The Frequency of Change
Small Shifts, Big Vibrations
We often think of change as something monumental. New jobs, bold decisions, dramatic reinventions. But neuroscience suggests something subtler.
Transformation rarely arrives in seismic waves. It emerges from small, repeated habits that rewire the brain, shift the body and, if you believe Esther Hicks, even alter the energetic vibrations we send into the universe.
Hicks’ philosophy of the Law of Attraction argues that our emotions carry a frequency.
Gratitude resonates higher than fear. Joy transmits differently than despair. It is easy to dismiss this as abstract spirituality, but cognitive neuroscience gives us an intriguing parallel.
Emotions are not simply feelings, they are neurochemical signals that cascade through the nervous system, changing how we think, act and even perceive reality. In that sense, Hicks’ “vibration” is a metaphor for what neuroscience calls state-dependent cognition. The state you’re in dictates the world you see.
Trauma at Work Creating Invisible Frequencies
Nowhere is this clearer than in workplaces where trauma lingers.
A manager who regularly humiliates a team member during meetings creates more than awkwardness, he creates a chronic stress loop. Each public critique activates the amygdala, the brain’s fear hub, priming employees for hypervigilance and self-censorship. Over time, their “vibration” tilts toward anxiety and the organisation’s culture follows suit.
The harm multiplies when the toxic environment includes sexual harassment or gender-based intimidation.
A colleague who lingers too close or sends inappropriate messages does not just cross a personal boundary; they trigger the same neuro chemical alarm bells that trauma survivors know well. The brain begins to pair the workplace itself with threat, keeping employees on constant alert.
Even the quieter wounds, micro-aggressions and subtle bias wrapped in polished policies, carry their own voltage. A pattern of being interrupted in meetings or having credit for ideas quietly redirected erodes a sense of belonging.
When bias hides behind phrases like “cultural fit” or “company policy,” the message is that exclusion is institutional, not accidental. The nervous system hears this as you are unsafe here, tightening the stress loop.
Then there’s the fear of redundancy, which can feel like standing on a trapdoor. Rumours of restructuring or an unexpected HR meeting can jolt the body into fight-or-flight. Consider an employee returning after a brutal layoff cycle. Even in a new role, their nervous system remembers the shock of sudden loss.
A single Slack notification can spike cortisol because the body has linked digital pings to danger.
In neuroscience terms, the reticular activating system is tuned to threat, scanning for danger long after the actual event. In Hicks’ language, they are practicing the vibration of fear without even realising it.
When Work Trauma Follows You Home
If you’ve left a toxic workplace, you know the body does not instantly forget.A Slack notification on your phone can spike your heart rate, even when It is from a friend. That’s your amygdala, the brain’s fear hub, reactivating old stress pathways.
Maybe a new manager’s feedback still feels like an attack because it echoes past humiliations. These are not character flaws.
They are conditioned responses, the nervous system’s way of saying, I remember what danger felt like.
In Hicks’ language, this is the “vibration of fear.” In neuroscience terms, It is a sensitised reticular activating system scanning for threat, long after the threat is gone.
Small Shifts as Repair
This is why micro-habits matter.
Hydration seems trivial, but studies show even mild dehydration impairs the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s command centre for decision-making. For someone navigating workplace trauma, that glass of water is not just biology, It is a vote for clarity over panic.
Breath work offers another entry point. Controlled breathing lowers activity in the amygdala while activating the prefrontal cortex, helping trauma-affected employees regulate the fight-or-flight response triggered by a harsh email or a tense performance review. What looks like calm from the outside is, on the inside, a nervous system reclaiming agency.
Bandura’s social learning theory explains how gratitude journalling or quick “wins of the day” reflections can disrupt trauma loops. By deliberately scanning for positives, a worker who once expected rejection trains the brain to notice opportunity. Hicks might say they are aligning with higher vibrations, neuroscience calls it shifting attentional bias.
Even environmental tweaks matter. A desk cluttered with old HR warning letters or last-minute crisis memos signals danger every time the eyes sweep across it. Decluttering reduces cortisol and reframes the workspace as safe. Behavioural science calls this reducing friction in the habit loop. Dispenza might call it breaking the chemical addiction to chaos. Different languages, same truth.
From Survival to Creation
Workplace trauma convinces people that energy, whether defined as vibration, neural activity or behavioural momentum, is fixed in fear.
Yet both Hicks and neuroscience emphasise plasticity. Synaptic pathways can be rewired, emotional frequencies can be re-tuned.
The implication is profound: small, intentional acts are not trivial.
Hydrating between back-to-back meetings, taking three conscious breaths before replying to a critical email, sharing one moment of gratitude in a team chat, each is a signal to the nervous system that the threat has passed and creativity is welcome.
So the question is not can I change? The real question, especially in workplaces shadowed by trauma, is “what vibration am I practicing today and how will it shape the culture around me tomorrow?”
If this reflection speaks to where you are on your healing journey, I would love to hear your perspective. Share your own small shifts in the comments, tag a friend who’s rebuilding after a toxic job and let’s start a conversation that reminds us we’re not alone. Your insight could be the spark that helps someone else take their next step, so like, comment and share to keep the vibration of recovery moving forward.
