To cope with the intense sensations and emotions of trauma, the survival brain fragments the experience into “memory capsules”.
In highly stressful times, a memory is stored below the level of conscious awareness in the survival brain. Due to the stress arousal the thinking brain is offline so conscious memory of the event is vague - certain sensory details can be etched into memory with clarity and others may be forgotten. Memory capsules can be fragments of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch. They can be bodily sensations, feelings and emotions such as strong anxiety, anger or the energy of helpless shut-down.
Memory capsules remain active and vulnerable to getting triggered until there is a complete recovery from the old stress activation. The survival brain will project the ongoing stress activation it perceives in the mind-body system, onto the present moment. It loses the ability to differentiate between the past and the present so it cannot learn and adapt, and the body and nervous system will continue to respond as if this event was happening today.
An activated capsule taints the present moment and your ability to respond to the here and now. Anxiety over something at work could trigger a memory capsule that things are going to fall apart again, even though there’s no threat. Your heart may race, you may feel reactive and have intrusive thoughts. The survival brain is trying to respond in the same way it did to the original traumatic event and complete recovery. The body and nervous system don’t understand that the event is actually in the past – but instead continue to mobilise stress arousal to cope with this misperception of an ongoing threat.
A cue today may cause dissociation where you leave the present moment – this may cause an interruption to the concept of time, making you feel spacey and disconnected from your body and what’s going on around you. When there’s conflict you may automatically internalise the situation as your fault and be overwhelmed by shame and hopelessness. You may feel numb, disconnected and withdraw. Whether it’s anxiety or dissociation, memory capsules affect your ability to attune to the present moment and take you back to the past.
It is essential that the unresolved activation locked in the nervous system be discharged and recovery of the stress arousal take place for the survival brain to learn and adapt.
This transformation has nothing to do with talking about the memory or thinking about what happened - it has to do with the process of completing the stress response and your survival instincts.
When your body and nervous system learn to come back to the present by completing the stress activation from the past, the capsule can dissolve. You return to wholeness when your nervous system is able to respond to what’s happening today, in this moment, rather than living in the past. This helps you return to freedom and spontaneity in your relationships, your work and your entire sense of being.
Your resilience expands each time you learn to return to regulation. Your ability to cope with anxiety, conflict and demands all increases, and you find true freedom when you’re no longer responding physiologically to the past. With each round of recovery your ability to meet life’s demands expands and a world of new possibility opens.
Through what you experience today you can teach your nervous system a new way of existing, despite what you learnt in your past. You can experience the present moment without the layers of past memories.
Learn more in the upcoming Vagus Nerve Masterclass