Have you ever noticed how your body reacts before your mind catches up?

That flutter in your chest, a tight jaw, or the sudden urge to flee a conversation — these aren’t just random symptoms. They’re messages from your nervous system, and they all begin with something called charge.

⚡ What Is “Charge”?

Charge is the electrical and energetic signal that builds in your body in response to a stimulus. It’s how your nervous system prepares you to respond to life. And it always starts in the body, not the mind.

• Energy – the physical activation that rises
• Intention – the internal readiness to act
• Polarity – the sense of moving toward or away from something

You don’t think your way into charge. You feel it first.

🔄 How Charge Works

1. Stimulus or Trigger
   A sound, memory, sensation, or interaction occurs.
2. Interpretation
   Your nervous system assesses: Is this safe or not safe?
   (Using your past experiences as its filter.)
3. Charge Builds
   You might feel:
   → A faster heartbeat
   → Shallow or held breath
   → Muscle tension or fidgeting
   → A freeze or dissociation response
4. Action or Suppression
   If your system feels safe, the charge is used — maybe through movement, tears, speaking, or laughter.
   If it doesn’t feel safe, the charge is held — stored as tension, anxiety, shutdown, or fatigue.
5. Integration or Dysregulation
   Used charge = regulation.
   Suppressed charge = symptoms.

🧠 Where Charge Lives in the Body

Charge doesn’t disappear when ignored — it settles into tissues:

Muscles → bracing, tightness, clenching

Joints → especially hips, spine, jaw

Breath → held or shallow breath stores activation

Fascia → long-term charge lives in this connective tissue

Nervous system field → old emotional data, unprocessed trauma, survival imprints

🚨 When Charge Gets Stuck

Stored charge shows up as:

• Chronic anxiety or tension
• Panic or emotional overwhelm
• Irritability or reactivity
• Feeling on edge or drained
• Restlessness, trouble sleeping, trouble focusing

It’s not a flaw
It’s your body’s incomplete survival energy — still looking for a way out.

✅ How to Discharge Safely

The goal isn’t to eliminate charge.
It’s to complete it so your system can settle.

Here’s what helps:

• Movement — walking, stretching, shaking, dancing
• Sound — humming, sighing, letting your voice move
• Breath — especially long, slow exhales
• Co-regulation — safe contact with another being
• Completion — letting your emotion move through: crying, trembling, speaking truth

These aren’t tricks. They’re your body’s way of returning to regulation

💠 What Happens When Charge Clears?

You begin to feel like yourself again.

• Emotions settle
• Thoughts slow down
• Breath deepens
• Muscles soften
• You feel safe, connected, and clear

This is the real meaning of regulation:
Not control. Not perfection. But safety through completion.

In the next post, we’ll explore how to identify your own charge patterns—so you can begin to respond to your system with deeper clarity, care, and compassion.

If you would like to book into the clinic to learn how you can regulate your nervous system, go here: Book Online | Dr. Stephanie Farwell, ND