The intelligence of the body allows it to remember every single thing that has ever happened to it and may also remember what our spirit dictates. It doesn’t remember in a logical cognitive sense like our brain remembers, but rather as a diffuse body memory. Examples of this may be a sore limb, a tight muscle, recurring flu-like symptoms and vague collections of symptoms with no known cause. Often there are inexplicable feelings associated with these body memories and sometimes visual flashbacks. We can experience indescribable feelings of fear and anxiety, although there may be no obvious discernible threat. These symptomatic feelings are clues that something has happened which need to be healed.
The traumatic memory may still be there in every cell, alive and hidden from view, as if the body is experiencing the pain/suffering/rejection again fresh, as if the situation is actually still happening. It is a cellular memory that doesn’t necessarily fade away as the years or lifetimes pass. For we are more than just bodies, we are spirits having a physical experience. If we have managed to partially come to terms with a traumatic event, we may still be left with a partial body memory that is analogous to the scar tissue that remains after a physical wound.
Often coming to terms with a devastating incident may involve going through a range of emotions such as anger, sadness and fear and then finally acceptance. Initially, we may even be in denial that the event ever took place, or that we had a certain unpleasant past life or indeed any previous lives. Who wishes to remember themselves as Attila the Hun or Caligula? But the body memory is there through all of this, having been genetically imported from ancestors on our DNA or spiritually melded into the body around the time of conception. Sometimes these second hand energies manifest in this lifetime as a physical illness such as fatigue, heart conditions and/or corresponding obesity/anorexia. It is even possible to manifest accidents from these unresolved issues. We are responsible for our own lives and therefore must become conscious by choice in order to move past forgotten issues.
During the original trauma, what if the body remembers its own size, shape and density and how it felt? What will the body do to avoid the trauma? Flight or fight? What if your will doesn’t allow you to escape or if you can’t escape? What will the body do to escape? It tries to flee, but what if it can’t, it must then do the best it can do. In the cases of severe, earth shattering trauma, the body can adopt a range of coping methods, including drug and alcohol abuse or various other addictions including food. It can also become super-efficient with food and put on panoply of armour. It stores food and fluid for what it perceives as the hardships ahead. And it certainly doesn’t want to be the size, shape and density it was when it was previously wounded and/or traumatised. Following a trauma and with it’s own particular body reasoning, this intelligence which all sentient beings possess, reasons that this particular shape, size and density is not a safe option. So the body adapts and we either lose weight or put it on to escape the hurtful experiences.
What if the body also remembers traumas not only from this life? What if the body remembers the trauma of our ancestors? Scurrying around in the cold, freezing mud searching and praying for a lousy potato! What if my body remembers how my ancestors foraged and stole from the Lord’s Estate, shooting deer for food. What if my body remembers the sentencing, the punishment handed down and the inevitable consequences from harsh, freezing conditions, year after year of cold hard drudgery and near-starvation. With little to hope for, except the occasional stolen loaf of bread or mug of ale and a lot to fear. If our bodies remember these types of things, then we could now be eating for our ancestors, without even realising.
Many people have not accessed the memories of their ancestors nor have they accessed memories of past lives. So how would they know if they were eating for their ancestors or not? How would they know whether they are truly eating for themselves or someone else that they might have been in a past life? Unless they have flashbacks of places that they’ve never been to, how would they really know that that they have lived before?
There is no substitute for the actual experience. Reading the family tree or studying reincarnation, does not impart the feelings, body knowledge and true knowing that something has happened to you. It’s a bit like watching London on TV, it really is different when you’re there. The smells, the sounds, the energy is more vibrant than that which can be conveyed through our present technology.
So our previous lives or those lived by our ancestors, are more vibrant than can be conveyed through our present miniscule brain usage. Einstein said we only use 8% of our brain at present, so what is the other 92% doing? Amongst other things, our brains don’t remember our past and who we really are! We may remember little bits and pieces such as a particular food liking, or enjoy various games, music etc. that have been around for a long time. Or we may feel right at home in a foreign land. But rarely do we remember that we have lived before and that our ancestors through the various processes of our DNA, are constantly influencing us.
What if the body remembers not only this life’s trauma, the unbearable hardships of ancestors but also the accumulated wisdom and debris from past lives. How many times has this Spirit been around the clock? And how does this Spirit respond when again it resides in the physical experience of a body. Does it start again, clean and refreshed? Or does the inevitable occur, some scarring, an archaic memory leakage from the past, flooding back in. Little by little, unexplained psychic flashes of distant homelands and people. In my case, I have the memories of drinking in Welsh taverns hundreds of years ago, with friends, after a hard day’s labour in the mines. The taste of the ale, so biting and pure after the choking coal dust, enough to slake any man’s thirst. Even though to this present day in this life, I’ve never been to Wales, I do remember the green countryside, the camaraderie of working side by side those in the same perilous position.
What if this body remembers more than this? More than my cerebellum cares to acknowledge? The accidents in the mines, the pain and terror shared by all who worked there. The necessity of having no other choice. Bread must be put on the table for the family no matter what the sacrifice. What if my body remembers the archetypal suffering of the time and culture? And not only of this life, but hiding one’s lamp under a bushel of others. Many others in fact.
What does the body do? Of course it’s prime objective is safety. It must either flee the situation or stand and fight. If it can’t do either, then it must protect itself as well as it is able. What better armour than the density of fat. Fat acts as a cushion, a comfort zone and a wall to keep others out. Of course, it not only keeps others out, but it traps Spirit within. The freedom to fully express oneself is denied. One simply blends in with the crowd, gathering no additional attention. Safety in numbers. There is no choice except staying within the milieu of the crowd and being contained within the bell-shape curve of mediocrity. Not being one’s true self and shining like a beacon, but acting out as the bible succinctly states, as “hiding one’s lamp under a bushel”.
My contention is that the body has memory set points, it remembers what happened to it when it was a certain size, shape and density. So it follows, if you are engaging in losing weight and/on a diet, any trauma that happened to you when you weighed less, may have to be revisited whether it occurred in this life or others. This also applies if those unhealed traumatic events are encased genetically, losing weight may be a trigger mechanism for the memories to surface. The body’s natural reaction will be to try and distance itself from the event, so it may well react by not losing weight when you are approaching the weight you were during a particularly hurtful incident.
My suggestion is to persevere with your new lifestyle, revisit the trauma as an observer, you don’t need to get caught up in the pain, just acknowledge that the event did happen and let it go. There are many ways of letting go of trauma (too numerous to cover in this short article, stayed tuned to the articles section, if you wish to explore some of these). Becoming conscious is what you need to do if you wish to let go of the past.
And if you desire consciousness more than anything else, remember to ask yourself “what does my body remember”. And keep asking, every night as you fall asleep, that consciousness flow and be given to you. This must be your fervent desire. All the sins of the past may be uncovered but also, you might just discover all those long lost buried treasures. These precious gifts will be available to you if you look. Remember, “seek and ye will find”. We can now choose not to eat for our ancestors.
