In my recent, second interview with Michael Stone for Created in the Image of God Michael—or “the trauma poster child,” as he calls himself with characteristic candor—brought both a lifetime of searing experience and the wisdom gleaned from walking through it, not around it.
Our first episode focused on trauma and its capacity to fragment the soul, pressing us to “integrate” our scattered selves. This Sunday, we traveled deeper into fear—how it freezes us, why neither the head nor law alone lead to freedom, and what it means to unthaw, individually and as a community. “Soften and slow down,” Michael said in closing. “We’re moving too fast.” In a world fixated on acceleration, this is both countercultural advice and a spiritual lifeline.
Let me share what I’m carrying forward from our latest conversation—because, in times like these, learning to thaw isn’t just self-help. It may be an act of collective survival.
1. The Freeze of Fear—And Why It’s Not a Failing
It’s easy—and tempting—to treat fear as the enemy, something to be vanquished or surgically removed. Our culture tells us to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” or to “choose love, not fear,” as if the two are oil and water. Michael, however, invites us to rethink. Fear, he insisted, isn’t a bug in the system. It’s intelligent. He calls it “an invitation,” a messenger from deep within that says, Here is where you are still alive, still capable of growth—provided you do not turn away.
But fear doesn’t just shout; it also freezes. Trauma, in Michael’s words, is often “unfinished past.” When we cannot run or fight, we lock down. We numb, avoid, dissociate, keep busy—or stay tightly wrapped in stories about what happened, rather than allowing ourselves simply to feel what needs honoring.
This freezing, he reminds us, is not weakness. It’s an ingenious adaptation, a spiritual intelligence developed over generations to protect us until we feel safe enough to thaw. If you know what it’s like to be “stuck” in anxiety, grief, or weariness, you’re not broken. You’re bearing a burden—sometimes ancestral—that kept you (or your people) alive. The invitation, once safety is available, is to come back to presence, to soften, and, eventually, to move again.
2. Unfreezing Individually—Returning to Fluidity and Presence
If freezing is a necessary first response, “thawing” is the art of living again. Michael described how, for decades, he lived as a victim—addicted, numbed, blaming external forces for his pain. The turning point came when he glimpsed, in a moment of deep reckoning, the possibility of taking responsibility—not for what happened, but for his own path forward.
How do we actually unfreeze? It begins, he said, with meeting fear, anger, or hatred with presence. “Can I love my fear? Can I hold and include even my hate, my shame?” Paradoxically, when we stop trying to cut out our unwanted feelings, they begin to shift. Not by force, but by being felt, heard, seen, and protected—ideally with another trusted soul. (Co-regulation, then self-regulation.)
This is where spiritual metaphor and somatic reality meet. Scripturally, Jesus promises “rivers of living water will flow from within.” That doesn’t happen, Michael pointed out, through willpower or positive thinking alone. Nor does “resilience” mean simply enduring more. True shift happens through body and soul—feeling the unfinished, slowing down, and letting the frozen places melt. “Integration,” Michael said, “shows up as more space, presence, stillness... Unintegrated past shows up as destiny—you’re bound to repeat the same things until you let yourself actually feel them.”
If you catch yourself intellectualizing, spinning in your head, unable to feel, that too is adaptation. The invitation: descend into the body, slow the pace, ask “What needs to move in me?”—and trust that what you find there is not an enemy, but carried wisdom awaiting release.
3. Thawing as Community—Can Groups Unfreeze, Too?
But what of us together? Michael’s metaphor travels: just as individuals get frozen, so do families, organizations, faith communities, even entire societies. If trauma is “unfinished past,” then many an institution is a collection of old wounds desperately warded off by custom, avoidance, or endless crisis management.
Can communities “do shadow work”? Michael’s answer: yes, but only through honest, brave process—what some call “truth and reconciliation,” others call “consultation,” and what all require is a slowing and softening at the collective level. We discussed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was extraordinary not just for accountability but for its insistence on bearing witness—perpetrators and victims, telling the truth together, with the hope of new possibility.
Wherever groups establish real ritual and process for feeling what’s been suppressed—whether a faith tradition reforming after scandal, a family breaking destructive silence, or a neighborhood learning to listen across divides—something remarkable can happen. Michael stressed: integrity is not the same as morality. Integrity is wholeness. Communities, like people, can reclaim integrity by surfacing pain and letting presence—not just rules—do some of the repair.
In quieter ways, this is why community-building efforts rooted in slow, attentive dialogue are so powerful. When we gather not just to react but to be with what surfaces, we create shared safety to unfreeze and move toward a new kind of togetherness.
4. The Law, Justice, and the Heart—Is True Repair Possible?
Our dialogue returned, as it has before, to the question of law and justice. Law, Michael argued, is a stopgap—a necessity because we are not yet mature, nor whole. Where communities have not internalized “divine law” (the law written on the heart), external rules become necessary, and justice tends to mean punishment—sometimes necessary, but rarely truly transformative.
But is it possible to build systems, even families or communities, where repair means more than retribution? Michael’s experience—both personal and in his work—suggests it’s only possible if we do the real work first in ourselves. “Accountability must not come from moral superiority, but from seeing ourselves in the other,” he explains. “I could have done the same thing, given different circumstances. I’m not condoning wrong, but I’m honoring our shared fragility and capacity for harm and healing.”
Slow, embodied presence—not instant reaction—makes it possible to hold others accountable with both truth and the possibility of restoration. The process is messy; it takes more time (and courage) than snappy takes or blanket policies. But in that slowness, something like true justice—real repair—can begin to emerge.
5. The Lost Art of Pace—Softening and Slowing in a World That Rushes
After our winding dive through trauma, fear, law, and soul, Michael brought us back to something as simple as it is hard: pace. “My sermon of the day,” he said, “is to soften and slow down and pay attention.” The harder the world pulls us to rush— toward certainty, toward fixing, toward blame—the more vital it is that we choose a different speed. The spiritual path, indeed the path back to being human, requires resisting the tyranny of hyperactivity.
The challenge, however, isn’t only personal. If we are to build vibrant souls and vibrant communities, we must model and invite this pace collectively—allowing rooms, groups, and schedules where feelings can be felt, stories told slowly, truth spoken with trembling, and possibilities discovered in silence as well as speech. I for one struggle with this - I see the enormity of the task ahead, and I want to move fast. Go slow, and get their faster is a mantra that I’ve used frequently, but need to remember to use consistently.
And perhaps this week we can experiment with one act of softening. When fear or frustration wells up, pause. Notice what you feel. Breathe. Trust there may be wisdom in your freeze—and in your thaw. Gather with others, but go gently. The world is in a hurry; we don’t have to be.
Closing: Practicing the Thaw
The world (and your own soul) will give you a hundred reasons to stay defended, fast, and frozen. But what might become possible if we learned to soften together—if we allowed the unfinished past to melt within us and between us?
What flows when we invite presence where there’s been numbness, shared listening where there’s been accusation, and living water where the spirit feels dry?
Call to Action:
This week, slow your pace intentionally—at least once, in a tough moment. Notice where you freeze, and invite even a bit of warmth or breath there. Gather others not for debate but for shared presence. Share your stories—here or elsewhere—about what unfreezing (personally, or together) looks or feels like. And practice the lost art of going slow enough that the divine—and the full dignity of others—can enter the room.
Next Week: Sneak Peek—Mark Vernon
Don’t miss the next episode of Created in the Image of God, airing Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. Central. Our guest will be Dr. Mark Vernon—acclaimed scholar, journalist, and explorer of Christian and Platonic wisdom. Together we’ll dive deep into the search for truth, goodness, and beauty—drawing on everyone from Dante to Frankenstein, Plato to pop culture vampires. If you’ve ever wondered whether spiritual wisdom can meet the challenges of modern collapse (and what zombies have to do with it), this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
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How are you practicing the thaw in your life or community? Leave a comment and join the conversation below!
