A time in your life where someone was mean to you?

Or you felt ignored?

Or you got in trouble and felt a lot of shame around making a mistake?

Maybe you had a lot of expectations or responsibilities placed on you that weren't age appropriate?

Do you ever face situations currently in your life that bring you back "to that one time when..." [insert a memory from when you were little and something negative or overwhelming happened]?

Yeah, me too.

When this memory activation is connected with a rise in stress, anxiety, or whatever your fight and flight response is, this is often referred to as "being triggered".

Have you ever noticed how those memories are tied to beliefs or meanings that we created either about ourselves ("I'm not good enough", "I'm too much", "I don't deserve love", "I need to be perfect") or about the world ("People aren't safe", "I can't trust others", "I have to do things alone", "They are better than me", "People always let me down")? Or it could be completely different than the examples I listed...

You might have never noticed this, and that's also normal. Or perhaps you have noticed that inner critic, or you are aware of the part of you that holds onto fear and keeps you playing small, but have never fully understood where it came from.

This is the unconscious part of the Carl Jung quote above. And as human beings we are meaning making machines. Assigning meaning especially to stressful or overwhelming situations is one way that our brain helps us survive. It's just that sometimes the meaning we assign to the event isn't always helpful or true.

As children, the meaning or beliefs we created became the coping mechanisms that helped us to survive our environments. As adults, those coping mechanisms and beliefs no longer serve us and we get stuck in living in old patterns and can't understand why nothing is changing, despite our best efforts.

All of this happens on an unconscious level, at the nervous system level. And our nervous system always wins... our bodies literally cut out our thinking brain from the equation when a stressful memory gets triggered. Our nervous system goes on full alert, and we're back to trying to re-regulate once again.

And we do this over and over and over again.

...until we bring the unconscious into the conscious awareness and neutralize that stored emotional memory.

When we bring these old stories to light, when we process old traumas, process stuck emotional memories, and free our nervous systems from these triggers, then and only then can we reclaim our agency and our power to finally be in control of our lives and move forward to create the life we actually want.

This is the key to staying present and staying connected to our bodies.

I have spent hundreds of sessions helping people do just this, and the results have been truly life changing.

The results may not be in-your-face obvious... but they are lasting, and they are significant.

It's the difference of having a sharp rock in your shoe - it constantly reminds you that it's there because it's always poking you. But after you remove it and your foot has healed, there's nothing there to remind you that it used to be there and you forget it was even there. You now get to walk with ease and joy, and can focus on the things that matter, instead of constantly being reminded about the pain of the past. You still have the memory that at one point you had a rock in your shoe, but there's no longer any pain or discomfort associated with that memory.

This is how you know you have released that stuck emotion or belief from your body.

If this resonates with you, and you're ready to begin this journey for yourself, book a free session and let's chat! I have lots of options for getting started, and we can find the path that is just right for you.

*While I typically work long-term with people to do a full clear-out all the stuff hiding in their nervous system, I can also spend just a few sessions with you if you have a specific event that is especially troubling you that you can't seem to let go of. I'm here to meet you where you are, and I'd love to chat! Talk to you soon.