Have you ever experienced doing really well under the care of an alternative medical provider, only to find that you suddenly got worse? If so, you might have been experiencing the resurfacing of a body memory. Illnesses, injuries, and traumatic life events imprint themselves in the body’s energy fields. If the illness or injury is not resolved fully, the imprint of the experience is stored as a body memory. These memories, which I call energetic scars, often remain buried in the body’s unconscious long after the symptoms of the original injury or illness have faded away. These scars, like their physical counterparts, are poor conductors of vital life energy, which is either blocked entirely by the scar or is forced to travel around it. Either way, a disruption occurs, and energy cannot flow freely over the energetic pathways of the acupuncture meridian system or the nervous system, leading to a decrease in health and vitality. When healing is initiated, the body journeys down the same road it traveled when it became ill, and it retraces memories of past experiences. To heal, these memories must surface and be resolved. Retracing often occurs when you are under the care of a chiropractor, acupuncturist, or massage therapist. It can also occur as you walk through your day-to-day life. When the memories rise up out of the unconscious, they sometimes create reactions that are quite severe. One of the most dramatic events involving the retracing of body memory that I have witnessed occurred while I was traveling in Egypt. As our group entered one of the temples, a woman cried out, apparently in severe pain. As I got close to her, I noted that large blisters had formed on her skin. A man who is highly intuitive commented that she had been in that same temple thousands of years ago and that while she was there, someone had thrown boiling oil on her. Upon hearing this, the woman awakened her own memory of that time and, with it, intense anger toward the one who had hurt her. Those who were close to her encouraged her to release the anger and forgive. When she did, the pain and blistering disappeared as mysteriously as it had come upon her. Not all retracing is this dramatic. There are times when the release of a memory may occur outside of your conscious awareness. All you may experience consciously is a desire to take a few deep breaths, or to sigh deeply. You may notice that you feel a bit lighter and freer, but you will not be able to say why. A person who is doing well under the care of a chiropractor, acupuncturist, or massage therapist may explode with anger for no apparent reason during or after a session. Another person who is progressing well may suddenly feel a return of all his original symptoms and think that he is not progressing at all. Still another may experience knee pain. Upon questioning, it is learned that as a child she injured that knee. Although she has been pain-free for years, she once again is experiencing the same type of pain she experienced as a child. Still another person suddenly develops a sore throat. As a child, he had one sore throat after another, which were routinely treated with large doses of antibiotics. The antibiotics suppressed the disease rather than healing the body. Most likely, these incidents all represented a retracing of past experiences as they surfaced in an attempt to resolve themselves. Retracing allows all of these individuals to have closure with the past, so that they can heal in the present. Entrapped in energetic scars is a piece of your vital life energy. Surfacing and resolving the memories allows you to reclaim that piece of your life energy. Over time, the resolution of energetic scars causes you to feel more energetic and alive. If energetic scars remain unresolved, they not only cause a disruption of your body’s physical energetic systems, they also act as filters through which you view the world. If the energetic scar has anger attached to it, it is likely that your reactions to the world within you or around you will be tainted with anger. If your memory is of a situation that is tainted with feelings of being a victim, you will most likely see life through the eyes of victimization and feel like a victim of many of your life experiences. Body memories may also color your belief in yourself, generating a "can’t do" rather than a "can do" attitude. The energetic scars you carry around with you color your world in ways that are unique to you as an individual. Body memories surface as part of the process of healing the body. They also surface as a part of the process of healing your life. If you intend to lose weight, for example, all your negative body memory having to do with obesity, and the causes of that, will show their ugly faces. If you can keep your focus on the intention of healing yourself and your life, the body’s memory will dissolve and new life-enhancing patterns can be created in the place where the disease-producing memories once resided. Body memories, unresolved, keep you from living your dreams and achieving your goals. Because of this, people sometimes seek assistance from a medical intuitive who can help to surface the memory. Others seek chiropractic, acupuncture, or massage, knowing that all these forms can initiate a retracing toward health that will reveal the energetic scars so they can be dissolved. Unfortunately, many people who experience the retracing of body memories and the release of energetic scars think that the care they received injured them or caused their health to deteriorate. As a result, they turn from alternative medicine and seek care that relies on pharmaceutical agents, which usually work to suppress the memories and the partially healed diseases that the body is attempting to surface so that it can heal. When a body memory surfaces, it often dissolves quickly and is gone forever. If the energetic scar holds within it an unresolved life issue, illness, or residue from a traumatic injury, you might benefit from the support of a health professional skilled in body-mind healing. Whenever a body memory does surface, what works best is to hold love and forgiveness in your heart for yourself and for your past. Then turn from the past, so that you can focus on what you want more of in your life. If you want health, wealth, and happiness to be a part of your future, let go of the past and get on with the business of getting well so that you can live fully! Dr. Lynn Bamberger, a pioneer in mind-body-spirit healing, has nearly thirty years’ experience in complementary alternative medicine. She is a holistic chiropractic physician, a registered counselor with an emphasis on spiritual and health psychology, and a minister with a Master of Theology in practical spirituality degree. She can be reached at Bamberger Center for Health at (425) 670-1518 or <http://www.BambergerCenter.com/>. |