C (4:27)

Yeah, for sure. And I think before we go into somatic memory, because that is just so deep. And so there are so many ways this memory encoding and retention can be shaped and changed by trauma, especially during our development. While our brains are wired to remember experiences important to survival, under some circumstances, survival may be assisted by forgetting, Right? As children, we depend on our adult caregivers, our primaries, our parents. And it can be to the advantage of our survival to forget traumatic experiences that we could have had to. Had to survive. And the value of having to preserve our attachment bond, right, Our real survival, it's 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 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. Like that's a pretty standard normal output.

B (5:48)

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 so it has all this interplay with all these other limbic 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. 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 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.

C (7:56)

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. 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 desktop and then neutrally taking it in. When we recall a neurotag or a memory, it activates the physical, emotional. And 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.

B (8:47)

Yeah, this to me, is super interesting because it's not like I'm just seeing a memory on a screen. This information is going out into all different parts of my brain, and they're actually processing it 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. 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, you know, issues with our visual processing, our auditory processing, that could affect how we recall a memory and increase the threat load when that memory is recalled. 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 that's what happens when we myelinate a threat response, and we use it again and again and again.

C (10:13)

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 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. 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.

B (12:03)

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 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, 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 crawled in on itself and I was really reacting and it was just like I was excited 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 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.

C (15:07)

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 gonna get into, is just so important. And the understanding of somatic memory has really helped to shape me as a space holder. And for someone who does work in altered spaces of consciousness has been really. It's been really life changing. It's. It's a really new way of understanding, of trusting ourselves. Right.

B (15:46)

Of deepening that relationship with the body in this whole new way. When you understand somatic memory and what your body is communicating to you, and developing that trust of what's real coming from your body and being able to, to hear that, to respond to it and to validate it in a lot of ways is. Is really powerful.

C (16:07)

You have it where it's like directly it from this vision. It looks like it's like the top of it is going right into your mouth. Is that the way that you have it? You want to have it so that. Yes, say things with peace. 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? 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 visual aspect of. 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. 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, like, literally never heard anyone talk about this. And so, 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 our. 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, when there's a pattern where it is dangerous to feel the emotions, to express the emotions, or when there is any danger in.

B (18:37)

Is.

C (18:37)

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, 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. 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 in these deep, somatic peak experiences with psychedelics that will walk away likely feeling more suicidal than 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, 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 we look at all of the sensory input systems so that you are prepared for this full experience.

B (20:36)

Yeah, I relate to this so much because 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 interoceptive 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 4 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. 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 memory 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 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, 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, in 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. Yeah, 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. Let's talk about some of the ways that these memories do live in our body.

C (25:09)

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 sensitivity sensations to our heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, vision and hearing. All of this to sharpen. And 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 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.

B (26:08)

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. 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, 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 in 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 states of chronic stress. 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, 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. 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 cells. And then, because they're there, impacting our cellular memory, it impacts our mental and our physical processes. And it's strange to think about our cells, 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.

C (30:53)

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. And 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 by subsequent generations, Influencing their gene expression and potentially predisposing them to certain health conditions and behavioral patterns.

B (32:15)

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 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, our listeners, you and me, our clients, people in nsi, 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 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 and the gene expression. 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 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 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.

C (36:23)

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. 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.

B (36:59)

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 non verbally, but through the signals that we pick up on that then impact how our limbic system responds. 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 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.

C (38:19)

And contrary to the widespread myth that 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 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.

B (38:48)

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 to 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.

C (39:53)

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. 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.

B (40:39)

One can have, honestly. Yeah, it changes how we react and how we recall memories and include new ones.

C (40:48)

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.

D (41:07)

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 deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional. 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.