Memory

What does it mean when we say, or to say, that trauma lives in the tissues or that the body keeps the score? We hear these terms a lot in the world of healing, but they're pretty vague and hard to wrap our minds around sometimes. So today we're going to take a little bit deeper of a dive into memory. How it works, how it's impacted by trauma, and how that impacts our health and behavior, and most

importantly, what is somatic memory? Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host, Jennifer Wallace, a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide. And I'm Elizabeth Christoph, co host and founder of Brainbase.com and the Neurosomatic

Intelligence Coaching Certification program. So yeah, so this season we're exploring the underpinnings of trauma and nervous system health in mental and physical health outcomes, and important components of understanding. This concept is the connections really exploring how our memories shape our physiological and emotional experiences of the

present world. So today, at a high level, we're going to look at how memories are stored in the brain, how this impacts nervous system function, and more deeply, how memories are stored somatically in the body and the nervous system, maybe even cellularly. So we've defined complex trauma on here many times, as when a series of events leaves us with an inability to integrate and regulate into the present moment.

And this lack of presence comes from a real time trauma reaction, like dissociation, threat, panic, freeze, that occurs in the now, when our system is triggered or overwhelmed by the stimulus that's coming in. And then it moves us reflexively into this protective response, an f response, an emotional experience. So in that way, trauma lives in the now because it's a patterned reaction that is occurring in our body and our brain. But that patterned

reaction, it comes from somewhere. So trauma is created by the past experiences and memories. And that shapes how our brain filters information, decides what is safe or unsafe, and even impacts our level of brain function. Because the brain really is patterned on prediction. It's like an anticipation machine. It's always readying itself for the next moment, deciding safe or unsafe. And the type of priming that we have as people with complex trauma can make us vigilant based on what's

happened before. And then our filters are shaped by the past, and that molds how we see the present. And so that's very different from future planning. In the prefrontal cortex, it's the reaction that lives in the now shaped by our memories and impacts our sense of safety, our ability to be present, to have accurate information coming in from the environment, from our internal

and external senses. And so we really want to talk about that today, talk about the brain, the memory, and then dive into that somatic component as well. And like we're saying, like, this is really an exploration of memory and the current research and really what we know to be true in our

bodies and in our experiences. And we're not saying that anything throughout this conversation is definitive or is the answer, but we just wanted to have our voice in this conversation as we love to compile new research and just be in bigger discussions with bigger topics, especially as we're going to explore mental health this season and how, how memory affects even our physical health. Like, that's

just so fascinating. And I think that this is, this conversation is honestly really a huge undertaking as far as conversations go. I mean, it's just really huge. And it's just scratching the surface as to what we know for the wealth of information, the knowledge, the wisdom that is out there around trauma, around memory and. And all the aspects of memory that we're going to talk about today. And so I'm just really happy to be joining the conversation. And memory

is such a multidimensional thing. It's like, like we are, right, like it's in your brain, it's in your body. It's both physical and somewhat conceptual. It's. It's metaphysical, it's ancestral, it's generational. And so it's a lot to talk about. And 1 hour isn't going to do it justice. So this is really, I think, a great conversation for us to have at the very beginning of this season and serving as a great opener so that we can

weave some of this knowledge in and out. And memory will come up more than once in this season, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. This will be a foundational conversation for folks to prime for the rest of the stuff that we're getting into that's a little bit more filtered in terms of the topic. Yeah, for sure. And I think before we go into somatic memory, because that is just so deep, I think we need to, or let's open up with discussing the neurology of memory for

the foundation. And this might get a little science heavy. So just hang on with us for a second, because neuroscientific and other research confirm that memory is not a single entity and that different kinds of memories are stored in different parts of the brain. In broad terms, there are two types of memories. There's explicit memory, which is conscious and can be expressed verbally, while implicit memory is largely unconscious and

nonverbal. Explicit memory requires focused attention to consolidate, while implicit memory is encoded outside of our awareness, which is super interesting, right when we're talking about dissociation and going to bring that into the conversation. And so we have this area of the brain that is a key, one of the key players in storing memory, and that's the hippocampus. And it's this seahorse shaped structure in the brain. It lives super deep in the brain,

and it actually lives in both hemispheres. And it handles explicit memories, which include episodic memories. These are the events from your life, like the coffee that you had last week with your friend, the hike we took last week. There's semantic memories. Those are just general facts and information, such as, you know, that coffee is going to pick you up, or, you know, the knowing how something is going to maybe affect you. And so. But the interesting thing is that

it doesn't store long term memories itself. It acts as a transfer center. And I think this is one of the most interesting parts about the hippocampus, is the other structures that it is attached to and works alongside of in the brain, because it doesn't just act as an isolated structure. And although it plays a key role in memory, it's not just a straightforward action that happens. And so when you experience something, the hippocampus is, it registers it, and it

basically temporarily holds it. And then later, when we're sleeping and having that integration time, it transfers these short term memories to a long storm, a long term storage center within your brain. And so, you know, once again, we're going to talk about rest a lot in this season, too. So here's just something to pin in about rest and your memories. And so, um, over time, the information gets temporarily stored in the hippocampus and gets transferred up to the neocortex.

And if everything is going well with your brain function, that's what it would do. But I just want to say that, like, the most interesting structures that the hippocampus is attached to is one of them is the limbic system. You. That's the primary part of your brain that stores emotions and memories and your drivers, but then that's also attached to your amygdala and to your thalamus, the alarm system, and the gatekeeper.

So it's really neat, and I think, you know, hang in there for a few more minutes while we dive a little bit deeper into this science? Yeah, I think we're going to get into the whole neurotag component of memory, which is super interesting, and that the hippocampus is. It's part of our limbic system, and it has all this interplay with all these other and

emotional structures. And before we dive too deep into that, I just want to talk a little bit about traumatic memory so that we can be thinking about that as we're learning about some of the neuro of memory. So when we're talking about traumatic memory, that's generally referring to those implicit memories that you mentioned stored more as physical sensations rather than an actual narrative memory of the past. And it's an experience that is, like, immediate. It's that

threat response that's happening. So traumatic memories tend to arise more from fragmented splinters of memory, where it's indigestible sensations, emotions, images, smells, thoughts. It's not this clear cognitive memory, and they're implicit because they can be evoked by all kinds of situational cues. Something in the environment, a vocal tone, a birthday, an anniversary, like, all of these things can.

Can bring up those implicit memories. And trauma can lead to blocked explicit processing and enhanced implicit processing. So it's less the cognitive memory and more of the implicit process. And traumatic experiences limit our hippocampal function because of cortisol

production. And that impedes the consolidation of these explicit memories, and it activates, just like you were talking about, Jennifer, the structures like the amygdala, leading to more adrenaline or cortisol or threat response, which then intensifies the implicit memory, the sensations, the emotional experience. And that can lead to more of like a flashback experience of a memory, intrusive body sensations or images, kind of disconnected of traumatic events that seem to come out of nowhere.

But they're all elements of this. This blocked out, neural chunked, explicit and implicit processing. So I just want to make a quick note there.

And it's also been confirmed by current neuroscientific research that trauma is often remembered through behavioral enactments, and that traumatized people are frequently unable to speak about their experiences and are often compelled to reenact them, often remaining unaware of, like, what their behavior is really saying and just remembering in the form of physical movements and sensations, those automatic responses and involuntary movements. And that's a

characteristic of trauma. Traumatic memories may also take the form of unconscious acting out behaviors. And the need to resolve traumatic experiences can fuel repetitive and compulsive actions and behaviors. Yeah, I think underlying a lot of this, it's important to understand the emotional component of memories. Right. And we're going to dive a little deeper into the science here again,

because there's actually two parts of the hippocampus. So there's the superior hippocampus, which has more to do with our declarative memories, like facts or figures or observable information. And then there's the inferior, which is just back part, superior front part, inferior back part. And that has more to do with our emotional memories and our emotional states. And the top portion, this is super

interesting. The top portion is only active at its highest level when our prefrontal cortex is also active and running the show when we're in our higher order thinking systems. So when you have more, like frontal lobe and pre cortex or prefrontal lobe activation, you get more superior hippocampus activation. So in that time, if your higher order thinking systems are online, you have better recollection of facts and figures. You can memorize data, you can study, you can

learn. But when we're in a threat response or limbic escape or amygdala hijacking, the lower portion of the hippocampus is more activated, and that's more emotional memory. And at that time, our factual memory might suffer, but you remember how you feel on a physical and emotional level. So the top part of the hippocampus shuts down for a better, for lack of a better term. But the bottom part is encoding the emotional memories that's still

active. So as we try to learn or study or just live life, we might have poor recollection of the facts, the figures, the details, but have a strong memory about the emotions. And you could think of this as, like, if you have an argument with someone, you might remember a lot more about the feeling inside and the response in your body and not really remember what they said, like, the

actual facts of what was said. And so that can get really distorted as you recall heightened emotion and more threat response situations. And then we also talked about this in our complex trauma and brain development episode. And I talked about the time I had a big emotional flashback over the holidays, and my body curled in on itself, and I was really reacting. And it was just like I was experiencing a memory from the holiday time that it was a very

strong memory, but there was nothing cognitive about it. It didn't have to do with the facts of what was really going on at all. It was a feeling. It was a reaction. It was an emotional flashback. And so that means, like, that whole neurotag is activated, and my brain's lens of the world changes. And now my memories were shaping how I was experiencing that present reality, that time with my family. And this was recent, but I felt and was even moving in a way like I would as a child,

experiencing some of those big emotions. And that's one of the reasons why memory really matters. It's really a reflexive response also, too, because it is, in some ways, if the body is remembering something, even though you might not have a cognitive memory of it, and you actually might not have had that memory laid. So understanding your body, which we're going to get into, is just so important. We just had a conversation that we released about the importance of

healing the relationship to our bodies. And we've talked recently about dissociation and healing that. And even before we move on, there's so many things coming up for me around, like rest and memory and thinking about myself, and even, like, sensory processing disorders and that prefrontal cortex element that we're talking about. Like, this is just to reiterate to y'all, like, this is a conversation that is going to go in so many different places this season. And so there's just so much.

It's just fascinating. You know, we talk about trauma rewired as the vortex, and I am in it right now in this recording. So let's talk about a little bit more. Let's go back into. Back into where we left off here a minute ago, and this idea of what we remember somatically and emotionally, like you were talking about in that holiday memory of yours. And so when it's not cognitive, that's when things can get pretty

interesting as our experience in the world. And so there are so many ways this memory encoding, coding and retention can be shaped and changed by trauma, especially during our development. While our brains are remember are. While our brains are wired to remember experiences important to survival, under some circumstances, survival may be assisted by forgetting. Right? Okay. As children, we depend on our adult caregivers, our primaries, our

parents, and. And it can be to the advantage of our survival to forget traumatic experiences that we could have had to. Had to survive in the. In the value of having to preserve our attachment bond, right. Our real survival is just more adaptive to forget the abuse as a way to preserve the relationship when the abuser is someone that the victim is dependent on in their lives. And so it's.

It's kind of standard, if you will, or normal is not a word that we typically like to use, but disruptions in memory that can be adaptive. And if trauma and caregiving emanate from the same source, then disruptions in our memory. That's a pretty standard normal. Output. Output. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. There's a term for this of betrayal, blindness, or an unawareness and forgetting that has survival value. Just exactly what you were saying. Because we're dependent upon our caregivers, and if

we remember and acknowledge certain things, it severs that. And it stems from this concept that, you know, betrayal, trauma. It helps us to understand how we forget early life abuse in order to preserve attachment bonds to caregivers. And it also has wide implications to a range of contexts, because there are a bunch of different ways that we could remain

blind to betrayal. Maybe just forgetting the event entirely, but it could also be like overlooking certain parts of it, um, you know, just remembering things slightly differently that allow us to stay connected to people. And, um, it doesn't always just happen in childhood, it can also happen in adult life. Uh, so, yeah, this idea of not seeing or not knowing or not remembering a traumatic experience isn't just confined to our childhood.

Adults can also have this with their relationships that they want to keep intact and to try to maintain a sense of control over overwhelming events. Our efficiently wired fawners is what's really coming to my mind right now, honestly. And our deeply wired empaths, hundred percent, that are just immediately just coming to my mind that just like, I'll just, I'll just forget about this because I just constantly forgetting how somebody could be abusive, neglectful,

abandoning, crossing your boundaries. Crossing your boundaries. Yeah. And that leading to all of the self abandonment that we talked about, because you don't even acknowledge and everything that we're talking about is far below the level of our consciousness. So we're reflexively moving into this repression of memories or acknowledgement of what's going on. And that's really important to remember, too. It just really

does impact our brains. The way that we move through the day back to our daily intentional practice, the intention really matters. Yes, really does. Really does. Let's talk about memories, bias and decisions, because we love to talk about beliefs around here. And of course, we need to talk about how memories shape our beliefs and cognitive biases, which also then drive our behavior. And it's. This is interesting because, like, our brains process 11 million bits of information every second.

You can't wrap your mind around it, actually. Right? I mean, you really just can't wrap around your mind around those numbers. But actually, we actually process way less than that because only a .004 of those eleven memory of those 11 million bits actually make it into your cognitive awareness, right? And so our brains are constantly in this. So many functions going on at one time. And our brains, they categorize information and stimulus. To be able to function in the world, it needs

that structure. And this happens with subjective and objective content, more emotion and thought. And so your brain loves associations, associations like bonds between two subjects. This makes reaction faster when. When reaction times can get sped up, they make the path more efficient for the brain, but also that speeding up reaction that typically develops

in a high stress situation. And so when I have enough pieces of individual content and then those are all association associated together, it elicits a full body response. And so, especially with survival or threat neurotags, these associations can lead to implicit bias. Those are the filters, attitudes and stereotypes that affect our behaviors, understandings, actions or

decisions at a subconscious level. And so implicit bias starts in the limbic system, that emotional center in the amygdala, in the alarm system, those fear based instincts. And the mesolimbic pathway. If that's a dopamine pathway, that's your social and emotional reward. Am I safe? Am I loved? So, fear responses move us away from certain actions, behaviors. I'm sorry. Fear responses move us away from certain actions and people in their protective responses. The reward moves us

toward, moves us to engagement. And these play a role in determining which pieces of information make it up to the conscious awareness. These systems all work together to determine what is important for your survival, to make inter. To make interferences, to make inferences based on past experiences, and to experience emotions that attract us more, to make inferences, to make inferences based on past experiences, and to experience emotions that attract us to more to a certain people and

experiences. So all this happens way much faster than we can all really understand, and it all happens much faster than conscious information processing. It changes our relational patterns, who we're drawn to, our ability to find reward and connection, and even drives behaviors like isolation. Absolutely. We have this patterning of being drawn toward or being pulled away. And the hippocampus actually plays an important role in that, too, because it forms a link between our memories.

And it is a player in helping us to quickly decide the meaning of all that data coming in, because it filters it from our past experiences. Right. What does this data mean? Is it threatening? Is it rewarding? Is it safe? And so our hippocampus is always matching new information with memories. And that could be objective, but it could also be subjective memories, subjective experiences, emotional

experiences. And subjective memories can lead someone to believe that your interpretation is correct, even though the new information coming in might be unrelated to your past experiences, but because it has those similarities to the past experiences. So, like, I could be in a safe relationship, but I'm picking up certain bits of information that link back to old patterns, old experiences, and then that changes the way that I see

the current experience. So if our past experiences are making us predict something as unsafe, we're going to end up moving more down that fear response pathway into our reflexive, protective trauma responses. And memories are actually a neurotag. They are emotional, physical, and cognitive. They have all of those three components to them. And it's like a little web. And when we. When we recall a memory, it isn't like we're

just thinking about it. We aren't just like, opening a filing cabinet, pulling that file out on the cabinet, um, desktop, and then neutrally taking it in. When we recall a neurotag or a memory, it activates the physical, emotional, and, um, when we recall a neurotag or a memory, it reactivates the physical and the emotional pieces of the experiences as if we're living it again in real time. It recreates them every time that they are recalled. And we don't actually

pull the file out. We are rebuilding into it. We are expanding the file. Yeah, this, to me, is super interesting because it's not like I'm just seeing a memory on a screen. It's this information is going out into all different parts of my brain, and they're actually processing it as. As new information, as a new experience coming in. Because since memory is not stored in just one particular area of the brain, we have all these different parts that get activated when the memory

is recalled. We have auditory processing, we have movement centers. Visual parts of our visual processing are activated. And so if trauma impacts our brain development or if we have processing deficits in any of these areas, issues with our visual processing or auditory processing, that could affect how we recall a memory and increase the threat load when that memory is recalled. And it can also have an

effect on memory encoding in the first place. And so, like you said, Jen, memory is a neurotag. And in the book, explain pain supercharged. They refer to this as an internal neurotag because it affects other brain neurotags and neurotag. Again, we've talked about this a lot on here, but it's just this idea of neurons that fire together, wire together, and they become. When some get activated, there's a whole cascade of other neurons that are activated, and that happens all together.

Those connections are formed. And so you activate some of them, and the whole neurotag gets activated. And these internal neurotags ignite a lot of other neurotags in our brain, rather than those that are specifically about direct outward action, that would be an external neurotag. And so there's a lot happening in our brain. And depending on how many parts of a memory we recall, we may reach that activation threshold where we create the whole survival

neurotag response. So maybe one little bit of sensory stimulus or one little part of a memory wouldn't be enough to create that whole reaction. But when I have enough pieces of it, the whole survival neurotag gets pulled to the surface, and I'm experiencing that whole reaction. And depending. And that's what happens when we myelinate a threat response

and we use it again and again and again. And that's why talking about past trauma without processing it, you know, differently, without having a new outcome, to be able to process it somatically or with neurotools for regulation and create that new internal experience can lead us to being stuck in an emotional flashback or in a prolonged stress response.

And remember, we say on here a lot, what we do, we get better at that is also a neurological principle, that reaction becomes more myelinated, a more well worn path, an efficient pathway. And so you can kind of start to see here why cognitively going back and just discussing past trauma can be harmful if we're not coupling that experience with new tools to somatically process it, to

discharge the stress, to emotionally regulate. Because if we haven't learned how to do that in our body, how to express those emotions or come back to regulation physically, then when we're recreating that reaction by discussing the memory with no way to process it, we are re traumatizing ourselves. And then we're getting better and better at creating that dysregulation and the protective outputs that can result

from that. As we have this, you know, in the beginning, talking about us being multidimensional and memory being multidimensional, it's like if we're going to tackle our trauma, we have to go about that in a multifaceted way as well. And it's not that there's anything wrong with cognitive behavioral therapy. There's nothing wrong with talking to

people. But it's just one aspect of who, of what you are really as a human and what's really possible for you in healing, instead of going into something that could possibly be harmful in the end. And we're talking now about one of our favorite things, and that's about emotional processing and our emotional landscape prior to doing cognitive work. It also impacts how we recall memories. Remember that

there are two parts of the hippocampus, the top and the bottom. And when we're encoding more positive memories, that superior portion, which is closer to the frontal lobe, is more active. When we're recalling negative experiences, the bottom portion, which is closer to the brain stem, the survival part of your brain, is more active. So that's going to make a big difference. These are not just functional differences. They are a different part of the hippocampus

totally in itself. And in the research, we can see that in the recall of these memories. When someone has their frontal lobe activated and they are in a positive state of mind, then when they retell a bad memory, something from the past, it might not recall as such a bad memory, it could be a little bit more neutral, but get neutralized. So doing tools for the frontal lobe activation and nervous system regulation prior to processing memories makes it more possible to work through them and have

a different experience. And then the opposite would also be true. If someone is put into a negative emotional state and then positive memories are recalled, they're not as positive. They're not going to feel as happy. So think about when you've experienced an emotional flashback and you reflect on life. Everything seems bleak, everything is dark, and even the things that could have been experienced as joy in your life. And, you know,

I mentioned a moment ago that I'm in the vortex of trauma rewired. I'm going to immediately hang up and do some executive function training to get in the frontal part of my brain. I mean, I'm really feeling the, I'm really seeing it so differently right now. And if you also want to experience that, if you're really relating to this conversation and in the vortex like me, please join us for two free weeks on the brain based site@rewiretrial.com. dot. Yeah,

it really makes a big difference. And it's really important, too, for therapists and coaches and practitioners to have really direct ways of working with the nervous system to get fuel and activation to the frontal lobe to keep the higher order thinking systems online, because exactly like you were saying, our current emotional

state affects how we recall memories and previous experiences. So if we're going to do a bunch of, of belief work or cognitive processing or relationship counseling or even trauma processing, it is beneficial to, before doing that, work with your nervous system, work with your brain to bring yourself or your client into a more regulated, positive emotional state, especially with activating the frontal lobe. And then to also think about when do I want to do this

work? Because if I'm in a negative emotional state or I'm just depleted, I've been stressed out, my fuel supply is low, I'm

in an emotional flow flashback. It's not the best time for me to do that work because it will create negative experiences of the memory, even the things that were maybe better, like you were saying, I might then be looking at them through a different filter and not have the same feelings of pleasure or joy or connection or, like, I don't want to go into couples counseling when I'm in a state of emotional flashback or exhaustion.

It's not going to go well. And so to work through the negative hard stuff will be even harder, and recalling and exploring the good things and happy memories will be more difficult. So there's a really practical way to work with the nervous system around this work to make it more positive. NSI. And this is going to be two CTA's, kind of back to back, but realizing that we are having a listener and a practitioner here as well, like, there's a huge audience that we are speaking to.

And this is why NSI has been such a game changer in my work, in the way that I am able to work with people, just to be able to recognize what you were just saying. And it's. It's made a huge impact on, on the people that go back out into the world, you know, shout out to NSI right there. Limbic escape. Back to emotional processing. Let's get back into this brain. So, limbic escape, we've talked about it on trauma rewired several times here, but let's just define this a little bit

more for people who are just tuning into us. And so as we go into this concept a little bit further, the limbic system is a group of interconnected brain structures involving emotions, memory, and motivation. It includes the amygdala, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, and a few other regions. And when someone experiences intense stress or threat, their limbic system becomes highly active, triggering a fight or flight

response. And limbic escape is like when your brain hits the panic button and comes from interplay between other brain structures, like the hippocampus amygdala, and. And comes. Limbic escape is when your brain hits the panic button and comes from interplay between the hippocampus, amygdala and other structures of the limbic system. And there's this whole social function to the limbic system, limbic resonance is part of that. And that refers to direct communication between

individuals through limbic connections. It allows for that intuitive understanding of each other's thoughts and emotions. We talked about this all throughout season three, exploring that social synapse, how we're communicating to one another nonverbally, but through the signals that we pick up on that then impact how our limbic system responds. And it helps us to recognize others as potential

threats or as sources of safety and security. And if we have developmental trauma, our limbic system, including our hippocampus, is perceiving more threat around social interactions because. Because of those developmental experiences. And this creates more limbic escape in our relationships, not just because of physical stress, but because of those subconscious

signals. And so that is another way that trauma lives in the now and impacts our relationships currently, because our memory encoding and the processing effect that our past experiences have had on our present day responses socially, emotionally, and physically, it's a total hijacking. And contrary to the widespread myth that trauma event, traumatic events are seldom, if ever forgotten, much trauma is not remembered until something happens to bring it to the mind. And both internal and

external processes operate to keep us unaware. And to, they do that to the extent that it is not safe to disclose externally. It's not safe to know or disclose internally, even to ourselves. Yeah, memory repression is a huge issue topic for people with complex trauma. And our social context and our power disparities, as well as neurological factors, affect that encoding our ability to retrieve and understand our

memories and the reliability of those memories. So when I'm talking about social power, it's like, what is appropriate to talk about, to say out loud that attachment severing that you talked about before, and that social power not only dictates what is appropriate to say, but actually what's appropriate to remember, like, what we have that deep belief

of it's okay to remember this. And people, for example, who experience childhood sexual abuse, often don't disclose it until adulthood, but many never tell it at all. And a lot more of us don't even remember it until adulthood, or if at all. But the trauma events are still there in our body in many ways. Let's talk about somatic memory a little bit further. Like, somatic memory is so interesting, and I know it best through psychedelic experiences, actually,

and from witnessing a couple of psychedelic experiences from other people. I mean, like, what does it really mean for our bodies to remember something? And so if. If you are not, and we're going to get into this in just a few minutes, a little bit deeper of the science and more exploration explanation of this. But if you're not out of the age, where your brain would have developed for you to remember the

memory even. And even if you decide that, if your brain even decides that, oh, actually you're old enough to remember this, but am I going to let you remember it? Your body has been remembering it. Your body, it. It does remember it. Your body has been. Your nervous system has been recording everything that's ever happened to you, ever. And so before our memories get recorded,

we have somatic memory in the body. And so let's get back to how I discovered this in psychedelics, because I think the draw to psychedelic healing is, in part the. The visual aspect of what people. It's what's talked about the most people do not talk about what we are about to get into or what I'm about to talk about, because people don't talk about the experiences of the somatic journey. You only hear about the visuals. And that's very hard and confusing for someone to live out their

journey in a somatic way and have no visuals at all. In fact, I've literally never heard anyone talk about this. You know, as humans, our vision, our visual system, it sits at the top of our neural hierarchy. And our vision is the way that we trust an experience. It's the way that we trust our experience and the way that we have seen something. And when we can see something, it makes the feeling of something more real. It almost validates the way that we feel inside.

And so when we have to rely on our emotions and our experience coming from our body, relying on the feelings and the sensations coming from the body, that is harder to trust. That is much harder to trust. And part of the protective response, the patterned response, is to protect ourselves from the emotions. And so if we've had this long disconnect from our bodies, if we've been someone with chronic dissociation, you know, when.

When there's a pattern where it is dangerous to feel the emotions, to express the emotions, or when there is any danger in. Whoo, is that coming up in me or what I'm having a reaction, right? Like, this is a real time just for y'all out there to hear. Like, this is a real time response in my nervous system and in vocalizing this, this is the very first time. No one is talking about this. I rarely talk about my psychedelic somatic experience. So just being full

disclosure out there. So when there are maybe when. When our emotions are maybe dangerous to feel dangerous to express when something is unsafe, that's a major threat to our survival, our real, legitimate survival from the perspective of our brain. And so we learn to repress, we learn to suppress, and then that's dangerous and threatening, because your brain's number one priority is your safety. And so that's not just your physical safety. It

is your emotional safety. And so to feel the sensations that come from your body and trust, that is another. I mean, it is just such an important connection to develop and cultivate because there's so many people out there with complex trauma going out to heal themselves. And these deep, somatic peak experiences with psychedelics that will walk away likely feeling more suicidal, then they will feel healed because they'll have seen nothing and not be able to

connect to the feelings coming from their bodies. And so, from an NSI perspective, we work to prepare the nervous system before we go into these experiences. And this is why preparation is so crucial. Integration gets a lot more play in the world, but it is so key to prepare your body to learn safety, to learn the cues, to get into some emotional processing and really work to develop your interoceptive skills, work on the right correct toning of your. Of your vagus

nerve, and. And we look at all of the sensory input systems so that you are prepared for this full experience. It's scary af to have your psychedelic journey come on through your body before it hits your visuals, if it ever does. Well, yeah, I relate to this so much because so many of my experiences were. So many of my memories are somatic only. And so, as I've done many different types of healing, I have the experience of processing and healing in a somatic

capacity. And that was very confusing at first because, like you said, we don't trust that knowing that information in the same way that I would trust visual images or cognitive memories that I can talk about and verbalize. I had to really develop my interceptive skill and hearing, my instinct, and develop a relationship with my body where I. I trusted that memory for that processing to be

possible. And then it was so interesting. As we were researching for this episode, I really began to understand a lot more why that was. And that has to do with how we encode memories, long term memories, specifically, so our hippocampus doesn't have the ability to form enduring memories until we're about four years old. Babies and young children can only retain short term memories, but the neural pathways that encode those memories dissolve after a few weeks or months, and then the child

forgets. So this is, again, we're diving into the science a little bit. Bear with us here, but this is important for those of us who have early childhood experiences. So short term and long term memories are actually structurally different. The difference involves the activity of certain genes within those neurons of the memory pathway. So in some cells, genes are activated, and in some cells, they're dormant. So, for example, some genes

are active in kidney cells and others are active in liver cells. And genes make the proteins that perform those specific functions. So when dormant genes are activated or expressed in the cell, then the cell performs certain functions that it didn't perform before. And long term memories are created when certain dormant genes are expressed in the neurons of the memory pathway. And then these genes produce the proteins that keep the neurons in the pathway communicating with one another for a

longer period of time, maybe even a whole lifetime. And when neuron memories stay connected, the information in that pathway is retained. And so neurons in short term memory pathways don't undergo that gene expression. These neurons have a limited supply of the proteins that keep the neurons communicating with one another, and proteins eventually run out, and then the neurons no longer communicate. And that's what happens when a memory is encoded, and then the pathway

is erased. And so in an immature hippocampus, like of a child, it can't make those long term memory pathways. They don't have the genes for that expression, which is why young children can only remember short term memories about people or places or things. And it kind of blew my mind because I was like, oh, those memories do not exist. They weren't encoded. They're not there for me to retrieve. And I know that, like, nevertheless, we can be damaged by infant experiences that we can't

remember, right. We know from all of the stuff we talked about with attachment, children experience conditions that they can't remember, that harm them, and they're still harmed, even though they can't remember it. They still have those different reactions. And so we want to start to talk about, like, how do we make sense of that in terms of neuroscience? How do I understand how these experiences still impact me even if I don't have the cognitive memory? And so,

like, what I was talking about with my. My experiences, you know, a lot of my biggest adverse childhood experiences were pre verbal, and I don't have the cognitive memory, but I do remember in my body, and I relive that somatically in pain, in sensation and emotion. And when I'm connected to my body, I know what happened. But it has taken me a long time to trust that memory in my body. Because without words and cognitive memories, it's hard to make sense of. And it's been a real process to

validate my own knowing and experience. Hmm. Yeah. Yes. I mean, it's. It's a real. Another level of healing and a real. It's a real. There's no separation. There is no separation. Right. And we sometimes look at the body as something that is, like, separate from us, or we look at the mind, the body, the soul, as, like, these three major key points of us

as humans. And yes, you are those things, but, like, everything is so intrinsically linked and woven together, and there are no boundaries between the emotions of your body and the way that you are experiencing the world right now. As you even listen to this podcast. And just like we were saying, in the relationship to body episode and healing that relationship, I mean, there's a whole episode. I definitely recommend in this moment that you go back after this one and

go back to that. Go back to that. Listen. And why it's so important to heal the dissociation when. When you're on this path. Who this conversation is getting me in so many ways. It's a deep one. It's

so big. It's so big. And it's like, not like I didn't prepare for this, you know, I did, but it's like listening to it all and, like, my body is taking it in and it's having memories of truths that this is truth, you know, and like, that to be for someone like you just did, to try to put the somatic memory into words, like, my body knows that is true. My body feels seen and validated, and it automatically relaxes a little bit in the truth. And I know that I have tools.

I was just doing cranial nerve one for a moment after I did, after I was talking about the somatic psychedelic experience to regulate back in, to get grounded and present, because it's just such a big. It's a really big topic. Yeah. Yeah. It's been so powerful to heal through the body. It really has. It really has for me, too. Let's talk about some of the ways that these memories do live in our body. Yeah. One way is hormones.

Interestingly, stressful situations arouse the sympathetic nervous system to initiate the f response. Your sympathetic nervous system activates adrenal glands to produce epinephrine and adrenaline, which then cause physiological sensations to our heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, vision, and hearing. All of this to sharpen. And it's. It also activates cortisol to become alert, to convert also glucose to

energy for our skeletal muscles. And these prolonged, stressful situations, they cause lasting impacts on muscle tension that could lead to pain, could lead to decreased, decreased range of motion or muscle use, muscle atrophy. All of this is linked to disease. Diseases like heart disease, all the things we know about ace scores, all linked to disease, and most important, the overproduction of cortisol, which actually suppresses our immune system. Yeah, that's all very related to how it impacts

our HPA axis. Right? Our past experiences, especially in development, shape how our HPA axis functions. So, again, for those who haven't been listening for a long time, HPA is our hypothalamic pituitary axis. It's how our hypothalamus communicates with our pituitary gland to then release stress hormones through our adrenals. And so these experiences, they activate. They activate the HPA axis to generate a threat response. And that's what also

leads to more cortisol production. And if everything is functioning well and we also are in a safe environment where that threat can go away and we can come out of that high stress state, then those hormones should cycle back to the hypothalamus and stop that reaction. So we get activated, the hormones are released, the stress chemicals are released, and then our brain gets the signal. Okay, now resolve that and stop producing those chemicals. But if you can't escape, you can't resolve

the stress. It's that complex trauma, that developmental water that we're swimming in. Then you don't get the feedback. The cortisol feedback is unable to stop the activity of the HPA axis, and it remains an overdrive. And that can cause childhood anxiety, depression. It causes cognitive impairment, inflammation in the brain, destruction of the muscles and the blood vessels with glucotoxicity. And so

in childhood especially, it's linked to these developmental issues. But this can happen throughout our life as we stay stuck in stages of chronic stress. And another way is through opioid activity. Endogenous opioids. Under normal conditions, opioid activity depends on social relationships. If we are abandoned or neglected, opioid activity plummets. When we are with people we love, the brain

washes with endogenous opioids, and we feel joyful. If rats are separated from their mother and kept in isolation, the number of opioid receptors in the brain decreases, and they continue to be anxious into adults. People who suffer from depression and suicidal ideation have depleted opioid receptors in the brain. Addicts who suffer from lower receptors crave relief.

That opiates provide. And, you know, to further, like, to further the example of the rats separations from our mothers, it increases sympathetic nervous system activity. The hpa axis activity is sensitive, and it decreases in opioid activity. Yeah. In some ways, it's like the experience is remembered by the body because of the way that it affects the development of the nervous system in the brain. Right.

I'm shaped by these childhood experiences and then moving through the world now with a reactive nervous system, a sensitive HPA axis, decreased opioid receptors. Like, all of that is remaining in the patterns that exist in my nervous system and how it functions. And this creates the health outcomes that we see with adverse childhood experiences. The link between having more ACE scores and having higher states of mental and physical decline

or mental and physical health outcomes. And so the brain and the nervous system, remember, quote unquote, because they're actually shaped and created by these experiences that then drive our present day reactions, how we process information about the world and how we respond to stress. And so our nervous system is patterned and now reacts to the world differently. And so we really do have to teach it, because, again, I don't want everything to be so heavy and

overwhelming to people. We are. Even though this happens, we are still neuroplastic and we are still changing. When we know how to work with the system, we can create that change. We just have to be able to teach our nervous system new ways to process and express and to create regulation and safety. And we can do that through intentionally training and working with the nervous system.

Absolutely. If we can get wired, if we were wired, if we have been wired, we can get rewired and then we can have the agency of doing that ourselves. Like we, that's why NSI is, once again, is just so vital and important for everyone to understand. Like you can create. You're not stuck. You can still dream the dream, live the dreams that you are dreaming of. Like, you can create even. What if that safety means just going to the grocery store and

feeling okay about that or going to a family dinner? Like, whatever safety means for you, whatever performance or whatever you vision in your life, like that is all made possible in your nervous system. And to be able to re pattern it is like the greatest agency that one can have, honestly. Yeah. Changes how we react and how we recall memories and encode new ones. We would not be here. Yeah. The memory of using my voice would not be good. The memory of being seen and what it was

like to feel seen in my younger years, that wasn't safe. So it wouldn't be safe now to be here, seen and heard if I did not do this work through my nervous system. Yeah, we're gonna dive a little even deeper still. So I'm excited about the next part. This part is deep and something that I'm really just starting to explore, but is important when we're talking about long term health, health outcomes in our memory. And so we want to talk a

little bit about cellular health and cellular memory. So, big picture cells are these fundamental units of life. It's the basic structure, the functional unit for all living organisms. And everything is made of cells. All of me, all of you is made of cells. We have blood cells, bone cells, fat cells, nerve cells, liver cells, lymphocytes, bronchial cells, vascular cells, like

everything that's in my body is created of cells. There are about 200 different types of cells in our body, and they all work together to make our body and to contribute to our overall health and functioning. And another way that trauma impacts our body and our health is that it creates a chronic stress load that impacts our cellular health. And one of the

biggest ways that it does that is through our energy production. Because each of our cells has mitochondria, which are just these tiny little parts of our cell that are critical to our metabolic health, because they produce ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which is the primary energy currency of our body. Without efficient ATP production, we can't perform even the most basic

functions optimally. So if you think of ATP as the fuel that powers your body's engine, when your cells convert nutrients into ATP efficiently, you can maintain your energy levels, you can support body functions, you can keep your metabolic processes running smoothly. But when that process is not going well, when it falters a little bit, it can lead to metabolic dysregulation, which then has a big impact on a host of

health issues. Someone that I've been reading and listening to is Doctor Casey means, and she has a great book talking about mitochondrial health and its relevance to basically all disease states, talking about how all of our health outcomes are really impacted by our mitochondrial health, including our mental health. And so that has just a huge impact, the stress on our cells ability to produce energy and how

that impacts our immune system, chronic inflammation. And so that stress is living out in our bodies by the impact that it has on ourselves. In that way, neuropeptides and emotions also play a huge role in cell function. Tiny molecules called neuropeptides are the secret messengers of your body's communication system. Doctor Candice Pert uncovered that there are over 60 types of these neuropeptides bustling around like carriers in a busy city, connecting to every cell in our

bodies. And so think of your brain as the city's hub. These neuropath, these neuropeptides, they don't stay put. They travel far and wide. They link your brain cells, immune cells, and all of your cells, all of the other cells. And they do this through special doorways called receptor sites, delivering crucial messages from your brain to your body, and vice versa. And here's a fascinating twist to that. The type of neuropeptides that reach

your cells can change based on your emotions. Whether you're happy, sad, stressed. Your feelings dictate which neuropeptides are on the move. This emotional orchestration can impact your health, determining if you stay well or if you catch a cold. So the next time you feel your emotions shift, remember that there's like this whole world of communication happening inside of you, shaping your well being. And so our memories and our emotional experiences affect us at a cellular

level. They affect our cellular function. I want to say something real quick, too. This is where your gut health is really going to come into play, too, as we're going to explore that a later, a little later on in the season. But, like, I just want people to pin that. If they are talking about, if they're in their own gut journey right now. Pin that for the gut health discussion. Absolutely. And then even deeper and more crazy and wild to think about is that there's this whole world

of research now on cellular memory. And traditionally, memories were thought to reside only in the brain. But there is a lot of credible new research that's finding that cells throughout our body, beyond the neurons in our brain, have capacity to store and retain information. And this really challenges the conventional view of memory and expands

that understanding of memory and behavior. Because cellular memory theory says that traumatic experiences can be stored in the cells, and when we're unable to effectively process our experiences, they become stored as raw forms of cellular imprints. So unprocessed, traumatic memories can manifest in our ourselves. And then because they're there impacting our cellular memory, it impacts our mental and our

physical processes. And I just want to give some examples of this because it's strange to think about ourselves, each little individual cell having the ability to remember things. And it's not like the cell has a clear cognitive memory, just like we don't experience that somatically, but they have memories that drive the way that they function, the way that they interact with one

another. So they did some different studies on single celled organisms and how they could learn, and they found that, surprisingly, even single celled organisms could exhibit signs of memory, like, quote unquote behavior. So they had these certain types of cells called Centaur coeruleus cells. They're these little trumpet shaped single cell organisms, and they actually started to

habituate, to touch. They repeatedly poked them, and after this repeated poking, it started to contract less, less readily and remembered to be less sensitive after a few hours. So it actually changed the way that it responded to that poking. And then they also did one with paramecium that they would monitor. And it started to. I think they were putting it in something where it had to escape, and it started to improve its escape time from capillary tubes through

experience. So it was actually learning how to do that differently. And they had some paramecium that underwent sort of a pavlovian training, associating a metal wire with bacteria. And when they were, that metal wire was represented even without the bacteria. Later, they still flocked away, or they still flocked to the wire because they wanted the bacteria, which is a

form of learning. It's a form of remembering that each of our cells, the behavior of the cells, can be shaped because in this different way of understanding, they have a memory that impacts how they function.

It's really fascinating. And this is something, the water component and water holding memory, this is something that I'm just starting to explore and learn more about, because as we were having, preparing for this conversation, I told Elizabeth, I was like, I really have this feeling, this knowing, this trust in my body, that the way that cells hold on to memory is because that they are composed of water. And water holds memory like we know that now. Like water is. Oh, my gosh,

there's so much just to say about the element of water. But there are a lot of discoveries now showing that water has memory, and

we are 70% made of water. And so one could easily see to draw conclusions, that if water holds memory and we're made of water, and there's all sorts of neat, even experiments that happen from animals that are totally across the globe from each other, where one might start doing something and behaving in a particular way, and then across the world in another city, you could see that same

behavior going on. And it's because we really are, as humans, we are all connected by water, either by the water in our bodies, the water that really connects, literally, our land. And, you know, we're so uniquely made and shaped in water, in the water of our mothers. Like, everything about us is water. And so I'm not going to say too much on this topic because I know that it's just getting kind of broad, but we know that tears hold unique memories.

We've seen water studies now that you can yell at or praise your glass of water or even snowflakes now are holding memories. So we're really seeing that the ability for our own body's water hosts a complete store of information about our individual experience. It's so fascinating to think about. I love it. It makes so much sense that how would our bodies store trauma, store memory? And it's like, yeah, it lives in our tissues, it lives in our

muscles, lives here, and, like. And what's all that made of? Cells made up of water. Yeah. There's a great book, the fourth state of Water, for people who are interested in exploring this a little bit more deeply. And there's also a really interesting lady on Instagram called vedaaustin, and she does incredible experiments with water that will just. They blow your mind. Link her. Ooh, I'm gonna check it out. I'm gonna check it out.

Finally, I feel like we also have to touch on epigenetics here because this is a huge and important component of collective memory and ancestral memory. And epigenetics is really the study of changes in gene expression that do not involve alterations to the underlying DNA sequence. These changes can turn genes on or off, and they are influenced by a whole host of

environmental factors, like lifestyle choices or experiences. And essentially, epigenetics looks at how your genes interact with your environment and how this interaction affects your health and your development. But generational trauma, also known as intergenerational trauma, refers to the transmission of the effects of traumatic experiences from one generation to the

next. And this type of trauma could be both psychological and physiological, and it impacts the descendants of those who originally experienced the trauma. And a lot of this comes from the changes in the genes in the gene expression. Yeah. Generational trauma can be transmitted through, really through various mechanisms, including epigenetic changes, meaning that trauma can lead to epigenetic modifications that affect stress response, behavior, and health in descendants. Along the way,

it can affect behavioral patterns. Traumatized individuals may develop certain behaviors and coping mechanisms that are observed and adopted by their children. Family dynamics, a dysfunctional family dynamic and communicating patterns that stem from trauma can perpetuate stress and trauma across generations. How about the impact on mental health? Descendants of individuals who experience trauma may have an increase of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

And there's physical health effects. Generational trauma can also affect physical health, potentially leading to chronic diseases and altered stress responses. So epigenetics provides a biological framework for understanding how generational trauma can be transmitted. Trauma experienced by one generation can lead to epigenetic modifications that are inherited.

Trauma experienced by one generation can lead to epigenetic modifications that are inherited by subsequent generations, influencing their gene expression and potentially predisposing them to certain health conditions and behavioral

patterns. Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways that trauma can be passed one generation to the next, just like you were saying from, because we pick up on those behaviors from our primaries, because then our primaries are operating in that state of dysregulation that then shapes our nervous system and these epigenetic changes. And I feel like this is so much of what we talk about, all of the ways, ways that the nervous system is impacted and that it comes from our

primaries and that's passed down from their primaries. And generational trauma, it really, it becomes our collective memory. And this collective memory impacts our brain development, our somatic experiences, our health outcomes, our physical health. And I feel like so many of us right now, now, our listeners, you and me, our clients, people in NSI, like, this is what we're doing now. We're doing the work of moving through and re patterning that generational trauma healing for

generations. And as we have talked about on here before, as we re pattern ourselves and there's a ripple effect in the generations that come after us, but also even maybe affecting back to the generations that came before us. I definitely think so. I mean, even in, like, in the living generations, like, when I think of my mom, all the work that I do, it affects her. I come

from her. We are connected very deeply. And so in my own healing, it's affected that relationship so positively in what's, what's been possible in healing. And I really believe, like, when we go into this deeper work, we do affect the collective. It makes a difference. It makes a huge difference what you do in your healing journey and how you express

in the world. I mean, that's why we do all this nervous system work is like, for agency, for sovereignty, for healing, for full self expression, for voice, to, you know, to not live in fear and to have this deep level of discernment of truth within myself and being able to question the beliefs that live in my body. I mean, are these my beliefs?

Where do these beliefs even come from? And, like, what can I trust? And that all comes back to, like, having safety through the tools, safety through my nervous system, having a daily emotional processing practice, if that's what's necessary, but having the right tools to go into that. And. And I also love to work with people. So I a lot of times have someone else that holds space for me and that's re patterning for someone to witness my. Witness my rage or my grief.

And then to be able to watch me transmute that into a new way of being. And all of what we're talking about, this reshaping, it takes a daily, consistent practice. It's not just about

doing it this week. And even with psychedelic experiences, which people are so called to, yeah, you can get a lot in one session, but it's going to really matter what you do in the weeks later coming, especially when it comes to neuroplasticity and getting back to, if we are able to wire, we are able to rewire, and that's going to take effort. It's beautiful and big and scary at times. Yeah, I'm almost like at a loss for words, the magnitude of all of this that we talk

about. And it's such a gift to be in a community, be with you, be with our clients, other practitioners that are thinking about these things, processing, doing this work. And I just want to say, too, it's possible for anyone, like you were saying, if we can wire, we can rewire. And there's lots of different types of practitioners and lots of different

modalities of healing. Allow yourself to be witnessed, allow yourself to be held and received as you go through some of this, and also work with your nervous system, because it's really important to have the capacity for all these other types of healing practices. I mean, there's an incredible wealth of practitioners. There's a whole database on the neurosomatic intelligence website that you can connect to. Yeah, there's all the resources that we have for you will be in the, will be in the show

notes. And like I said, I'm go out there and do some infinity walks and add some executive fun training to that. Yes, I see more and more through this conversation, like how important it is to work with the frontal frontal lobe. Yeah. So you guys, thank you so much for sticking with us. Sticking with us. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice.

We often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics that do with complex developmental and systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call 911. For specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the show notes.