Early relational experiences are encoded in our neural circuitry in the first 18 months of life. Stored as implicit memory, these patterns remain outside our capacity for conscious reflection, secretly shaping the lenses through which we imagine ourselves, others, and the world.
In those moments when we feel unsafe, the templates open and come online, coloring our perception. In response, we tend to numb or shutdown, or else become flooded with unbearable feeling. We long to return to safety as we are wired to rest there.
For it is from that neural scaffolding of safety that we can play, explore, be creative, spontaneous, flexible, emotionally supple, and able to take the risks that relationship will always ask of us.
Our expectations in relationship are organized in a fragile little nervous system that yearns for connection. The neural pathways are tender and responsive, as we seek attuned, right-brain to right-brain resonance with those around us, as well as with those within us. We want to feel felt, have our experience held and mirrored, and for a holding space in which we can explore unstructured states of being.
While traumatic encoding is deeply embedded, it can be rewired. While it may feel entrenched, there is hope. Even if your early environment was one of empathic failure, developmental trauma, and insecure attachment, it is never too late. The wild realities of neuroplasticity and the courage of the human heart is unstoppable and an erupting force of creativity.
As long as breath is present, the opportunity for safety and connection is available. Both the somatic narrative as well as the verbal narrative can be revisioned and brought up to date in a way that is poetic, kind, and majestic enough to companion you into unknown territory.
No matter what is happening in your life, you can start right now, in this moment. The opening for reorganization is always here and wired deep within you. Don’t give up. Love will never give up on you.
Please remember this and remind those in your life that there is always hope, not only some fanciful hope, but a hope that is wired into the true holiness of your body, soul, and nervous system.
Photo by Juan Gomez
My previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You
My online community - Befriending Yourself: Finding Safety and Rest in Difficult Times
Listen to two recent podcasts where I was interviewed:
