What Your Financial Avoidance Is Truly Reveals
When you can't make yourself check your bank account, your nervous system is trying to protect you. Understanding freeze changes everything.
You know you need to check your bank account. You know you should open that bill. And yet, you can’t make yourself do it.
You feel frozen and numb, unable to move toward something that should be simple. The task waits, you wait, and nothing happens except a growing sense of dread.
This isn’t laziness or irresponsibility. This is your nervous system in shutdown mode, doing precisely what it was designed to do when the threat feels too big.
The Third Survival Response
You’ve heard of fight or flight, but there’s a third option your nervous system uses when neither fighting nor fleeing seems possible: freeze.
Dr. Peter Levine, who has studied trauma and the nervous system for over fifty years, describes freeze as what happens when the threat is too overwhelming to escape. The body shuts down, conserves energy, and waits. (Source: Levine, P.A., “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma,” 1997)
This response isn’t a choice. It happens automatically, and it can be triggered by things that aren’t physically dangerous, like unopened bills or a bank balance you’re afraid to see.
Why Money Triggers Shutdown
Research confirms what you already feel: people avoid financial information when they expect bad news. One study found that investors check their portfolios significantly less during market downturns, even though that’s when attention might help most. (Source: Karlsson, N., Loewenstein, G., & Seppi, D., “The Ostrich Effect,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2009)
Behavioral economists call this the “ostrich effect,” but it’s more than sticking your head in the sand. It’s your nervous system deciding that not knowing feels safer than confirming your fears.
“Won’t” vs. “Can’t”
There’s a crucial difference between choosing not to do something and being unable to do it.
When someone says, “I just can’t make myself check my account,” they’re often describing a real neurological state. Dr. Levine calls this “functional freeze,” where you can go about your day and have conversations. Still, part of your system is stuck in a shutdown state, unable to perform specific tasks.
This is why willpower fails. You can’t force yourself out of freeze any more than you can push yourself to stop shivering when you’re cold. The nervous system doesn’t respond to demands; it responds to safety.
What Freeze Is Trying to Do
Your avoidance isn’t random. It’s protective.
At some point, your system learned that money was dangerous. Maybe you witnessed a financial crisis as a child or experienced financial scarcity and shame. Your nervous system adapts by developing a threat-detection system that triggers shutdown when money comes up, even if your current situation is entirely different.
This isn’t a weakness. It’s your body trying to keep you safe. The problem is that the strategy that once protected you may now be keeping you stuck.
Coming Out of Freeze Gently
You can’t force your way out of shutdown, but you can create conditions that help your nervous system feel safe enough to re-engage.
Move your body first. Before any financial task, do something physical like walking, stretching, or shaking out your hands. Movement signals to your body that you’re not actually trapped.
Start impossibly small. Just open the app. You don’t have to look at the number yet.
Create a sense of physical safety. Do financial tasks in a comfortable space, with a blanket or warm drink nearby.
Bring in warmth. Have someone nearby, not to help, just to be present with you.
Know when to stop. If shutdown returns, stop before you’re overwhelmed. A small win beats pushing until you freeze harder.
Pray
In the middle of avoidance, it’s easy to believe you’re alone with the weight of it all. Prayer interrupts that isolation.
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)
Let those words land in your body, not just your mind. You are held, even in the frozen places.
What Becomes Possible
When you understand that avoidance is protection rather than failure, something shifts. You can stop attacking yourself and start working with your nervous system instead of against it.
Freeze isn’t permanent. The same system that learned to shut down can know that it’s safe to engage, not through force, but through gentleness and repeated small experiences of surviving contact with your finances.
Your body has been trying to protect you. Now you can thank it and gently show it that a new response is possible.
This content is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or therapeutic advice. Consider speaking with qualified professionals for personalized guidance.