by Dr. John Veltheim
Memory can be stored actively or passively in the bodymind. When the memory is passive, we remember and store experiences as simple memory traces in the mind. The stronger or more interesting the memories, the easier it is to recall them. Passive memory is a healthy normal function of the body and the desirable situation.
Active memory is a state where we store the memory with an emotional charge. This occurs when we haven’t fully synthesized the emotional content of the experience. Our body then stores the emotion in the fascia of the muscles or connective tissue at a location in concordance with the bioenergetic nature of the body. For example, fear relates to the kidney meridian which, in turn, relates to several muscles and areas of the body. An unsynthesized fearful experience, therefore, will be stored in one of those related areas. In the case of fear (kidneys) it could be the psoas muscle or the ligaments around the knee.
An example of this would be a car accident. Two scenarios can occur.
- The person may synthesize their emotions and fully recover.
- A person may have a car accident that was very traumatic and, because of various factors going on at the time, never had a chance to fully synthesize the emotional associations.
Ten years later the person in the first scenario can recall or talk about their accident as simple memory and a description of an event that was traumatic in their life but is now only a memory.
The second scenario is very different. In this case, the person will be emotionally traumatized by the recall of the accident. When talking about it, they may still experience fear, anxiety, grief, anger, or whatever emotions were involved at the time. In other words, their memory is active and associated with stored emotional trauma. When the thought process of the accident is initiated, the brain links the thought to the stored emotion.
Whenever this happens the body is stressed, especially in any areas associated with the accident.
For example, they may have injured their knee in the accident. Whenever the trauma is reactivated, the knee may undergo pathological change inducing pain and discomfort in the weeks thereafter.
In more serious scenarios, the active memory is unconscious. In these cases, the patient’s bodymind is not consciously aware of the memory associations. Whenever they see and or hear about an accident, or even watch one in a movie, their subconscious mind triggers the emotional association, and the person feels anxiety, fear, etc. that they cannot explain in relation to their current circumstances. Furthermore, many symptoms may suddenly flare up (such as the knee mentioned earlier), and they cannot find reasons for the occurrence at that point in their life.
People collect a smorgasbord of active memories in a lifetime that collectively compounds any health problem they have. These problems will eventually create health issues in a patient who seems to have no particular reason for getting sick at that point in their life.
The sickness can be mental or physical and may be simply triggered by watching a movie that portrayed an event similar to a painful subconscious memory stored in the patient’s bodymind.
A typical case was Jennifer who presented with depression, general aching in the body, fatigue and a feeling of severe body weakness.
Using the BodyTalk system of diagnosis, we established that the physical cause was depleted adrenals and a mild chronic virus. However, it was also establish that this was not the primary cause of Jennifer’s problems, just the ‘symptoms’ the body was manifesting to ‘explain’ the disease.
The primary cause was narrowed down to her childhood abuse. Again, using the BodyTalk system, we determined that this illness manifested a few days after she watched a movie depicting a father beating his child!
The etiology of the disease was:
- The child was abused and never fully resolved the emotional factors involved even though her relationship with the father was currently ‘normal’.
- The emotional memory was stored in the body and triggered subconsciously by the scene in the movie.
- Stressful emotions were released creating physiological changes in the body that weakened the immune system (virus), depressed the heart emotions (depression), and weakened the adrenals (tiredness). Because the emotion was trying to emerge and not being recognized by the mind, the body diverted it into generalized pain. (Many pains are simply the body’s way of diverting focus so that we do not experience emotional trauma.)
- The physical treatment of the symptoms could have given the patient a temporary reprieve. Many times, however, the symptoms do not disappear fully and/or they return quickly, unless the original emotional trauma is resolved.
- By using the BodyTalk Emotional Synthesis Therapy (EST) we were able to disconnect the link between the brain and the stored active emotional memory. An emotion will only be stored when it is ‘fed’ by underlying thought patterns. Once you cut off the supply of thought energy from the brain, the emotion loses its support system and dissolves.
- Once the emotional basis was cleared, the patient recovered fully in about three days.
The BodyTalk EST system is very simple. It involves use of kinesiological muscle testing to ask the body what is happening. Because it works at the level of the subconscious mind, the patient does not even need to remember the specific emotional traumas. Once isolated, the BodyTalk treatment involves connecting three trigger points on the head with the fingers, doing specific eye movements, and tapping the head and sternum lightly to cause the brain to disassociate from the active memory. The process takes around two minutes and often only one treatment is required to clear an active memory and bring about lasting health changes on the physical and mental/emotional levels.
In another case, Pam suffered severe recurring headaches over a period of about four months. She would often have them three or four times a week. Chiropractic care helped significantly because they seemed to stem from tension in her neck and jaw.
BodyTalk diagnosis located the tension area and then determined that the primary problem was emotional—to do with her relationship with her daughter. It was traced back to strong guilt feelings. When she was pregnant with her daughter, she was having enormous financial burdens and a strained relationship with her husband. He was angry that she was pregnant because of the burden it would place on them. In desperation she attempted a home abortion. It was unsuccessful and she ended up having the child and deriving great joy from her.
Deep down, however, the subconscious guilt she felt was enormous. So, I asked why she only started manifesting the headaches now? The answer was simple. Her daughter was now six months pregnant and having relationship problems with her husband. The tension in the neck and jaw was triggered when the daughter announced the pregnancy five months earlier.
The triggering occurred subconsciously. Once the memory was activated and the traumatic emotional content dissolved using BodyTalk, the neck and jaw tension and associated headaches disappeared permanently overnight. She later recalled that every headache started after a conversation with her daughter, although she didn’t make the connection at the time.
Another case involved Mark who had a multitude of food intolerances. He had a list of foods that upset his digestive system and triggered many allergic responses in him. The problems started in his early twenties, and Mark was now thirty-two.
The BodyTalk diagnosis determined that his case was emotionally based and associated with his early childhood. With help from the BodyTalk feedback, he recalled many fights with his parents over food. Often it was because he didn’t want to eat certain foods and he was reminded of the ‘starving children in Africa’. Other times it was simply that most of the fights his parent’s had took place at the dinner table while he was eating. He was a sensitive boy and the collective associations of emotional trauma and food created an active emotional memory in his system.
The food intolerances became very noticeable in his early twenties because that was when he married and started a family. He suddenly found himself in battle with his own child over food. A subconscious link to the stored active emotional memory occurred and he rapidly developed eating disorders and food intolerance.
The BodyTalk emotional treatment cleared the active emotional memory stored in his body and the food intolerance all cleared within a week.
The incredible thing about the BodyTalk system of treating active emotional storage is that it does not require psychological therapy, extensive treatment, or intense emotional discomfort. The traumatic memory can be cleared without the practitioner needing to know the details of the event.
There are times when the patient may recall an event they would really prefer not to relate. In these cases, it is sufficient for the patient to reflect on the event while being treated. Nothing has to be said or explained.
In other cases, the memory may be so traumatic that the mind refuses to recall it. Good results in these cases are still obtained by locating the time of the trauma (E.g. – age sixteen), and then treating while the patient is reflecting on being sixteen. The technique seems to trigger the subconscious mind into clearing the active emotion without it having to surface as a painful memory. The limitation here is that it may take several treatments to clear, compared to the one treatment for specifically-recalled events.
Not all active emotional factors are related to specific events or accumulated experiences. There are many emotional triggers that are initiated by learned attitudes and belief systems.
For example, a person may have been brought up in a household where racial prejudice existed against a particular section of society. (E.g., blacks, Mexicans, Jews, whites, etc.) If this is the case, then a negative emotional association may occur. He/she may have been told ridiculous stories as a child of Mexicans being violent and treacherous. This attitude becomes a ‘belief’ that is associated with emotions of fear and anxiety. A belief is really an expectation, or assumption, that something will happen. If you have the belief that Mexicans are violent, there will be an associated expectation or assumption of violence when meeting a Mexican.
As an adult, you may pride yourself on having transcended your prejudiced upbringing and now feel that you are no longer part of that ignorant past culture. However, you may find that you have recently developed numerous stress related health problems. You eat well, exercise, meditate, and have a happy life, yet here you are with all these anxiety symptoms.
Through therapies such as BodyTalk or the Breakthrough system, you may discover that your symptoms are rooted in a stored active emotion to do with a belief system. Eventually, you realize that your symptoms started a week after a new Mexican employee started working with you.
Deep down the active emotional trigger still exists as a belief system embedded in your subconscious. Being with a Mexican triggered all those anxieties the little boy felt, even though you consciously liked the person.
The BodyTalk system would clear that link between the negative belief system and the stored anxiety. In turn, this would not only clear the disease but, once and for all, eliminate the negative belief.
The bodymind is an incredibly complex system of mental, emotional, and physical dynamic interaction. At last, techniques such as the BodyTalk system provide effective ways to simplify those interactions and reduce the negative elements quickly and permanently.