Realigning Your Rev

   Our ancient and hardwired fight or flight nervous system response has served us humans for a very long time by letting us know when a threat to our survival is present and revving us up physically, mentally and chemically to act to survive. When the going has gotten tough, this response has helped us to fight or run away from a threat and it still serves that function. In extreme cases, our nervous system through another channel has helped us to freeze so we shut down and otherwise close off from our experience of a threat.

   However, we can run into trouble when our nervous system’s rev kicks into the complex responses associated with fight, flight or freeze to cope with an outside stressor that is not an actual threat to our survival. When this occurs repeatedly, we can end up with holding patterns in our bodies that over time can wear down the quality of our health. 

   It is not easy to learn to respond with less rev to outside stressors that are not actual threats to our survival. This is challenging for most of us in our day-to-day. Trying to keep up with the ever quickening pace of technology and all that we cannot control in our lives tends to stimulate a revved up state of being all by itself. Responding with less rev is even harder for those of us coping with the effects of trauma and our experience of re-triggering events, like Covid. 

   Gently identifying and adjusting how we view a given situation can start us training our nervous system to know the difference between a real threat and one that is not. Opening ourselves to a little more compassion and acceptance of our strengths and challenges, noticing what factors influence how we feel, tweaking our lifestyles, and exploring resources that assist us in reclaiming our inner trust and peace over reactivity can also go a long way towards consciously dialing down the rev. 

   CranioSacral Therapy/SomatoEmotional Release* (CST/SER) encourages and supports you in reprogramming your nervous system to lower the rev as you discover, understand and shift old patterns that no longer serve your current needs. This approach gently yet profoundly complements other resources you already may have in place, such as psychotherapy, meditation, breathing techniques and other tools that enhance your awareness and self-regulation at home. As you allow your process to evolve at its own pace, CST/SER can help you respond to stressors from a place of conscious deeper knowing and greater ease and expansiveness in your being.

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. 

~ Pema Chodron

*The tissue based therapeutic process of SomatoEmotional Release is not psychotherapy or psychiatry. It is, however, a wonderful complement and support for your process and progress through such other therapies.