The Intelligence of Staying Alive
Explore the intelligence behind
your survival instincts.
These poetic cards honor
freeze, flight, fawn, fight,
and more as the brilliant ways
your body chose to live.
Honoring Shutdown
Sometimes, everything just stops.
Your words. Your energy. Your will to move forward.
It’s not failure.
It’s your nervous system saying: enough.
Shutdown isn’t weakness—
it’s the wisdom of your body
pausing what feels like too much.
Not to punish you.
To protect you.
Honoring Dissociation
Dissociation isn’t failure.
It’s a pause.
A wise retreat by a system that
learned how to protect us.
If you’ve ever felt like the world was far away,
like you were moving
but not inside your body—
this is for you.
Honoring Freeze
When you couldn’t run or fight,
your body chose stillness.
Not because you were broken —
but because you were brilliant.
This card honors freeze not as failure,
but as sacred resistance.