Fight or Flight?

Releasing Trapped Physical Energies

Most of us know that when our mind perceives we are in a dangerous or threatening situation (whether real or imagined) our body will kick in the flight or flight reaction.  What I didn’t understand is that when our nervous system prepares us to fight or to run, it releases physical energy into our body to enable us to do so.  If we actually fight or flee we use up the energy.  If we don’t, the energy may remain stored in our body and can cause a lot of harm to us on a physical, emotional or mental level.

I learned this from Dr. Kent Rosengren who teaches a class called Body Based Mindfulness that explains how to recognize this physical energy in your body.  Once you  recognize and accept that it’s there, you can direct your body to release the energy just by sitting quietly with intent as you allow it to do so.  It’s a very simple process but does take some practice and knowledge as we often want to resist acknowledging the very thing that may be causing us harm.  Dr. Kent has a wonderful process that teaches his students exactly how to release the physical energy and….very important….how to recognize and work through the resistance if it’s there.  As I have cleared out a bunch of these negative physical energies I’m actually finding I have a whole lot more pep as a result.  Holding on to all that stored energy was quite a job for my body and actually was sapping my strength.

Every student in the class experienced positive results and they were quite varied.  Spencer Melchert, one of the students, has been kind enough to share his experience with you:

Hello my name is Charles Spencer Melchert. About 2 months ago I gave myself a gift of investing in a class and teaching I was not aware of. It is called Body Based Mindfulness, taught by Dr Kent Rosengren.

I have been practicing a mindfulness meditation for about 3 years and hadn’t incorporated the experience and knowing of allowing the body time, space and love to feel sensations, emotions, movements and to potentially shift limiting beliefs into a greater awareness. Body Based Mindfulness is an empowered way of doing so. Shifting our awareness from our Brain’s perception and logic base into the innate wisdom of the body – and – giving our body permission to express, feel and behave in any way it chooses, is a wonderfully freeing skill to learn and practice.

I desire to share some of my wins from the class. Uncompleted fight or flight responses get trapped in the central nervous system and keep our systems charged in an unhealthy way until those sensations, emotions and movements are allowed to be felt and released. This class increased my awareness around how I would resist strong trapped emotions and not allow myself to fully feel them with acceptance. I learned to notice, identify and release unhealthy energies around traumatic events in my past – which has single handedly made the greatest impact in me. I have experienced more acceptance, forgiveness, appreciation and love for myself and others.

The classes are taught by Dr. Rosengren, a trained psychologist. He is an empathetic, caring and compassionate professional who set up the classes with concepts and strategies to be mindful of and then the last hour was geared towards practice with the other students. Each student took a turn at being the participant, practitioner and observer. The observer kept track of time, offered feedback on things they noticed and gave words of encouragement. These built in break-out groups provided an immense amount of invaluable experience getting accustomed, acclimated and aware of resistance that would arise in the body. We learned how our trapped fight or flight sensations feel and move in the body along with the art of allowing the body time and space to notice – without judgment – whatever came up. We learned to allow the sensations to be as big as they wanted to be and how to let our body release this trapped energy however it needed to do so. It is absolutely a perfect expression of self love and compassion.

The class has been an amazing experience and addition to my life and I will be forever grateful to Dr. Kent and myself for investing in this class and me.