Memory – It’s Not in Your Nervous System
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- #abuse, #cenfp, #coercivecontrol, #correctingabusivelies, #costofdeception, #emotionalgranularity, #emotionsareconstructed, #heaingisn’tinournervoussystem, #liarliarpantsonfire, #lies #deception #classifyinglies, #lietoprotectabuse, #manipulation, #mensprogram, #moralandethicaltruths, #noexcusefordeception, #painisnotinournervoussystem, #powerandcontrol, #targetedpartnerabuse, #thebigfatenormouslie, #therapyabuse, #thoughtsmatter, #trauma, #truthishealing, #understandingthemind, #understandingthenervoussystem, #victimblaming, #weaponizedability, #weaponizedaddiction, #weaponizedcoercion, #weaponizedfinancialmanagement, #weaponizedgenderroles, #weaponizedincompetence, #weaponizedpowerlessness, #weaponizedpscyhology, #weaponizedshame, #weaponizing, #weaponizingempathy, #weaponizinghealing
Why Some Processes for Healing are Harmful, not Helpful.
In last week’s edition on healing, we made the following comment,
“Memory and pain are not in the body, or the nervous system” (Coach Joi)
This week, we’ll address this more thoroughly to hopefully set straight some of the confusion that occurs when we use social media as our main board of mental health education resources .
Let’s get into it.
The Body Doesn’t Keep Track (Score) of Pain
Have you come across this graphic or ones like it?
These types of charts attempt to help people see where in the body emotional pain resides, and what some of those implications might be.
Many so-called authority-type influencers on social media often talk about how our nervous system over-reacts, needs to be regulated, or that we must somehow ‘befriend’ our nervous system. In addition to social media, there are countless books on the topic of releasing trapped emotions.
The truth is, our nervous system is NOT an alarm system with a memory, like an elephant, that needs to be coddled like a child to be efficient. Rather, we have a solid system that works via a process of predicted construction.
Pain is NOT stored or tracked via the nervous system – neither is memory!
Your Body is Not a Map of Painful Experiences
Stubbornness and pride are not stored in the knees anymore than your gut holds all your fear and anxiety.
Pain is in your head!
This isn’t a pejorative statement. It is a statement about how our brains and bodies work. The body is a communication system integrated with the brain. Metaphorically, we can view the brain as a master controller, funneling the necessary electricity and chemicals, like sodium, glucose, etc. to the body when needed. The brain’s main responsibility is to keep you alive (not safe!).
It is your brain that knows about pain and where the signal of pain originated. If you twist your ankle walking in worn out shoes, you might think the pain is in that joint, but it is actually in your brain.
Unfortunately – this is NOT the information you will acquire if you go to your favorite social media influencer. In fact, if you have a few textbooks around your place (like we do) from your undergrad or graduate courses – you might not find any more clarity on the topic.
This is the problem – even when leading neuroscientists have been saying otherwise for decades – old, and incorrect information continues to permeate, confuse, and even brainwash people.
Currently Understood Neuropsychology
Emotions are not pre-packaged properties sealed up and stored inside the body waiting for release. They are not sensations, either. They are, in fact, dynamic constructions the brain actively generates by integrating sensory input, past experience, and contextual prediction.
What is believed to be “felt” is not a hardwired reflex but an interpretive act. It is environmental cues coupled with signaling that we’ve been making sense of all of our lives.
It’s not like our favorite movie on feelings either — though we all still love to watch them.
Your Nervous System Doesn’t “Remember”
The mind holds the iterations of your whole lived experience and the predicted and constructed meaning you made of those experiences (true and false) over the years. It is not in your nervous system – held independently of your brain.
When an experience is recalled, it is not “remembered” in the way that we often think – as if a file is pulled from your grand neural-file-cabinet. Instead, thoughts and experiences are reassembled.
Reassembly of experience is the brain’s preparation for the body to move or respond from a similar action or to update that action to a current meaning. You are more in control of this process than you might believe.
You are the controller of your mind.
What Does all This Mean for Victims of Targeted Partner Abuse
Having an accurate understanding of how our mind and body works is critical to our ability to heal. Just like having the correct pieces of a pattern when sewing an article of clothing, we need the correct pieces of information for the healing process to be effective when we experience on-going abuse.
This means we need to be careful that we do not attempt to employ every type of theory or model of therapy searching for relief from trauma or life’s overwhelming conditions or people. There are many models that can be harmful, especially when used without an accurate understanding of what is happening inside the brain and nervous system.
There are a lot of things that have the potential to help people deal with the problems we face in life. (Including placebos – of which many have helped more than the drugs they were up against in trial.) When we believe these various resources to be helpful – they will be. The mind is that powerful.
Tools from Center for Peace
The support and tools offered at Center for Peace provide a framework for each individual’s well-being. We are not parts, we do not have an inner child or attachment wounds to heal (contrary to a great deal of noise out there).
We will not progress well in this life by learning to be emotionally intelligent or regulate our nervous system.
All of the quaint folk quips sound great on the surface, but they are full of false ideologies that are not accurate in what they are implying. Through a careful evaluation of yourself, and the world around you, and a few of the tools we share in our courses and Micro Experiences at Center for Peace, we can help you live your best life – even when the world around you (and the people in it) are weighty and problematic.
Peace and safety are not a state to achieve. They are strengths we build in our minds that bubblewrap us for the kind of world we live in.
Progress and healing happen when we learn to use the signals of our brain and body, and teach ourselves how to employ resources that fit our individual needs. Even with the similarity of our experience with “Targeted Partner Abuse©,” we are all unique individuals who heal differently.
For more information, please email us a Center for Peace
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Coach Joi
As the Program Director at Center for Peace, Coach Joi brings her extensive credentials and experience in abuse counseling to empower individuals overcoming abuse. With a compassionate approach, she focuses on restoring dignity and self-worth, drawing from her deep understanding of relational dynamics. Her commitment to fostering peace and autonomy in relationships is at the heart of her impactful guidance.
