"They are known, as it were, from the neck up. The cellular memory of facts and experiences, however, connects mind and body: My body recalls that showing my true feelings in childhood led to a put-down. A slammed door meant that Dad was home and drunk. The specific fact/event may be forgotten, but the bodily reaction remains: Any slamming noise may induce terror."
"An early loss of someone we loved, for example, created a shocking thud in our psyche. It is still reverberating. It will show up in an irrational fear that if we really love someone or something very much, we will lose them. Our experience of love has been indelibly stamped with the possibility of loss and abandonment. The irrational nature of this fear and its powerful bodily resonance is the clue to its being pre-verbal."
Cognitive memories are facts stored 'from the neck up' and provoke no bodily reaction. Cellular memory links experiences to bodily responses so that forgotten events can continue to trigger fear—for example, a slammed door producing terror long after the original danger. Past traumatic impressions can feel ongoing, imprinting love with an expectation of loss and abandonment. In panic, the psyche reverts to child beliefs, producing irrational powerlessness that the adult self would reject. Placing an open hand over the area of fear and soothing the inner child can mirror and reduce archaic pain. When resolved, traumatic memories become neutral facts; an enlightened act leaves no wake.
Read at Psychology Today
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