In this episode, I introduce my concept of “body memories” - stressful events which get written into the body and can add up to symptoms. Tremors, stiffness, and anxiety are common examples of symptoms caused by body memories.
I have successfully worked with clients to address body memories to remove many more exotic symptoms, such as burning mouth syndrome. Academic science is also beginning to take an interest in this concept, especially how body memories are formed and get embedded.
Instead of focusing on what we cannot do, why not focus on what we CAN do and that is to reduce all stress and body memories.
Here is a link to my best result - a client that got rid of his Parkinson’s diagnosis after removing a handful of body memories.
Transcript for video
I talk a lot about trauma, and these traumas I want to rephrase them so the name is “body memories” instead, because body memories cover both big and minor traumas. We know a trauma from an accident or if someone teased you in school or your cousin was violent when you were a child or something like that, we remember that.
It can also be a spider you got afraid of then you caught a phobia. We call that a trauma but it can also be a more subtle thing, e.g. that someone excludes you from a group, or you didn't want to interact with a girl dancing, because you have been let down too many times.
These body memories have a root somewhere in your body and you know it because when you look at old photos you can be happy when you see a photo, but you can also be sad or angry, and why is that?
That's because this memory is associated with some feelings.
Most people are aware of that but if you take it one step further, this knowledge, these body memories can become so strong that we call it a symptom.
So when you get butterflies in your stomach when you think about an upcoming exam, it's a symptom, it's not a big one but if you several times have been let down then this body memory becomes bigger and bigger, and in the end, we call it a symptom.
By changing this view of symptoms into actually being body memories that are flaring up every time something happens, then symptoms start to become more natural, you can look at them in another way than just being caused by genetics or as random.
There's nearly always a root cause in you digging into these body memories or traumas.
Most people have not only one trauma in their life, but they have a lot of traumas and if you include these body memories, they have maybe 50 or 100 small and big body memories, small and big traumas.
To illustrate that we communicate so well via metaphors, we can use this metaphor that your trauma is a forest. Every single body memory is a tree, and to stay in this metaphorical world, we want to cut all these traumas - these body memories so, in the end, you can see the sun behind the forest. So removing one tree, or one body memory after the other, your life gets easier and easier.
When I coach people I ask them which symptoms are present at the moment we are sitting together. They tell me about it, and that symptom is my key to how to address the underlying root cause or body memory.
Body Memories and Trauma