Emotional Intelligence and Healing Hidden Wounds

Reconsolidation means the brain can maintain, strengthen and modify painful memories (already stored in the long-term memory) and their related emotions if we bring all aspects of the memory into full awareness.

This principle is utilized by nearly all of the effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.

For example, if someone tells his/her story to a respectful and compassionate witness, the compassion and respect emotions will replace the shame one, previously stuck in the painful memory.

When we experience intense, excessive emotions without knowing their exact source, they most probably come from disturbing unsettled memories.

An innocent remark taken as criticism can be triggered by a memory of being shamed by a critical parent in childhood.

Assuming one recalls a recent memory, the steps for this strategy are:

• Comforting awareness: "This is a moment of suffering"
• Acknowledging that everyone suffers: "Suffering is a part of life"
• Soothing and settling the memory and emotions: "I may give myself the compassion I need"

Detailed instructions for the Floatback Strategy can be helpful, but if at any point this strategy, or any other self-managed strategy, becomes overwhelming, the strategy is put aside.

Overwhelming reactions to the past may signal the need to enlist the aid of a skilled trauma therapist, who can teach many other ways to process troubling memories from childhood.

The good news is that if one way is not effective, there are many other effective strategies to try so that one becomes confident in coping with difficult emotions. One need not suffer for decades without relief.