The memories stored in our bodies
Your body is a storehouse for survival and the sacred.
It has taken a great deal of time for me to understand that the body and our memory are intrinsically linked. It sounds like an obvious concept but when you have grown up in a culture that preaches a kind of self-mastery of the mind, it suddenly makes it seem so separate from the body.
Not one in union or in sync with the other. Nobody talks much about the idea that you can train and harness your mind so much as to create new neural pathways and mindsets, but you still cannot escape the loaded emotionally charged territory that is the body.
Just when you think you are beyond old patterns and behaviours, you realize you are yet again entering uncharted waters. The recurring memories from childhood manifest in your body, often without any warning appearing out of nowhere. Suddenly, you find yourself living out remnants of the past in your body, often unconsciously.
The fear, panic and maybe even that familiar sense of feeling unsafe and feeling the need to withdraw in places or with people, it can all happen without being aware or fully realizing it.
‘According to psychoanalytic theory, it is the ‘unrepresented’ past in particular (‘undigested facts’ from unprocessed somatic experiences that is replicated in bodily symptoms and re-enacted in interactions with other people.’ - Dr. Wilfred Bion
So much of these responses can be involuntary and occur out of nowhere. I remember the countless times I found myself apologizing relentlessly to people, perhaps even friends for things that did not even warrant an apology. I realized years later this stemmed from years of what I now understand to be parental manipulation, the times I was blamed for situations during my childhood that was not my fault and being forced to apologize.
What also came to my attention was the familiar fatigue and stomach churning that you will be all too familiar with, if you have experienced high anxiety. A few months ago I went to visit my dad and as I walked through the front door, it smacked me in the gut. That clenching inside that steals your appetite but also makes you want to vomit.
Your chest fighting against this ever-tightening corset, that serves as a reminder to be submissive. Meanwhile, the quake continues to rumble in your body, it’s disorientating. In your mind you struggle to understand why after all these years you could be feeling these emotions with the same force and sharpness with which they came before.
As far as your body is concerned you have yet again entered behind enemy lines, because its not ancient history, but rather your present reality.
I have come to understand the body as a storehouse for our emotions and the memories associated with them. With deep caverns and ravines that hold some of our deepest, darkest sensory experiences. Time passage and emotional processing for the body is different than that of the mind. It is more gradual, where the body tries to re-learn and re-programme memories, particularly those memories that are traumatic.
Trauma Recovery Specialist Dr. David J. Ebaugh writes:
‘Memories are actually now understood as fragile and are subject to alterations when then they are recalled and brought up into short-term memory. Said a different way, as this is an important point, the process of recalling memories into our short-term memory makes our memories “unstable” and subject to change—until they are once again “consolidated” and placed once back again into our “stable” long term memory.
During this stage of recall, at cellular level, certain neurons can literally grow new branch connections to other neurons. So—because our memories are fragile and subject to alterations, memory can be “edited” and rebuilt so that healing happens. That is memory reconsolidation in therapy.’
I find this concept of memory being ‘rebuilt’ intriguing and hopeful, given so much of our experiences can feel final, as though they have no place to go. As though they are perpetually stuck in a kind of limbo state. This practice of memory reconsolidation being an aid on the road to healing, re-framing past experiences, not to forget them but to allow us to move forward and not feel bound by them is liberating.
How can faith help with memory?
Faith has helped me to understand that God sees memories differently to us, primarily because He sees it all through a lengthened eternal lens, over our finite one. He sees all and knows all. He knows exactly how our bodies react to people and places, even before they have occurred. As Psalm 139:1-4 says:
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
It’s comforting to know that God sees each moment as it passes, every lingering thought, every word before it’s even spoken. Every memory that lives on in your body, the good, the bad and the ugly.
I have come to understand that there is such peace in knowing that we are not lone observers to our hurt, our anger, our hopelessness, our uncertainty; because God is alongside us.
We get to experience the peace that Jesus left for us because through his sacrifice, taking on the corruption of the world, it is left at the cross as a memory of the time before. Through the price Jesus paid, we are no longer slaves to the fearful times before, because it is pardoned and forgotten.
The resurrection gives us the gift of not just redemption, but protection in our walk with God. That includes our memory. God never forgot to raise Jesus back to life and so you can rest assured He will never forget you and all the intimate details of your life. I like to think of this as a kind of sacred remembering. Something that happens repeatedly over the course of our lives.
God’s remembrance and knowledge of every facet of our being, every feeling stored in our bodies is in effect a healing balm of sorts. As we trust Him with our past, present and also our future.
I may still be processing some of these bodily memories and though they cast a shadow at times on my present reality, I know that God is giving me a peace in knowing He is shouldering the weight. God has a mysterious way of reshaping our memories, bringing beauty out of brokenness and abundance out of scarcity.
For our names are written in the book of life, we will never be forgotten or forsaken.
‘The righteous will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.’ (Psalm. 112:6–7).
Praying for peace in your week
Georgie x
Resources
Gentsch A, Kuehn E. Clinical Manifestations of Body Memories: The Impact of Past Bodily Experiences on Mental Health. Brain Sci. 2022 May 3;12(5):594. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12050594. PMID: 35624981; PMCID: PMC9138975.
Bion W.R. Learning from Experience. Heinemann Medical Books; London, UK: 1962.