Diseases of Civilization

What is your reaction in times of danger or trauma? Fight, Flight or Freeze? Do you mobilize or become trapped?

As a society, more and more overwhelming and stressful events occur in our daily lives. This causes our life force energy to be suppressed causing blocks in our body, which restrains our innate animal instinct to react in times of danger. We are in effect emotionally frozen and the organic flow of energy within the body is suppressed. When this occurs there is a dysfunction of the self-regulatory mechanism in the body. When this dysfunction occurs the mind is the driving force not the self, resulting in the deregulation of the integration of spirit, emotion, mind and will in the body.

This debilitates our innate survival actions known as our “fight, flight or freeze reflex”. The fight, flight or freeze response is a physiological and biological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It is a specific biochemical reaction that both humans and animals experience during intense stress or fear. The sympathetic nervous system releases hormones that cause changes to occur throughout the body to survive. This allows us to mobilize quickly to avoid danger. This is useful if it occurs in short bursts. However if trauma is too deep (the intensity, duration and age dictate this) the energy is not released allowing the body to return back to homeostasis. Wild animals effectively discharge this energy in their bodies through physical movement such as running, trembling or attacking. Human beings also have the ability to do this, but frequently we tell ourselves to remain calm, not overreact and we suppress that energy. We are disconnected or split from out innate instinctual animal nature to survive. We go to our minds and rationalize our reaction and are under the control of the attacker/abuser. This results in a type of “spacing out” or disembodiment of self and an inability to be in the here and now. The energy remains in the body in but in a state of memory that is frozen.

We see many examples in the news today. People are taking the initiative to speak out about sexual abuse after several years have passed. When this encounter took place they did not have the capacity to mobilize their defense system and escape danger. They were frozen, unable to deal with the predator. This frozen energy affects one’s whole life, attracting the same type of abuse over and over again. It is through their conscious, courageous action of speaking up that they can begin the steps to heal and one rid their bodies of this stuck energy. This is also true with children and adolescents dealing with bullying from friends, peers, family, on-line at schools, etc.). The trauma that builds up causes the body to become frozen and ungrounded and they escape to their mind. They do not have the capacity to deal with the abuse they have in their mind and have loose the capacity to fight. We see the tragedy of them even committing suicide.

When we store these energy wounds or trauma,(due to holding onto non-discharged residual adrenal energy that is retained in our minds and bodies) it restrains spontaneous movements, causes shallow breathing, creates hyper vigilance and hyper activity and establishes symptoms that are difficult to diagnose. These are those so called “psychosomatic” symptoms such as back pain, neck pain, joint pain, fibromyalgia, muscular syndromes, gastrointestinal disorders, severe PMS, TMJ disorders, arthritis, frigidity, asthma, panic attacks, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, depression, cancer, etc.

As a cerebral, intellectual, reasoning individual who is dissociated from body awareness we become more reluctant and resistant to surrender to our visceral instinctual animal nature. When we hold on to un-discharged energy it gets blocked in the body, stuck in the tissues and muscles and organs, resulting not only in “psychosomatic” symptoms but also in the development of diseases and conditions in the body. Some of these being cancer, restless leg syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, stress-related illness, bi-polar, emptiness of purpose to exist, suicidal thoughts/tendencies, sleep disorders, eating and substance abuse, etc. Cancer in particular results from self-resignation. If our bodies are constantly in a stressful, unhappy state, moving from one crisis to another, never speaking our truth, and not discharging that adrenal energy using our animal instinctual survival skills, we die little by little. We become frozen and give up which gives disease the opportunity to manifest. Due to disease and conditions we are seeing a greater dependence on painkillers (such as opioids). This topic will be covered in a following article where we will address the real root of this issue.

When there is the dysfunction of the self-regulatory mechanism, even without the occurrence of a specific disease or condition, one may experience a lack of identity, dissociative behavior either through engulfment or enmeshment and an inability to create boundaries to know who they are.

Fortunately our body has the ability of self-regulation to bring the organism back to the state of homeostasis that is a place of well-being.

Nativa works with the principles of energy and consciousness, breathing, containment, grounding and boundaries. She uses powerful and effective techniques that increase self-awareness and increase the self-regulatory mechanisms that integrate the primitive animal instinct to survive with a higher brain function and strong spiritual awareness in the body.

Her work focuses on the principal that we are born with the same innate system as a wild animal that regulates the discharging of arousal survival energy through the flight, fight or freeze reflex. Through her work a collective healing will occur when we arouse our deep spiritual connection to our physiological resources and our energy and consciousness become integrated with spirit, mind and body…the house that welcomes our whole being.