Episode 16: Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgot

In this episode we talk about why the nervous system holds onto experiences from childhood, especially when you grew up in a chaotic, unpredictable, or emotionally unsafe home, and how those stored responses show up in your everyday life decades later. We also get into what rewiring actually looks like in real time. 

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Transcript

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Have you ever wondered why you respond to things that shouldn't feel like a threat, but do? Welcome back to Breaking the Cycle, a podcast about unpacking your roots and rewriting your story. Have you ever been doing the most ordinary thing and your body responds like you're in danger? Maybe you're at the grocery store and it's just another typical Tuesday. You're getting your groceries and you smell something, and all of a sudden you freeze, you notice your heart starts racing, you start sweating. Maybe you're having a conversation with a new partner and you notice their voice just changing a little bit. And all of a sudden, you notice that you're completely shut down, you're no longer even speaking, and your partner is asking, What's wrong? And you might not even know what's wrong. Maybe you're at a coffee shop with an old friend having a conversation, and all of a sudden you get a rush of anxiety. Something is happening in these ordinary moments that feels like a threat, but it's not. It's our bodies remembering. You may not remember much of your childhood, and a lot of people don't, especially those who grow up in a chaotic household where you are constantly scanning the room, checking for people's moose to change, bracing yourself for the next thing to happen. When a child's environment is chaotic and dysfunctional and dysregulated like that, their brain goes into survival mode. And in survival mode, storing memories is nearly impossible. But you might not remember them in your brain, but your body remembers them in how you respond to things today. So that could be in a smell, that could be in a sound, that could be in a touch, somebody the way somebody touches you. It could be in any way that your senses are ignited. And again, when your body is responding to things that initially shouldn't feel like a threat, but do, this is your body's remembering, remembering, going all the way back. So this episode is an invitation for you to just acknowledge the next time you notice a response of how your body is responding, whether it's a freeze, whether it's anxiety, whether it's sweating, whether it's numbness, pay attention to your body. Numbness is also a feeling, a feeling of disconnecting. And when that disconnection first started, you could have been a very small child. So next time you have that freeze response or have that anxiety come up, or have the sweaty palms, I want you to ask yourself, how old do I feel in this moment? When was the first time I felt this way? Take yourself back. You might visualize yourself in your bedroom, your family house, outside, some type of abuse happening. What was happening to you when your body felt that very first time, that very first survival response? As I said earlier, our minds that might might not remember what our bodies do. I'm getting like chills just thinking about this right now because I can tell you so many times, and it still happens today, there could be a smell, a sound, a touch, and I'm just taken aback to a certain time in my life. And I also want to say that when this happens, it's so important for us to be compassionate, compassionate to ourselves and know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. This is our body's way of sending messages to us saying, hey, we need to feel safe right now. And we've never felt safe before. So how do we build and rewire our system after that actually happens to us? After we're responding in a way that takes us back to our childhood in a home that was chaotic, dysfunctional, uh, where we were constantly bracing ourselves for the next thing to happen. That happens in healthy relationships. We can only do so much healing by ourselves, alone reading books, listening to podcasts, walking in nature, connecting with nature, um, doing art therapy kind of on our own, in the sense that we're like self-healers, just doing everything by ourselves. The real rewiring happens in relationships because that initial disconnection, that initial wound where our bodies were in that state of freeze, of feeling like somebody is attacking you, that happened with another person. So, in order for you to rewire your nervous system, your body has to feel safe in an environment in a healthy, safe relationship. And I want to invite you to take a look at the, let's say, top five people that you are allowing yourself to connect with on a daily basis. Do they make you feel like you could be a hundred percent yourself, safe in your body? Or do they make you feel like you have to shrink yourself, or do you feel like they are getting more from you than you are getting from them? And maybe that is a pattern that you've noticed a lot in your friendships. When you're on this healing journey, a lot of times you end up being alone. And being alone is not a bad thing. When you're alone and you have no friends, you can just connect with yourself. And I know that I was alone for a really long time before I started gathering people that I felt 100% safe with. It's better to be alone and not have any friends than have friends who you feel like you have to change yourself and not feel quote unquote safe, because this is all about rewiring your nervous system to allow you to feel safe being you without feeling like you have that constant threat happening. And people who grew up in a chaotic home where there was that constant threat where you were always bracing, that didn't just affect you in your childhood. So you could be a super successful person doing financially well, but you could be having trouble sleeping, you could be having addiction problems, issues scrolling with your phone, really disconnected from yourself. Or maybe you're actually somebody who just lives from the neck up and you don't even understand what's happening in your body. You know that maybe you have digestive issues, maybe you have, maybe as a woman, you have really bad periods or lower back pain, hip pain. Our bodies are constantly talking to us. But back to that reaction that we get when something actually happens to us. So the first noticing, before you can even change anything, you have to be able to notice and see it. So when the reaction happens, when it actually starts, your heart starts tracing, your palms start sweating, you distance yourself from it. And as I said, when is the first time this happened? I think we go on with our life so quickly that you might have noticed the reaction, but you're not pausing, and then you judge yourself. If you grew up in a critical household where mom or dad was constantly judging you, critiquing you, criticizing you, I can guarantee you that you've inherited their internal dialogue and have made it your own. So, what I want you to do is take note of that, that judgmental voice was something you inherited. It is not yours. Throw that shit in the garbage because this piece right here about rewiring your system, as I said, it's very important to have healthy relationships where you can be 100% yourself. But most importantly, you have to be compassionate to yourself. Would you be critiquing, judging, criticizing somebody who was maybe startled while you were having coffee with them at the coffee shop? Maybe you saw somebody at the grocery store and like frozen and they look really scared. Would you be like, What the fuck's wrong with you? Would you say that to their face? So why the in the world would you say that to yourself? You might not remember your childhood, but your body does. And the way that you respond to ordinary moments that feel like danger doesn't mean anything is wrong with your body. It's just a memory that was stored a very, very old, loyal, very exhausted memory that has been trying to keep you safe for a very long time. So, in closing, when your body responds to things that feel like a threat, but shouldn't pause, distance yourself from what just happened, and get curious about it. How old does this part feel? Send that young part of you compassion because obviously you've never felt safe before, and that part of you is just waiting for you to connect with it. You might be surprised because some emotions could be happening, so you could start crying. Please don't judge yourself for whatever comes up for you. This is you connecting with the younger versions of you that are just waiting for you to listen to them, for you to understand them, for you to finally come home to yourself. If you're ready to do this work in community, this is exactly the reason why I created Breaking the Cycle membership. It's essentially group therapy for women who really want to come home to themselves, who are raised by emotionally unavailable mothers. In this container, we're going to be having live group coaching once a week, and then we'll be talking about a topic once a week. It'll be a discussion where we will all be able to interact with each other, and then there'll be 24-hour text message support. This is only $79 a month, and I'm keeping the container really small because I want it to feel safe. This is not a program with dozens of modules and lessons that you will be overwhelmed with. This is a live program where you will get access to me two days a week and the group container where you'll be in a safe container with other women who are doing the work and connecting, genuinely connecting to themselves. I'll leave a link in the description if you want to learn more. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I will see you next time.