Hello Friends,

A stage 3 sympathetic nervous system response is characterized as flight or flee when I perceive a threat in my environment, and I attempt to run from it (raise your hand if you've ever run away from your problems ).

In the wild, that response is a lifesaver. If a lion’s coming, I’m already halfway up a tree with zero regrets. But when Karen from HR asks if I have “just a quick minute to chat,” bolting out the window doesn’t seem to qualify as professional conflict resolution.

If my body cannot physically escape, the mind does.

My outer shell may present as forward facing, but my insides are twisting and turning to get away. My xiphoid one way, my belly button the other. I feel disconnected from my thoughts, experiences, emotions, sensations, surroundings. I may feel detached from the world, or that the world isn't real.

This is dissociation: a separation between my brain & body, my conscious & unconscious brain.

Every experience has some kind of physical motor pattern associated with it. If the experience is parasympathetic, these motor patterns are unique. And since every moment is unique, this particular motor pattern set is unlikely to ever repeat.

If on the other hand, the experience triggers a sympathetic response (perceived threat or otherwise), I will have sympathetic reflexes associated with that experience. Consequently, every time the memory surfaces, or something similar to it, the same sympathetic reflexes that fired at the time of the event will fire in the present moment as if that moment were happening right now.

So when that memory shows up like an overly enthusiastic party guest—“Surprise! Remember me?”—my body instantly queues up the same dramatic reaction it did years ago. It's like my nervous system never got the memo that the danger’s long gone and we’re now just trying to microwave leftovers in peace.

Even after counseling reassures my conscious mind that I’m safe, my body may still hold onto the past, unconvinced until the sympathetic reflexes tied to the memory are rewired and released.

Enter body mapping.

Most folks know their coccyx—aka the tailbone. Sound familiar? As in “tuck tail and run”? Well, when you revisit a memory that’s tangled up in a sympathetic response, that tail might curl in reflex, like your body’s saying, "Danger? Again? Cool, let’s panic."

If you’re mapping while the memory swirls around, that charge can start to fade. Eventually, it’s no longer a wide-eyed emergency—just another dusty folder in the file cabinet of your nervous system. (Side note: This is the simple version. Please don’t go poking around in your trauma unchaperoned.)

And hey—maybe you dissociate without knowing why. Maybe trauma isn't part of your story. Odds are your tail’s still tucked. But here’s the kicker: shift the pattern, and you shift the response. You don't need to know why. Tail comes out, nervous system chills, and suddenly you’re not at war with your microwave leftovers anymore.

Onwards, Amy