Podcast Summary
Understanding Emotional Flashbacks through Neurosomatic Intelligence: Emotional flashbacks are present-moment responses to triggers, altering perception and behavior through physiological changes, often linked to childhood experiences or prolonged stress
An emotional flashback is a real-time response to a trigger, whether it's sensory or a pattern recognized by the brain, leading to a physiological change inside the body. This change can create a new reality, altering how one perceives the external world and other people. Emotional flashbacks, as defined through the lens of neurosomatic intelligence, are more present-moment experiences, not just regressions into past emotional states. They can be triggered by acute stimuli or recurring patterns, and the internal bodily response often stems from childhood experiences or prolonged periods of stress. Understanding emotional flashbacks through this perspective can help individuals manage and heal from the trauma response.
Understanding Emotional Flashbacks in Complex PTSD: CPTS can cause emotional flashbacks, leading to intense emotions and maladaptive behaviors. Understanding the root cause and learning healthy coping mechanisms can help manage and cope with emotional flashbacks.
Complex Post Traumatic Stress (CPTS) can lead to emotional flashbacks, which are not just a repetition of past traumas but the creation of a new reality. These emotional flashbacks bring intense emotions, both emotional and physiological, that can be overwhelming and burdensome for the individual. Repression and suppression of these emotions during development, often due to unsafe environments or lack of emotional regulation from caregivers, can lead to maladaptive behaviors and outputs such as disordered eating, substance abuse, overworking, chronic fatigue, and physical pain. The survival response triggered during an emotional flashback can make an adult feel as if they are in a life-threatening situation, despite their capability to cope as an adult. Understanding the root cause of these emotional responses and learning healthy ways to process emotions can help individuals with CPTS manage and cope with emotional flashbacks.
Trauma's Impact on Memory Storage and Access: Complex post-traumatic stress can disrupt memory encoding, leading to emotional flashbacks and difficulty accessing or verbalizing experiences, particularly if trauma occurred during early development.
Complex post-traumatic stress (CPTS) can lead to fragmented and disorganized memory storage in the brain. During traumatic experiences, the emotional response and trauma get encoded, while cognitive memory may not be integrated properly. The hippocampus, a key area for memory storage, plays a significant role in this process. Sensory inputs are processed through the limbic system, where the amygdala can detect threat and trigger emotional responses based on past experiences. For individuals with CPTS, these responses can result in emotional flashbacks that range from subtle to horrific and can last for varying lengths of time. The memory encoding process is disorganized, leaving individuals unable to easily access or verbalize their experiences. Additionally, if traumatic events occur during early development, the brain may not have the necessary proteins to create long-term memory, resulting in somatic memories that live in the nervous system and body without cognitive recall.
Experiences without cognitive memory can still impact us deeply: Traumatic experiences can leave deep emotional impacts, even without conscious memory, and can be triggered by seemingly normal situations, leading to confusing behaviors and emotions.
Our experiences, especially those that involve dissociation or traumatic events, can leave us with no cognitive memory but still have a profound impact on us. This can lead to confusing behaviors and emotions that we may not understand until we find ourselves in the moment, experiencing them. Community and sharing experiences can be helpful in making sense of these situations, as we may not have a cognitive reference for them. For example, a seemingly normal experience like a doctor's appointment can trigger dissociation and subsequent behaviors due to past traumas, even if we have no conscious memory of those traumas. The emotional flashbacks that result from these triggers can alter our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and can be difficult to understand without recognizing the physical and emotional sensations that come with them. These neurotags, or groups of neurons that fire together, can be activated by sensory stimuli and bring back the associated emotions and memories, even if we have no conscious recollection of the original event.
Our brains prioritize information based on survival needs and filter out non-essential details: During hypervigilant states, our brains become more attuned to potential threats, distorting our view of reality and impacting our social interactions.
Our perception of reality is largely influenced by our brain's filtering process, which prioritizes information based on our survival needs. Neurotags, triggered by threatening situations, can alter our perception and create a hypervigilant state, even if the threat is not real. These filters can impact our perception of social situations, leading to anxiety, mistrust, and codependent behaviors. Our brains process only a small fraction of the available information, and during hypervigilant states, we become more attuned to potential threats, which can distort our view of reality. This is particularly relevant to Complex PTSD, where relational threats can lead to chronic stress and altered perceptions in relationships.
Emotional flashbacks and chronic stress impact health: Emotional flashbacks, triggered by chronic stress, can alter perception, increase stress response, and tax immune system. Understanding connection to nervous system can shift perspective and improve management.
Chronic emotional stress, such as during emotional flashbacks, can lead to negative health outcomes through the link between stress response, chronic inflammation, and immune dysregulation. These emotional responses can alter how we perceive people and situations, potentially leading to a heightened stress response and taxing the immune system. Understanding the connection between these emotional responses and the nervous system's attempts to keep us safe is crucial. This awareness can help shift the perspective from these responses being a part of our personality to outputs of a dysregulated nervous system. By recognizing this, we can begin to change our thoughts and responses to better manage our emotional flashbacks and improve overall health. Additionally, individuals with higher Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scores may be more prone to emotional flashbacks and the associated negative health outcomes.
Understanding your nervous system and practicing metacognition: By increasing self-awareness and understanding our thought processes, we can change how our brain responds to stimuli, leading to better emotional regulation and resilience.
Developing self-awareness and understanding of our thought processes, a concept called metacognition, can significantly impact how our brain responds to stimuli. By increasing awareness, we can change the route of information processing, leading to a "high road response" instead of a reflexive survival response. This practice, along with intentional training of the nervous system, can help reshape the brain and lessen cognitive biases, ultimately leading to a better understanding of ourselves and our nervous system. Empowering ourselves with this knowledge and tools allows us to recognize and interrupt emotional flashbacks, enabling us to respond differently and cultivate resilience. As Toni Jones emphasized, understanding our own nervous system is crucial for recognizing how we're being influenced and creating safety. By becoming experts of our own nervous systems, we can identify signs of emotional flashbacks and have the necessary tools to move out of them effectively.
Leveraging Neuroplasticity for Emotional Healing: Through intentional practices, we can change our brain's neural pathways and improve emotional regulation, reducing the frequency of emotional flashbacks and replacing less adaptive responses with healthier ones.
Our brains have the ability to change and form new neural pathways through intentional practices. This process, known as neuroplasticity, allows us to repattern our responses to triggers and reduce the frequency of emotional flashbacks. The SAID principle, which stands for Specific Adaptation to Impose Demand, explains that we get better at what we do, and the more we practice new reactions and skills, the more myelinated and efficient those pathways become. This means that we can intentionally create new pathways to respond to triggers with higher emotional regulation and eventually replace the old, less adaptive pathways. It's important to remember that emotional dysregulation and trauma responses are a natural part of life, but the key is in modulating and processing those emotions through the body to establish a healthy nervous system. This involves navigating the fluidity of our emotional states and allowing our set point to adapt to new experiences. Ultimately, with practice and intentionality, we can develop the skills to regulate our emotions and respond to triggers in healthier ways.
Working with emotions for nervous system regulation: Understanding and processing emotions is crucial for nervous system health, repression and suppression can lead to negative consequences, emotional processing is a skill, everyone's journey is unique, and daily practices help regain trust and power within yourself.
Working with and processing emotions is crucial for regulating the nervous system, especially for those with Complex Post Traumatic Stress (CPTS). Repression and suppression of emotions can lead to negative health consequences, as our bodies are designed to move emotions through us. Emotional processing is a skill that needs development, and everyone's nervous system journey is unique. Understanding your own nervous system, learning its language, and developing a personal relationship with it are key to managing emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, social anxiety, and the inner critic. These components interplay with each other, and regaining trust and power within yourself through daily practices is essential. Join us in upcoming episodes as we dive deeper into these topics and offer ways to work with them at the level of the nervous system. Remember, this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice.
Importance of seeking help for mental health: Seeking professional help for mental health concerns is crucial for overall well-being. Don't hesitate to reach out to emergency services or specialized mental health resources when needed.
While this podcast can provide valuable information and insights, it's important to remember that it should not replace professional medical advice. If you or someone you know is dealing with mental health issues and is in immediate danger in the United States, please reach out to emergency services by calling 911. For more specialized mental health resources and services, be sure to check out the full disclaimer in the show notes. Overall, the discussion emphasized the importance of seeking help when needed and understanding that mental health is an essential aspect of overall well-being.