Step 7. Resolve arousal states by promoting discharge of the vast survival energy mobilized for life-preserving action As one’s passive responses are replaced by active ones in the exit from immobility, a particular physiological process occurs: one experiences waves of involuntary shaking and trembling, followed by spontaneous changes in breathing—from tight and shallow to deep and relaxed. These involuntary reactions function, essentially, to discharge the vast energy that, though mobilized to prepare the organism to fight, flee or otherwise self-protect, was not fully executed.
