation, energy, and presence at a pace that feels safe.
This is where somatic practices come in.
Tools that support vagal toning and help your system move from freeze into reactivation - to regulate.
For example:
Yin yoga targets the fascia and connective tissues where unprocessed stress and emotional memory are often held
Vagal toning practices activate the parasympathetic system through safe breath, sound, or gentle movement
Acupressure and tapping help reconnect internal awareness and support the body’s release patterns
These aren’t quick fixes and it's not a case of just do this one practice and poof that's it (wouldn't that be nice). They’re body-first ways of supporting your system back into a state where change becomes possible again.
I’ve recorded a practice that weaves these tools together in a way that’s safe, slow, and intentionally designed for when your energy feels low.
Ready to move forward, but your body won’t let you?
If you’ve got a vision, a goal, or a next step that is clear in your mind, but you keep stalling, second-guessing, or losing energy, your nervous system might be holding you back.
That’s where I can help.
I offer:
→ Weekly online somatic Yin classes
→ 1:1 coaching and support focused on release work, nervous system regulation, and self-leadership
