Inner Counselor Process™ Body Memory Healing | Trauma-Informed Therapy Tool 

Body memory healing can take many forms. The Inner Counselor Process™ body memory healing method shows how current triggers often stem from unresolved trauma held in the body. Since the body truly does “keep the score” of the events in our lives, a current event can remind the body of a past trauma or painful time that is not fully resolved. When this happens, similar symptoms or triggers can emerge as if the event is happening now even though it is not. We want to thank our body and challenging emotions for compartmentalizing this pain until we had the support necessary to heal. We then want to offer it a way to heal when it arises.

What Are Body Memories?

For example, we had some wildfires on the outskirts of our town this week. Due to the smoke and poor air quality, we were advised to stay inside for a day. You would think this would be a minor issue, and yet not so much if there is past unresolved trauma. My client reported being highly uncomfortable in her body. She felt trapped and unsafe. Her chest was hurting, and she was experiencing quite a bit of anxiety.

Even though she wasn’t physically or emotionally truly unsafe (the wildfires were not close to her at all), we decided to take her through the Inner Counselor Process™. During this process, we discovered her body reactions and feelings were connected to an old memory from her childhood. In this memory, her alcoholic father had threatened to “set their home on fire” when he was blackout drunk. She saw herself in her bedroom at night as a child feeling trapped, anxious, potentially in danger of a fire and frozen. She was terrified of her father then and it felt like life and death to her younger self.

This is a classic example of how the body stores trauma and signals the need for body memory healing.

Trauma-Informed Therapy Tool for Somatic Healing

After getting to the root of the problem, we were able to honor the body memory and help her embody what she really needed back then and now—a feeling of safety and power. Her anxiety left. She cried and felt deep love for this younger part of herself. This created more self-compassion. She felt peaceful again despite the current circumstances. Her chest stopped hurting and she felt lighter. She was free from the grip of her past.

This is the kind of transformation the Inner Counselor Process™ offers—a trauma-informed therapy tool for somatic healing.

Reclaiming Peace Through Body Memory Healing

Flashbacks, similar to body memories, are another way the body is letting you know it wants your attention. Re-experiencing a vivid memory “as if” it is happening now is defined as a flashback. These responses can often be processed using body memory healing methods like the Inner Counselor Process™.

During a flashback or a body memory, it does NOT mean something is wrong with you. Your system is asking for a re-do. To get the need restored now that was not met in the past.

Emotional Triggers and the Body’s Cry for Healing

During the old trauma you survived and adapted the best you could and thank goodness for that. Yet the body memory or flashback is telling you: it is important to find that need now. This allows you or your client to regain a sense of safety and empowerment in the present moment. To regain what you lost then and experience it on the inside now.

We have all experienced situations where our needs were not met.

Some common feelings and reactions when our needs are not met and we are just surviving include: feeling hopeless, helpless, rigid, unstable, overwhelmed, trapped, insecure, unloved, lonely, disconnected, conflicted, deep sadness and exhaustion to name a few.

As we heal, we are able to experience the qualities of our Higher nature which include: strength, safety, stamina, courage, flexibility, confidence, freedom, worthiness, empowerment, love, acceptance, connection, empathy, trust, compassion and joy to name a few.

This journey of healing childhood trauma restores our innate resilience and makes room for those higher qualities.

Of course, we cannot change the past, however, it is such a gift to be able to have the chance for a re-do! To be able to access a freer, more self-actualized version of ourselves now and enjoy that as our constant companion.

The Inner Counselor Process™ (ICP) helps find the intrinsic need that was not met and restores it in each session. ICP offers a healing structure to update the client’s system and break free from the past. It empowers you and your client by embodying a new, life-giving pattern in each session.

Thanks to body memory healing and mind-body healing tools like the Inner Counselor Process™, that freedom is possible.

Closing Reflection

What inner freedom and joy to fully heal and be able to re-do what was formerly so painful! To allow your body, mind and emotions to show you what they need and get your needs met now. It truly is a life changer.

Your mind-body-Spirit system and life circumstances will offer you plenty of opportunities to heal. And with supportive tools like ICP, you will grow beyond these painful memories or reactions and become more whole.

You can fully heal and create a life you absolutely love regardless of what you have been through.

With love and support,
Dr. Shannon South

P.S. If you are a healthcare provider, coach or counselor and would love to learn more about The Inner Counselor Process (ICP), you can find out more here or join us in an upcoming workshop to experience it firsthand.