In our childhood and teen years, and even sometimes as adults, experiences that create more alarm than our nervous systems can handle get “misfiled” in a part of the brain that has no sense of time.
So what does that mean?
It means that younger parts of ourselves get “left behind” in the most painful moments of our past.
It means that, in the world of our “inner orphans,” the most painful moments of our past are still happening.
When one of these “misfiled” memories gets triggered by something in the present, it’s like time-traveling back into those old painful experiences.
We’ve all experienced this “minefield” effect, in our own and others’ nervous systems: one minute everything is fine, and the next minute we are in a very strong state of fight, flight, or freeze, feeling like we’re fighting for our very lives.
Our lives stop working when we respond to what’s happening in the present with the extreme pain and alarm of the past.
Thanks to the gifts of brain science and resonant empathy, we now know how to resolve old, stuck pain and bring our “inner orphans” with us into the present, effectively dismantling those old “mines.”
This is literally the process of rewiring our brains and creating the integration that leaves us free to respond to the present without being hijacked by pain from our past.
Listen as Susan explains the process and then demonstrates live (with a volunteer) how we can access these inner orphans and open a pathway toward full brain reintegration.
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