Each cell has its own memory. If you bang your elbow against the door, the cells in that area will swell and bruise, they will remember the knock.
I still remember the hiding’s Mum would give me for being naughty. She was fierce and used the wooden spoon, my bum would be sore and red for ages. Even as a teenager and into adult years, if I knew I was in trouble my buttocks would start to clench and wait for the hiding to come …even though logically, I knew there wasn’t going to be one.
When we suffer a trauma everything in our world stops and we take a deep breath, holding the air inside our body until we feel safe to release it. This imprints the moment into our cells and stays there. This is often why we have physical reactions to events even though logically we know we are safe. Example is my squeezing my buttocks tight when knowing I am in trouble. Our cellular memory kicks in and off go the alarm bells.
Another way to look at this is smell, lavender was an all time favourite with the lovely residents in the Rest Homes I worked in. I was an Activities Coordinator and it was my job to keep the residents entertained, occupied and out of mischief. We would go into the garden and pick lovely long lavender stalks with flowers, hang them up to dry and then create lavender bags. This journey into the garden would inspire much talk and many memories, it was always a highlight of their itinerary.
For years I have facilitated Visualisation and Meditation workshops, a favourite visualisation was The Treasure Chest, we would journey to each person’s own individual Treasure Chest, open the lid and see what lay inside. One of my clients revealed an image of her Grandmother in her beautiful garden, and she was surrounded by lavender. My client said it brought back so many wonderful memories and emotions, and last but not least was the last hug she had with her Grandmother before she left the UK to come to NZ. My client cried softly as she recalled the wave of emotions that arose within her…her heart had ached for years and as she softly wept, the pain started to leave…..eventually she relaxed enough to take a long deep breath and exhale. I followed her up a couple of days later to see how she was going. She shared with me that she had, had this tense feeling within for many years and that she was now breathing with more ease and slept like a baby. She had not realised how much she missed her Grandmother or the effect the parting had, had on her.
We can all recall a song or piece of music that takes us back to a time when we were happy and enjoying ourselves, when we hear this same song or music in later years, our body can relax into the mode we were in way back then, or for that matter start trying out a few old dance moves.
Our cells are precious and need caring for.