Welcome to Heal Your Early Imprints: FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Some causes of prenatal (in the womb) trauma?
Some causes of birth trauma.
Problems with bonding & attachment.
What is an imprint?
What is an ‘activation’?
What is shock and how is it different from trauma?
What is a shock memory?
Can I heal from my prenatal and birth shock?
What is a survival mechanism?
What does ‘resourcing’ mean?

Some causes of prenatal (in the womb) trauma?

If mom has traumatic, stressful or shocking experiences when pregnant, this will also be traumatic or shocking for her baby. Prenatal trauma can also be caused by: a toxic or unwelcoming womb; divorce; a bereaved parent; a considered or attempted abortion; prior abortions; being unwanted; adoption (deep abandonment); a lack of resources; twin loss; drugs, alcohol and nicotine taken during pregnancy; violence; and other ongoing stresses.

Some causes of birth trauma:

Life/death situations, being born unusually quickly, a long labor, the cord around the neck, getting stuck, and being unwanted are some other causes of birth trauma.

If mom is unable to relax due to her own stresses, or unresolved issues from her own birth, this can prevent the opening up and relaxation necessary for giving birth. If the birth environment is not safe and supportive to the birthing mom, she will find it much harder to reach the state of deep letting go required to birth her baby. Hospital interventions are often experienced as traumatizing by prenates (unborn baby’s), such as: Anesthesia, induction (Pitocin), cesarean section, forceps, and vacuum extraction. C-Section is not easier for the baby, it can be very traumatic depending on the circumstances and the kind of c-section, e.g. emergency vs planned, although all c-section is traumatic for baby and always creates interrupted bonding. Tip: If having a hospital birth, avoid going in until you are well along in your labor, have a birth support person such as a doula with you at home until you are ready to go in. The less time you spend in the hospital, the less likely you are to have a lot of interventions, the better for you and baby in many ways, including the effect it will have on your bonding time.

Problems with bonding & attachment:

Bonding can be complicated if the new mom was not bonded with as a baby, because in her own imprinting she does not know how to give this to her new baby. It can also be complicated by prenatal & birth trauma because overwhelming trauma’s can make it harder for us to connect when we arrive after our birth. Bonding can be interrupted by hospital procedures such as cutting the cord too quickly, separating baby from the parents after birth (washing, weighing, etc), neonatal intensive care, and by the new family not having quiet, gentle time to be together immediately after birth. Cesarean section births are causing enormous bonding issues because the babies are taken away to the nursery after a very shocking birth. Bonding difficulties can cause post-partum depression, and a depressed mom means a depressed baby.

In optimal circumstances, babies are hard wired to self-attach to their mom. If a newborn is placed on her mom’s tummy next to her skin she will make her own way to the breast and latch on. This can take up to 50 minutes, but if mom was medicated during birth, those drugs will affect baby, and self attachment may not be possible after birth. It can happen much later, and the optimal time is immediately post-birth, but it’s never too late. Lennart Righard’s video “Delivery Self Attachment”, only 6 minutes long, shows some great examples of drug-free and medicated babies, and babies who were removed to be cleaned, weighed, etc and then placed back on the mom in their attempts to self attach. Top

What is an imprint?

An imprint is the energetic residue of an event or experience which can be stored by the body or in the energetic/energy system, or in the fluids of the recipient. Imprints are our way of storing early experiences, some of which may be traumatic or shocking, and about which we may have no conscious awareness. I am using the term here specifically in relation to prenatal and birth experiences which, because they are preverbal, are stored in our body memory and remain there until we change them.

Imprints can express themselves in physical symptoms, emotions, through activation's of the original trauma that make no sense in present time, through movement patterns, postures, tactile sensitivity and in many other ways.

Imprints remain in our system affecting us on all levels. When we have a bad knee, we change the way we are moving and walking to compensate for that knee, and soon we forget that we are doing this and it simply becomes ‘normal’ for us to walk that way. Likewise, with imprints we can think ‘oh this is just the way I am’, and actually it is an early imprint around which we are unconsciously organizing. Often our lives would be well served in dealing with the imprint directly so that we are not acting out of compensation and unconsciousness, but out of a healthy choice place.

Imprints do not have to be permanent, they can be re-patterned, and they can often feel as if they are a part of you that is unchangeable. I liked something that Ray Castellino said recently in a Process Workshop when asked to explain an imprint, “If you look at these new pants I have on, you can see the cloth, the weave in the cloth, and then you can see the creases in them caused by life. The creases are the imprints, they are not of the main body of the pants, but have been imprinted upon them, like a motif on a tea shirt, and they can be healed and changed.” Top

What is an ‘activation’?

We all have early imprints, and there are certain situations in which they will come more alive in us, and color our perception of what is happening in the present. We often shift into the reality of an early memory because something has triggered us in the present. Just being in a group might amplify a feeling such as “It is not safe to show myself”, and the activation will take you into a memory imprint of fear and a fight/flight state. Activations make you feel like you did ‘back then’ when the original trauma occurred, both emotionally and physiologically, ‘as if’ it is still happening now. It has the felt sense of a present time situation, whilst being about something from the past. Many of us are activated in various ways every day and don’t realize that’s what is going on. Part of my work is to help you identify your triggers and activations and help you to build new resources that allow you to be in charge of yourself and have more choices.

When you dissociate you may be activated into an old survival response, the roots of which may go as far back as conception. You are also experiencing an activation when you are having an emotional response to someone or something that is out of proportion. Any feelings that seem over blown may have an activation lurking underneath them. If the situation is stimulating at a 1 (out of 10), and you are reacting as if it is at an 8, you could be activated into an old implicit memory. See “What is a shock memory” for more information about this.

Here are some of the signs that may tell you that you are activated: skin coloration changes (red/white/yellow), blink rate increases, nervous system starts revving or closes down, sweating, losing contact with normal resources, can’t hear what’s being said, head feels fuzzy, feeling fear, terror and other feelings inappropriate to your situation, sequencing issues, e.g. can’t finish or start things; dissociation, restricted breathing, unexplainable physical sensations, panic attacks, anxiety, numbness and hyper-vigilance. Top

What is shock and how is it different from trauma?

Working with trauma traditionally requires going into the trauma feelings (the peeling an onion model), this is the way most psychotherapists and counselors work, which is great for trauma but unfortunately does not heal shock. Shock memories require the use of completely different techniques (as taught by William Emerson, Ph.D.).

Shock is at the extreme end of the trauma continuum, we are in shock when something has overwhelmed us. Often a shocking event may also have been life threatening and if this is so, the shock memory will contain a survival mechanism.

Living with shock is very isolating because it’s very hard to connect with yourself or other people when you are carrying unresolved shock. If you have suffered a prenatal shock you may not have been able to bond with your mom after birth, which causes relationship and intimacy issues. Top

What is a shock memory?

This is a memory of a shocking event which happened in the past. Shock memories can be activated or triggered in present time situations, sending us into a physiological and emotional memory of our shock. When activated into shock memories, our nervous system will remember the shocking experience/event in the present time as if it were happening now.

When operating from a shock memory place in ourselves, we may feel and act as if ‘something’ is happening in present time, when it is not. These kinds of memories and feelings are called implicit somatic memories, they are stored in our bodies, and are not controlled by our minds. For example, you may feel threatened, your prenatal survival shock memory has been activated, and even though you know that nothing is threatening you in present time, you may not be able to turn off the physiological response. Implicit somatic memories do not respond well to cognitive or talk therapy, they require somatic work at minimum, and optimally a pre and perinatal awareness, in order to be re-patterned. These kinds of memories can be frightening and confusing because we may not consciously have any idea what is going on, and yet we are experiencing a very strong reaction to a perceived danger. These kinds of memories are usually unconscious, and very powerful in our lives.

When you are triggered into a shock memory, you need resources to help you to come out of the shock (Emerson). You may feel numb, threatened, terrified, frozen, or dissociated and all of these feelings may have nothing to do with your present time situation. Top

Can I heal from my prenatal and birth shock?

Yes! The work necessary to heal an early shock memory is to first learn to recognize how you experience the shock memory in your body. Once you have this felt-sense of your shock, you will be able to recognize when you are experiencing a shock memory, and with support you will have built the resources necessary to be able to come out of it. Part of the healing work involves developing a skill called ‘titration’ (Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger). This involves slowing down, and developing tracking skills, and this is a huge resource and tool to learn in re-patterning shock memories. It is also a very empowering tool, which once learned you might practice in your daily life, and by doing so you will accelerate your own healing and self awareness.

Healing your shock will give you access to more choice, and to more of your self. You will feel more awake and present, and may find an increased or enhanced connection with the divine/spirit/God.

Often working with early shock memories involves an understanding of early survival mechanisms. Top

What is a survival mechanism?

A component of early shock is often a survival mechanism that we learned at a very young age. Survival mechanism’s are learned in situations in which our very life is either literally, or perceived to be, under threat. This can arise for example from an actual life threatening event, or from a generally toxic environment in which survival is difficult and thriving is not an option. These mechanisms can have a very powerful influence on our perceptions, and on all areas of our life, and are often unconscious. This means that we may be living our life in survival mode, and not even realize it.

Our survival mechanisms must be honored, without them we would not be here. And, it is also true they may not be serving us any longer in the present. Re-patterning of prenatal survival mechanisms requires careful work informed by the right training in this field.

Survival mechanism’s must be worked with very carefully, and the Little One who went through that life threatening event must be honored at all times. (Castellino) As prenates, most of us are undifferentiated from our mom, our environment, and anything that happens to us. Early experiences are stored in cells, fluid’s, fascia, our nervous system, etc and will express themselves physiologically, energetically and emotionally. If our survival mechanisms are triggered in present time, we can feel as if our life is under threat, or feel terrified for no apparent reason. Top

What does ‘resourcing’ mean?

Resources are the skills, abilities and self awareness that support you to take care of yourself, to be aware of your needs and activations, and to ‘self soothe’.

As a prenate and newborn, the resources you have to deal with a stressful, traumatic or shocking environment or event are naturally very different from adult resources. As an adult you may be surprised to discover that you are still using your prenatally learned resourcing methods. Responses, defenses and belief’s imprinted from prenatal survival mechanisms, and early trauma and shock are very unlikely to be serving you in a healthy way as an adult. Your resources back then were limited to that stage of development, and as an adult you have a much wider range of resources and options available to you. Simply becoming aware of these imprints and their expression in your life can create new resources, because shining the light of awareness upon them is transformative in itself.

E.g. if you learned in the womb that to stay alive you had to take care of your mother (Lake – Prenatal Therapist), in your post-birth life you may become a compulsive caretaker. That impulse to care take will be driven by an underlying fear that you will not survive if you stop taking care of everyone. At some level this can really feel like “I will die if I stop doing this.” It was necessary to do this in the womb, and back then it was a good resource and very smart. Now it is no longer serving you. The integrated, updated, and healthier version of this would be taking care of people because you are consciously choosing to do so, and not because you are driven by a prenatal survival response. You would also be able to let others take care of you.

Another example: If you were unwanted as a baby, you may perceive yourself in relationships and in the world generally as not wanted, even when you are wanted. This is because you are living from an old implicit memory, and your prenate is still running the show from that mistaken belief. This can be very isolating, and separates you from new resources that you may build both inside and outside of yourself. With some healing and new resources, your prenate and her trauma are integrated and no longer running your show. A new set of skills can be learnt that enable you to take care of your inner prenate, and take charge of your life.

There are many belief’s that arise out of early development: “I have to do it all alone”, or “You will abandon me”, or “Life is a struggle”, or “I’m not wanted”. These imprints are very powerful and can run your life. New resources are an important part of changing and healing these tender places, and might include being able to:

Have understanding and coherence in your ‘story’.
Settle in your nervous system.
Track yourself as a part of self care.
Make choices and decisions from your adult self, and to know when you are not.
Ground in your body and be more present.
Know when you are activated into an early memory, and have the choice about wether you want to stay in it, or come out of it.
Know what you want and be able to follow through and get your needs met.
Make conscious choices.
Have outer resources such as good support networks, and close supportive friends.
Practice present time parenting skills arising out of your ability to differentiate ‘back then’ from now (conscious parenting).

As you heal and integrate your early imprints, you become more conscious, build your adult resources, and learn to have a really good connection to yourself, to others, and to your community. Top

Please call me if you have any further questions.

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