From Presence to Practice: The Freeze Frame® Technique for getting unstuck

Transformational Coaching Begins Within: The Freeze Frame® Technique for getting unstuck

If you’re like me, sometimes you get stuck in ruminating, thoughts and feelings looping on repeat with no movement or positive action. It's exhausting. The brain seems to have a mind of its own, quickly pulling you down a path to nowhere.

Wouldn’t it be freeing to step back into presence, to find your way back to balance and choice?

One of my favorite practices for this is the Freeze Frame® technique, developed by the HeartMath Institute. It’s a simple, powerful way to shift from emotional reactivity into clarity and objectivity. I use it on myself, and I share it with clients and coaches-in-training because it shows us what’s possible when we bring the heart into the coaching conversation.

The Five Steps of Freeze Frame®

Step 1. Acknowledge the issue and how you feel about it.
It can be a relief to accept the way you are thinking and feeling right now. Noticing and naming your current feelings creates space for something new to emerge.

Step 2. Focus attention on the area of the heart.
Imagine breathing in and out through your heart, or chest area. Slow and deepen the breath (5 seconds in, 5 seconds out, or a rhythm that feels comfortable). Place a hand on your heart if it helps.

Step 3. Bring up a genuine feeling of appreciation or care.
When you do this step after acknowledging the issue, you're doing it truthfully. This isn’t “positive thinking,” it's regenerative. It’s remembering something real that you value.

Step 4. From this more balanced and objective place, ask yourself what would be a more effective attitude, action or solution.
With coherence in your system, new perspectives often appear. You feel like "This is more true, more helpful, more balanced." 

Step 5. Quietly observe and subtle shifts in perceptions, attitudes of feelings, and take action.
Commit to sustaining beneficial attitude shifts and acting on new insights by acting on it.

A Personal Example

I used this technique on myself recently. I was really angry at a family member (who may or may not have been a teenager) because I felt they were fixating on one small thing I had done wrong, instead of appreciating the many things I had done right. At the same time, I was really angry at another family member because they had said something that cut me to the core. 

Step 1 (acknowledging my anger) was all I could do at first. (From that point, Step 4 would have been impossible. I was really stuck.) But by being with myself and accepting myself in my anger, I was able to then take some breaths and get re-connected with my heart (Step 2).

With a little more breath in my body, I was able to remind myself of several things I appreciate about each of the people with whom I felt angry (Step 3). In fact, that softened me. I laughed a little because, like the teenager, I was also fixating on what my attacker had done wrong, and forgetting about all the things they had done well. I made a short list of things I truly like about both of them.  

From there, clarity came. The most effective way forward was to apologize, take responsibility, express appreciation, (Step 4) and make a simple request for how I wanted things to be different (Step 5). 

I admit, it was still hard to do. But the shift in my relationships was worth it: the return of the softness and openness I enjoy.

Why This Matters for Coaches

Practices like Freeze Frame® are more than techniques. They are inner pathways that help us embody the depth of the transformational, empowerment, and spiritual coaching we teach at Awaken.

When we can regulate ourselves, shift perspective, and return to the heart, we bring a clearer, braver, more compassionate presence into our coaching. This is the difference between transactional conversations and transformational coaching. (You can read more about this distinction in What Makes MCC-Level Coaching Unique).

What about you? How can acknowledging the issue, connecting with your heart, expressing honest appreciation, and asking yourself for other possibilities bring about new goodness in your life?

If you’re looking for other coaching techniques to develop your coaching presence, you may like to explore more posts in our Transformational Coaching Begins Within series, such as Centering and Grounding for Coaches.

And if you’re curious how these practices come alive in our ICF-accredited training, we’d love to meet you. Book an intro call to explore how our Coach Certification training at Awaken can support your own transformational journey.

Transformational Training at Awaken

At Awaken, we believe transformational coaching begins within. Our ICF-accredited certification programs don’t just teach you techniques, they invite you into your own transformation.

Again and again, graduates tell us they came for the skills and left with something far deeper: a braver, freer, more authentic way of being.

Whether you join us virtually in March or September, or in Spain this June for our immersive flagship transformational coach training certification, one thing is true: this training doesn’t just make you a coach. It helps you come home to yourself.