Our nervous system is made up of neurons that communicate through nerve fiber and body fluids. Within this system, there is an automatic response mechanism that is commonly referred to as the fight-or-flight response. 

“Fight-or-flight” is a physiological and psychological response that taps into our primal instincts to either fight or flee when presented with danger. In the time of ancient man, these dangers involved matters of life or death, such as facing down a wild animal. In the modern world, the stakes most often aren’t as high… though our nervous system doesn’t know the difference.

Our nervous system communicates through electrical impulses. At Pathwaves, we refer to what lives in the electricity and drives those communications as the “mind” – it’s what’s housed in the electrical impulses, as opposed to using “mind” as another word for brain. Think of it like the intelligence that is moving through the system.

We consider the nervous system to be both “mind” and body, since calming the “mind” will also calm the reactive part of the body. And since the flight-or-flight response is housed in the autonomic nervous system, what we are essentially doing is calming the “reactive mind”.

Training the Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system can be intentionally trained to function in different ways. This is great news, because when left to its own devices, it tends to follow our genetics, our experiences, our perceptions, and animal instincts.

This self-entrainment process can benefit us if we’re lucky and functioning well, or enslave us, which is often the case. Mindfulness techniques, changes in perspective and other techniques can be utilized to free us from overreaching fight-or-flight responses.

To calm the reactive mind and tame an overactive flight-or-fight response, we take our clients through this process:

Understand

The first step is to understand the circumstances that led up to and are now causing the heightened fight-or-flight responses. By understanding this context, it is then possible to shift the perspectives that are behind the over-activation, and start to clear the path for self-entrainment.

Entrain

Entraining the nervous system allows you to lower the levels of autonomic nervous system response to be within your goal levels. Essentially, you’re training yourself to be less reactive. We use proprietary tools, including the techniques we teach to calm stress and anxiety, to reduce the responses to triggers.

Practice

Practice is what makes the new responses “stick”, and eventually replace the dominant undesired responses. In a Pathwaves digital entrainment session, you will practice the new intentional perspective and self-entrainment techniques, while interfacing with the computer and the Pathwaves proprietary Neurofeedforward™ protocol.

Pathwaves NeuroEmpowerment™: Basic Training

The Pathwaves Basic Training Path includes 10 visits that introduce our clients to what’s possible when you take control of your nervous system, or achieve what we call NeuroEmpowerment™.

Session 1: Hello Nerves

In the first session – called “Hello Nerves” – we teach the techniques to clear the way for the transformation to come. This gives clients a taste of what it is like to experience a calm nervous system, even if it’s just for a few moments. This primes the neural pathways for a new way of operating, which continue to be tweaked and reinforced in the sessions to come.

Session 2: Calming The Reactive Mind

In the second session – called “Calming The Reactive Mind” – we lead our clients through the process outlined above to calm the autonomic nervous system and reduce fight-or-flight responses. This lays the foundation for the rest of the work we do together to get out of survival mode, and into thriving.

Through the Pathwaves NeuroEmpowerment™ program, we use a proprietary form of integrative neurofeedback – what we call Neurofeedforward™ – to influence the nervous system, and recondition your responses in order to live a life that embodies love over fear. Our method has been able to effectively help more than 95% of our clients change how they feel and function, so they can live happier and healthier lives.

To help those who cannot afford the services of Pathwaves, consider donating to The Pathwaves Foundation. Please call (305) 858-6616 for more information.

If you’d like to learn how you can accelerate change through our methodology, we are here to help. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation today.

G. Cole
Founder, Pathwaves