Memory Without Words, Freedom With Presence
Freedom isn’t forgetting the past—it’s the ability to meet the present without reenacting it
On the Path: A letter for those reclaiming their voice, rewriting their story, and walking the path of purpose with presence, creativity, and heart.
!!! A SPECIAL WELCOME TO THIS THE 100TH EDITION OF ON THE PATH !!!
As a thanks to all of you who have subscribed and who may read this edition on substack we are offering 25% off all Karoliina K offers until the end of July with the code: ONTHEPATH100.
In my morning pages this morning I was writing about freedom.
About living a free life. Finally.
Not a life free of responsibility, or accountability or trajectory, but a life unhooked form the invisible reins of the past – the kind of freedom that emerges when the present moment is no longer hijacked by the cycles we didn’t even know we were repeating.
The Loops we don’t even know we are in.
Many of us live unrecognized loops.
What trauma expert Janine Fisher call implicit memories – not stories we can recall, but feelings states that shape how we experience now.
“Implicit memory coverts the past into an expectation o the future without our awareness, and it makes the worst experiences in our past persist as felt emotional realities in the present!” Ecker et al., 2012
Memories like these do not arrive with contexts.
They come as sensations. As instincts.
A knot in the stomach.
A rage out of proportions.
The urge to hide just as someone says they care.
This enaction of the past – through which we respond to the present are not flaws.
They are codes of survival – still firing in our systems.
The reason we do not recognize them easily as such is because the show up without words, without a timestamp and we experience them as if they are simply the present moment.
The Body remembers, the Mind Doesn’t Know Why
“The most powerful memories we have are not the ones we recall, but the ones that show up in the present without our awareness” Siegel, 1999
This is what makes trauma so persistent: It’s not the story that trap us, but the feeling that keeps replaying – beneath the levels of story or words.
Bessel Van der Kolk describes how the brain, under extreme stress, fails to encode experience into coherent narrative memory. We’re left with fragments: sounds, smells, movements, shame and dread.
Sensory elements that never got filed away and so:
“these sensory elements are (then) prone to return! “
Van der Kolk, Hopper and Osterman, 2001
The Present Moment as a Portal
This morning I wrote:
“freedom is the experience of meeting the present moment in the present, and only as the present”
Seems simple enough, but how do we do this when the body believes it’s still in the past?
When we unknowingly confuse the past and the present in our sensory experience?
What we sometimes think of as a overreaction, is actually a perfect response to a forgotten wound.
When we begin to understand implicit memory – we can see that freedom is not about the past – it is about changing how we meet the present NOW.
Talk therapy often has us talking about past events – yet for many this kind of a process may not bring the relief they are seeking.
We meet the past presently and in a reoccurring manner.
In such a process meditation or mindfulness – is not only about observing what comes up in us – but for those who are meeting past trauma it is essential to witness the sensation – notice the impulses for defense that have been activated and being able to say:
“I see you. And we are safe now”
Staying Here Instead of Going There
The freedom I wrote about this morning is about a freedom that means staying here, in the presence of that echo without becoming it.
“The past is. Literally, out of our control. The good news is, we can change the effect the past continues to have on us now and in the future” Rothschild, 2017
In those moments we notice shame, fear not as facts but as fragments of the past – we are no longer trapped in them.
We become the adult in the rooms of our own nervous systems.
We do not complete cycles by resisting them.
We complete them by not reacting the old way – or at least not running the full past program.
Mindfulness in its simplest form is the ability to sit with what comes up.
Letting rage be rage – until the wave passes.
Letting fear heighten the senses until we find our way back to a sense of safety.
This is a gentle quiet revolution that takes place as we learn to meet what rises without reenactment.
So - freedom – this life belongs to me.
But more truthfully: it belongs to this moment.
And our ability to meet it, without the weight of the past steering the ship – is the shape of freedom in a bodymind that is rewiring as we speak.
Some question for your own exploration of your freedom in the now:
What sensations or emotions tend to arise in you when you are still, silent or safe?
What sensations tend to be present when you are triggered – by loud voices, by rushing or by compliments?
Could these be the past running it’s programs – could this be an opportunity to change?
Sit still an listen - welcome the awareness and the change.
Freedom lies on the other side or what is happening right now.
With Love,
K
!!! SPECIAL OFFER !!! We are offering 25% off all Karoliina K offers until the end of July with the code: ONTHEPATH100.