{"id":6666,"date":"2024-12-02T12:11:21","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T12:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritualbish.com\/?p=6666"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:44:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T17:44:32","slug":"somatic-healing-and-implicit-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritualbish.com\/pl\/somatic-healing-and-implicit-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Can\u2019t: Implicit Memories and Somatic Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When it comes to stress and trauma, your body is like that friend who remembers every awkward detail about the time you tripped in high school\u2014except it doesn\u2019t just remember the moments; it stores them. Whether it\u2019s a knot in your stomach when someone raises their voice or a sudden freeze when you\u2019re overwhelmed, your body holds onto experiences, even when your brain decides to hit the \u201cforget\u201d button.<\/p>\n

Your brain is like that overprotective friend who means well but ends up creating chaos. It\u2019s always either reliving the past\u2014\u201cRemember that embarrassing thing you said in 2008? Let\u2019s cringe about it for hours!\u201d\u2014or trying to predict the future\u2014\u201cWhat if everything goes wrong? Let\u2019s panic just in case!\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t malicious. Your brain is just doing its job: protecting you. It\u2019s scanning for threats, thanks to its trusty negativity bias, which is like having a personal alarm system set to \u201cparanoia.\u201d It remembers all the bad stuff to keep you safe and adapts to the environment around you.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the catch: instead of hanging out in the real world, your brain often keeps you stuck in a virtual reality of worst-case scenarios and past disasters. Meanwhile, your body is over here like, \u201cHey, I\u2019m in the present moment! Wanna join me?\u201d<\/p>\n

When the brain and body stop communicating, though, it\u2019s bad news. Research shows that this disconnection can lead to chronic stress, emotional dysregulation, and even physical health issues like inflammation and heart disease (Van der Kolk, 2014; Chrousos, 2009). The brain might be busy replaying past failures or imagining future catastrophes, but without feedback from the body, it can\u2019t accurately gauge what\u2019s happening right now. That\u2019s like trying to navigate with a broken GPS\u2014it\u2019s just guesswork.<\/p>\n

The thing is, your body is your true bestie(even though in all reality our brain is part of our body too lol). It\u2019s always working to help you survive, adapt, and even thrive. But if your mind is running the show solo, you end up disconnected from your body\u2019s wisdom, stuck in a loop of overthinking, and missing what\u2019s actually happening right now.<\/p>\n

To sum it up: Your brain\u2019s a bit of a drama queen, but your body? Total grounding MVP. And when they\u2019re on speaking terms, magic happens\u2014you heal, grow, and actually enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n

Now to the topic of trauma, which thanks to new science isnt viewed as just the experience but what happens inside of us as a result. From the perspective of psychobiology trauma is an interrupted stress response and all the creative ways we adapt to protect ourselves as a result of the wound that happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not like they used to think that trauma is just a psychological wound, it doesn\u2019t just live in our memories, sometimes we actually have no memory or words for what happened; it\u2019s imprinted in our posture, movements, physiological responses,\u00a0 <\/span>and the way we perceive ourselves and navigate the world. Chronic stress or early attachment wounds\u2014like inconsistent care, abuse or chronic emotional misattunemets\u2014shape how we hold ourselves. Leaning forward might signal a drive to please or seek connection, collapsing inward could reflect defeat or helplessness, while moving against others, with a rigid, defensive posture, may guard against harm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These patterns are not flaws\u2014they\u2019re adaptations your body developed to keep you safe in the moment – only what was helpful back then often becomes the root of our issues as adults. So the process of soamtic healing is finding ways to let the body, the nervous system, know that right now we are safe enough. When the body does not feel safe aka survival mode, we cannot fully take in new information, experience, connect socially, or engage in life in adaptive ways , only reacting in protective ways – survival comes first.<\/p>\n

The Body as a Keeper of Memory<\/b><\/p>\n

This is why early life adversity leaves such a profound mark. Our baby nervous system is constantly scanning the enviroment, learning, and adapting all In the name of survival.\u00a0 <\/span>The memories might not live in your conscious mind, but they exist in your body as implicit memories (and subconscious)\u2014the unspoken sensations, automatic reactions, imagery, and emotions that pop up seemingly out of nowhere. As Dr. Pat Ogden says:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe body remembers what the mind forgets.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

A traumatic event\u2014especially in early childhood\u2014signals your brain\u2019s alarm system (the amygdala) floods your body with stress hormones, while the rational thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) is not yet fully developed to help you process what\u2019s happening. In infancy and early childhood, the hippocampus is still maturing, which means it cannot effectively organize experiences into cohesive narratives. Instead, these experiences are stored as fragmented bits\u2014sensations, images, or physical reactions\u2014without clear context or a sense of time.<\/p>\n

As the brain develops later in life, traumatic experiences may still overwhelm the hippocampus, especially if the nervous system is already dysregulated from earlier stress or attachment disruptions. This can result in a similar fragmented storage of memories, with emotions and body sensations remaining disconnected from the conscious, logical understanding of events.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also crucial to acknowledge how our identity, privilege, and intersections with systemic oppression influence the ways trauma impacts us. Factors like race, gender, class, disability, and sexual orientation shape both the types of traumatic experiences we might face and the resources available to us for healing.As humans we all have the same needs of physical resources like food, water, and shelter, but we also all need to feel safety, belonging, and dignity and unfortunately these resources are not distributed equally.<\/p>\n

For individuals from marginalized communities, trauma is often not a singular event but an ongoing experience rooted in systemic inequalities, discrimination, and generational oppression. The chronic nature of this trauma can keep the nervous system in a persistent state of survival, further complicating the healing process. Recognizing these dynamics ensures that trauma-informed care is inclusive, equitable, and responsive to the diverse ways trauma shows up in our bodies and lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These body-based memories linger, influencing how you respond to the world. For instance, you might feel inexplicable tension in your chest when someone criticizes you, even if the situation isn\u2019t truly threatening. This is your implicit memory at work, replaying survival patterns that were once necessary but may no longer serve you and actually hold you back from moving towards the life you truly desire.<\/p>\n

Additionally, insufficient sensory processing due to chronic survival stress can disconnect you from your body altogether, leading to numbness, dissociation, or depersonalization. The result is a fragmented sense of self and difficulty regulating emotions, forming healthy relationships, or trusting your inner world. And when this complex trauma happens in early life we may never get a change to form a sense of Self because all our attention is on the external world and staying safe ( staying connected to our caregivers is essential to our survival even when the wounding is coming from them ), our nervous system is wired for survival so we will unconsciously abandon ourselves, our needs, and our bodies to live.<\/p>\n

Why Somatic Healing Matters<\/b><\/p>\n

Talk therapy is excellent for unpacking explicit memories, but it doesn\u2019t always reach the deeper, wordless layers where trauma lives. As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, emphasizes:<\/p>\n

\u201cTrauma is stored not as a story, but as sensations and emotions. You must address the body to access it.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Somatic therapies, like Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY)\u00a0 <\/span>and other integrative psychobiological and nervous system informed modalities focus on helping you reconnect with your body to release stored tension, complete stress cycles, build resilience, and start to feel safe enough to inhabit your body. These practices work by inviting you to notice, explore, and integrate the sensations and movements that live in your body.<\/p>\n

Stress, Trauma, and Movement<\/b><\/p>\n

Trauma interrupts the body\u2019s natural stress response cycle, leaving survival energy stuck in the system. This incomplete process shows up as habitual physical patterns, like clenched muscles, shallow breathing, or avoidance behaviors. Over time, this dysregulation can manifest as chronic pain, anxiety, depression, or autoimmune disorders.<\/p>\n

Healing through somatic work is not about reliving the trauma but allowing the body to complete what was interrupted, metabolizing the trapped energy of the stress response, what we sometimes call life force energy (or we can go more woo woo here and call it prana, chi, or something =P) . For example, rhythmic movements like rocking or shaking can help release stored tension, while practices like grounding, centering, self-touch and other embodied mindful movements that focus on the internal felt sense (not on how it looks but how it feels) \u00a0can help restore connection to the body and balance to your nervous system. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Healing in Action<\/b><\/p>\n

In Trauma Healing Yoga\u00a0 (TCTSY),<\/a>\u00a0which is an evidence based soamtic therapy for complex trauma, you\u2019re invited to notice sensations in your body and make choices about what you want to do with your body, There\u2019s no \u201cright\u201d way to do it, no gaols to achieve, nothing to perfect\u2014it\u2019s about exploring what feels ok and empowering, while in the presence of an attuned, non-judgemental, non-coercive, empathetic TCTSY facilitator – which is crucial in the case of chronic relational trauma . This helps rewire your nervous system so that old survival patterns can soften, and a sense of agency can be restored.<\/p>\n

There are all different kinds of approaches and modalities to somatic healing and I blend many of them in my\u00a0Integrative Somatic coaching container,<\/a>\u00a0blending ancient wisdom with the newest breakthroughs in the psychobiology of stress and trauma:<\/p>\n

\u2022Polyvagal-informed tools: Shift from survival states into calm and connection by learning to speak the language of your body and mapping your individual system.<\/p>\n

\u2022Somatic stress + emotional release: Learning how to support emotions and the stress response to complete organically<\/p>\n

\u2022Somatic movement therapy: Reconnect to your joy, aliveness, and freedom through movement, re-patterning bracing patterns and completing interrupted survival responses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022Sensual somatics + pleasure activism: reconnect to your ability to receive and unlearn the societal conditioning that is keeping you small, silenced, self-sacrificing and causing physical and mental dis-ease<\/p>\n

\u2022Mind-body education for healing chronic dis-ease: knowledge is power and the more you know about how your mind and body work, the more agency you have in your own health and wellbeing. Wester medicine is ignoring the mind body connection, even though there is MORE than enough research on it. Connecting to your body isnt just a wellness trend, its your ticket to a regulated nervous ssytem and HEALTH.<\/p>\n

\u2022Somatic Shadow + Parts work (IFS): Safely explore and integrate parts of yourself that feel stuck\u00a0 <\/span>disowned, or too scared to express (inner child), to remembering your inherent wholeness , shedding conditioning that is not yours to carry, and starting to feel good in your own skin – there are no bad parts of you.<\/p>\n

These practices, tool, and modalities serve to help you tune into your body\u2019s wisdom, finding ease and a sense of safe enoughness and reclaiming connection to your true embodied Self. IT\u2019s not about perfecting or fixing yourself, its a process of unlearning the things that no loner serve you and remembering your wholeness, your inherent goodness and that you are a worthy human being, all of you belongs here.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing, reminds us:<\/p>\n

\u201cHealing isn\u2019t about remembering every detail. It\u2019s about finding safety in the present and allowing the body to complete what was once interrupted.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Somatic healing isn\u2019t about forcing change but creating safety to reconnect to yourself and the world around you, to dip your toes in the river of the felt sense, and integrate all parts of you at your own pace. It\u2019s about recognising that you are not borken and how your body has been protecting you all along.<\/p>\n

Dr. Dan Siegel sums it up perfectly: \u201cIntegration is the heart of healing. When we bring together the different aspects of our experience\u2014mind, body, and emotions\u2014we create a sense of wholeness.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

I would argue this wholeness is how we come into the world, somatic healing is about remembering that fact.<\/p>\n

Your body isn\u2019t just holding your past\u2014it\u2019s holding the key to your freedom, fulfilment, pleasure, and resilience. By reconnecting with the rhythms and language of your body, you can move out of survival mode and into a state of balance, aliveness, thriving, and authentic self-expression. Healing is not about fixing yourself\u2014it\u2019s about coming home to the body that\u2019s been holding you all along.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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When it comes to stress and trauma, your body is like that friend who remembers every awkward detail about the…
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