Trauma

Setting the Stage

Hey, Richie, how's it going?

Great, great to see you, Cort.

I see you are at the Center for Healthy Minds. I think that's — what is it? Room 243? You're sitting in?

Yeah, my glass box here.

Well, Richie, I wanted to talk to you today about trauma, about old baggage. I think we all have this experience where we have things that happen to us somewhere along the way in our lives that we never really move beyond, and we carry it with us.

Sometimes it can be extreme trauma. Sometimes it's just stuff that we didn't know how to deal with at the time, and we have memories. We have old habits that we picked up to deal with all of that, and we just kind of carry it along with us. So I wanted to talk about that. I had a really interesting experience myself related to this on the two-month retreat I did — I just finished a couple weeks ago — that I could share if it's helpful. But there's a few things I wanted to cover here.

One, I wanted to hear from you from a more neuroscientific angle — how you think about trauma and how neuroscience more broadly thinks about trauma and the scientific research in this area. And then I thought we could talk a little bit about how we move beyond it. What does the science say? I can share some of the more meditative perspectives on this.

And in particular, I want to hear about this idea of memory reconsolidation, which is a really, I think, really helpful concept to have in mind in helping to think about these kinds of things. And then at the end, we can just talk about some more practical things — what we can actually do in our day-to-day lives. What you do, what I do, some of the meditative techniques that really can be game changers when it comes to processing this. So why don't we just dive in. What do you think about trauma? What scientific framings are the most convincing or most helpful in your mind?

The Scars That Change Us

So first, I'm thrilled to be here, and this is really a rich, juicy topic. And it all begins with a theme that is really central to Dharma Lab, and that's plasticity. Neuroplasticity. When adverse experiences happen — and we call them trauma — we call them that because of what these experiences are doing to the brain and to the body.

When these adverse experiences occur, they actually scar the brain in certain ways. It doesn't mean we can't change it, like —

Physically, the actual structure of the brain?

The actual structure and the function. And these changes can also be transmitted to the body in important ways that we'll talk about.

But it really all begins with the recognition of plasticity. Trauma wouldn't happen if there wasn't plasticity. And one of the things we say about plasticity is plasticity is neutral. It's neutral because it really is about the capacity of the brain to change in response to experience. And if that experience is stressful and traumatic, it can lead to deleterious outcomes. If that experience is wholesome and nourishing, it can lead to beneficial outcomes. So really depending on the nature of the experience, the brain will change in different ways.

Is Trauma a Spectrum?

And is trauma kind of a binary thing? Like it has to meet some threshold? In my mind, it's a little bit more open. It's more of a spectrum. But I'm a little fuzzy on what exactly would you call trauma versus something that maybe was just a difficult life experience that you still think about and maybe still informs the way you see things or the way you act. I don't know — is that trauma? I mean, what defines it?

Yeah, those are great questions. And honestly, I'm not sure that we have a precise and satisfactory answer from science. As with most concepts in psychology and neuroscience, there really is a continuum. And so we can think of traumatic experiences on a continuum. They can range from relatively minor experiences.

Probably most viewers have had an experience of, at one point or another in their life, having like a near-miss accident in a car, where they almost were in an accident. They can feel their bodies change, they can feel their heart rate change, their breathing change. And there's a very palpable sense of recovery afterwards where we say, "Whew, that's really a close one."

Often we can't even talk at that point for a minute or two. But in the scheme of things, I think most people would agree that that's really not so bad. There are certainly worse traumas that people have faced all the time, and those may be more likely to lead to certain deleterious outcomes.

But one of the other things that's really important to appreciate about this is that the research shows that — at least with respect to what we might say are common sorts of traumatic events, as opposed to war or really major kinds of things that the vast majority of us are not subjected to, but traumas that are more common and more frequent — most people actually don't develop serious problems after them. There's a kind of intrinsic resilience that we come into the world with.

One of the things that we often talk about in our world is this idea of innate basic goodness. This kind of intrinsic strength, if you will, that we all come into the world with — intrinsic resilience — and it's protective for more modest levels of adversity. Of course, when you reach really significant levels of adversity, then many more people would succumb. But the fact is that we all benefit from these innate protective factors. And when we meditate, one of the things we're doing is we're strengthening those protective factors.

Plaque in the Arteries of the Mind

Yeah, that certainly rings true to me. I mean, when I think about my life, I could think of all sorts of things that were challenging or difficult. And of course, whether or not I would categorize them as traumatic maybe is not the key thing. But these are experiences that just have stayed with me for whatever reason.

In some cases I've developed patterns. The challenge I think many of us face is that we feel stuck. It feels like we're just kind of stuck in this loop of thinking, behaving. Sometimes it's bad habits, sometimes it's just an emotional reaction. Sometimes it's the memory that keeps playing, but it's almost like this plaque in the arteries of our mental and emotional immune system.

It's like something has built up and somehow we've never quite moved beyond it. It reminds me also, when I think about this in my own life — my guess is the same with you and with people listening — is that you can think of times where you had something really challenging happening and got totally knocked off balance. Totally overwhelmed by it, sometimes handled it very poorly. But there's other times where I can think of times in my life where there was something very challenging, but somehow it catalyzed some insight or growth.

It wasn't easy. I mean, pain is pain and adversity is adversity. But when I look back on it, I think, "Oh, actually I learned so much from that. I'm almost grateful that it happened." So like my anxiety when I was 19 and 20 set me on a course in my life that I never would've been on had I not had this intense challenge at the time.

So that's an example for me where it was horrible. I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but somehow it catalyzed this tremendous growth and insight. So anyways, in scientific terms we call it, on the one hand, PTSD, where it gets locked in your nervous system in a way that an experience is experienced as dysfunctional. But there's also post-traumatic growth on the other end of the spectrum, where a traumatic situation leads to that kind of insight. So —

When Pain Becomes a Catalyst

Yeah, in my own life — as you know, Cort, we've shared this before — but we had lots of challenges with my dear son when he was an adolescent. Now he's an adult, he's a father, he's a school psychologist.

He's amazing. But when he was an adolescent, it was really challenging, lots of pain. And again, it's not something my wife and I would wish on anyone, but we learned a huge amount from it and it actually brought us closer together as a family. And one of the passionate commitments that I have today is our work in education and really helping to bring the kinds of insights that we glean from the contemplative traditions into education.

And my experience with our son really was the catalyst for my passion about trying to reform education and bring some new approaches to that sector.

Building the Resilience Muscle

So what would you say to someone who asks, "Well, okay, yeah. So you have PTSD on one end of the spectrum, you have post-traumatic growth on the other, where you actually rise to the occasion."

Even really transforming yourself through the process. It seems in the moment — and again, when I look at my own life — almost accidental, like it just happened in this one circumstance where things turned out in such a way that I dealt with it in a positive way and it brought out the best in me.

And other times where I can look at it and see, "Whoa, I did not handle that well. I got totally overwhelmed by it." And it seems a little bit accidental or circumstantial. I think what you were alluding to earlier is that we actually can set ourselves up for less of the getting overwhelmed and more of the growth and insight.

So what would you say — what are the factors, again, from a scientific perspective? What's going on in our minds, our brains, that can help predispose us so when adversity happens, we're actually gonna have a better chance of handling it well?

Yeah. I think from a scientific perspective, a lot depends upon how we appraise the adversity and our sense of self-control.

And also we have this concept in psychology called mindset. There's been a lot of research on what's been called a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Basically, a fixed mindset is the view that the way we are now is pretty much the way we're gonna be in the future. There's not — it's —

"Just how I am."

I felt like that about my anxiety. Like, "I'm just an anxious person. This is how I am. I'm just wired this way." It didn't even — it wasn't even a question. It was just who and what I was. That's how I viewed it at one point.

Yeah. And we become overly identified with that quality. And a growth mindset is the view that we have the capability to change.

In the case of anxiety, a growth mindset view might be, "Well, I'm having this anxiety, but it's not actually me. This anxiety will change and there is a lot of capacity to change in general." And so it's a very different orientation. Strengthening a growth mindset early on — as kind of building up a resilience muscle — can be enormously helpful for when adversity happens.

And one of the things I'm fond of reminding people is — to paraphrase the bumper sticker — "stuff happens." We can't really buffer ourselves from adversity. It's part of life. And so it's really adaptive to build up this reservoir of resilient qualities that can help us when we eventually confront adverse situations, which we will.

When Old Baggage Surfaces

So I wanted to ask you also about moving beyond these patterns, because everybody has the experience of carrying around old baggage in your mind, your emotions, your nervous system, your body. We just have all this built-up gunk in our system, so to speak, that just seems to have gotten stuck.

I had a really interesting experience on retreat, actually. I've had many times over the years different versions of this. Retreat has a way of speeding up and amplifying some of the processes that happen in normal meditation practice. And in this case, I was on a two-month retreat. I was meditating 10 or 12 hours a day. It was a very intense retreat in some respects.

And there was a period where something happened that I thought was quite fascinating, the way it played out. And maybe first to set the stage, there were kind of two things going on in my meditation practice. The first is one that we talk about all the time, which was setting a positive altruistic motivation.

That was a huge part of this retreat. It's a huge part of my practice. And in the moment it's just setting this motivation that what I'm doing here — in this case, doing the retreat, meditating on this given day — may not only benefit me, but may this really help others. So whether I have an easy day or a hard day, or I suffer, or I have some beautifully inspired day, may however this plays out, may it allow me to be of more service to others and improve the world.

That's kind of the mindset, which is a huge part of it, actually. The other part of it is in this particular retreat, there was a lot of simply being. Of just resting in open awareness — a practice you know well, Richie. But for those of you who aren't familiar with the idea of open awareness and the practice of open awareness, it's a form of meditation that's, maybe for lack of a better term, a kind of practice of effortless awareness.

You're dropping all mental effort, but you're not distracted. You're just kind of holding space. So I was doing a lot of that on this particular retreat. And to summarize a very complex flow of experience that played out over days in this one period in the retreat, a lot just started coming up.

It started with thoughts about an episode in my life, back to my early twenties. That was one of the more painful episodes in my life. And actually this was stuff I totally thought I'd moved beyond. This was stuff I didn't think was there in my inner mental-emotional system. But clearly it was, because it started coming up.

It started as memories. Then I was just holding space and allowing that to move through the system. And then it was more emotions that came up on the heels of that, and that just kind of played out. And again, I'm just sitting there, just holding space. And finally, it was almost an energetic experience.

It felt almost physical, as though something was being released. First, it was just moving and then being released. Then there was this feeling of catharsis, like it had just somehow been stuck. It became fluid. And then almost as though it somehow kind of dissolved. Because I was in this intensive pressure cooker of a meditation retreat, that was sort of sped up — that usually might play out over weeks, months, or even years if you're just doing some daily practice.

How Memories Get Made

Yeah. First, it's super interesting, Cort, and it's an experience I think that probably many other viewers have had in various contexts. The science that I think is most closely associated with it is really about emotional memories — how they are encoded, and a process that we call consolidation and reconsolidation.

Maybe I'll take just a couple of minutes and unpack that and describe for viewers what this is and what the opportunities are in this process. It's a kind of neurobehavioral process that also lends itself to plasticity and to the capacity for transformation, and may help explain in a scientific way the kind of cathartic release that you experienced at the end, that you described in that beautiful way.

So when we're in an emotional situation — for example, having a discussion with a partner that may be emotional, or having a discussion with a boss that may be emotional, whatever that context is — there's a lot of information in that situation. There's information about the context that we're in. There are emotions that are elicited in ourselves that are part of the experience. And those emotions include feelings in our body, thoughts in our mind. All of that is happening together.

And so there are details of the episode that we're encoding, along with the feelings associated with those details. And all that gets encoded. That process of encoding is critically regulated by a structure that we all have in our brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is this elongated structure that sits within the medial temporal lobes. The temporal lobes are on each side of our head, and they fold in, and on that inner surface of the temporal lobe is the hippocampus.

And the hippocampus is extremely important for encoding new memories. And in fact —

Am I remembering right that the encoding is stronger the stronger the emotional content? Like, if you're in an emotionally charged situation versus just something that's kind of neutral, the encoding will be stronger or more enduring in some way?

Yes, generally speaking, that is true. And there have been case studies. There's a very famous case in the annals of neuroscience that's been labeled H.M. It's a particular patient that was studied by a famous neuroscientist at MIT. H.M. had damage to the hippocampus on both sides.

And H.M. was not able to remember any new information. H.M. had access to old memories that were encoded before the hippocampus was damaged, but nothing new after the hippocampus was damaged.

So new consolidation — memory consolidation. But we can get into reconsolidation as well — but the initial consolidation was disrupted?

Exactly. The initial consolidation was disrupted.

Reconsolidation: Repackaging Our Memories

So that's what this consolidation business is about. Now, what is reconsolidation? Reconsolidation is fascinating, and it's only recently been described in the neuroscientific literature. When we retrieve a memory that is an older memory — so for example, if we think of a teacher that we had in college or maybe even before college, and we remember that teacher's face, maybe how they looked — so if you're given the prompt to bring into your mind a teacher that you had in your past, the process of bringing that person back into your mind is what we call retrieval, where we are retrieving this memory from long-term storage.

Then that memory gets reconsolidated. What that means is that once we retrieve it and it's available to us — we're conscious of that — we then get to reconsolidate it. We repackage it, if you will, and then put it back into our long-term memory. So just before I mentioned thinking about a teacher in your past, I think it's likely that the vast majority of listeners — maybe a hundred percent — were not thinking about a teacher in their past.

It was not part of their conscious experience. But the moment we give the cue, the prompt to recall a teacher in your past, that is a cue to retrieve this memory. Once it's retrieved and once it's conscious, it's in a state where it can be reconsolidated. And one of the amazing things about emotional memory is that when we retrieve it, we're retrieving the memory with all of its colorful characteristics.

But when we reconsolidate it, we have an opportunity to reconsolidate it differently. And in actual fact, nothing is ever reconsolidated in exactly the same way. And that's why memory is not like a photograph of what happened in the past. It is an interpretation.

The Game of Telephone

And probably the more times you elicit the memory and then reconsolidate it, probably the less and less accurate it gets. Because every time it's like small changes. But if you recall a memory a hundred times over the course of five years or ten years, and each time you do that, you might have different associations that now it's linked to, and then you're re-encoding it. It's like a game of telephone.

The gap between the initial memory and how it changes over time is probably changing a little bit at each step. So by the time you get to the end, if it's a hundred of those steps, it's probably radically different, but you don't necessarily feel that it's different.

Exactly. And so during this process of reconsolidation, we have an opportunity to reconstruct the memory, if you will.

Meditation as Reconsolidation

And so in the example you're giving from the retreat, you're sitting there meditating and you're in this mode of being rather than doing. I think it's safe to assume that your body is pretty relaxed, that even though you're having these thoughts, your mind is also pretty relaxed. But these memories are coming up for whatever reason.

And another thing that's safe to assume is that the body state you're in when you're meditating is likely very different than the body state you're in when those emotional episodes originally occurred.

Yeah, radically different in this case.

Yeah. And so this is really the rich opportunity, because you can then have these memories being retrieved and you can reconsolidate them with the calm body state that you're now in.

And so it's an opportunity to reinterpret, if you will, this emotional experience. You're going to still have the memory, but the emotional tag, the affective charge, if you will, associated with that original memory is likely gonna shift. Because you are reconsolidating this now with the calm demeanor of your meditative posture and this mode of being rather than doing.

The Alchemy of Care and Presence

When I was thinking about this experience and the way I was relating to my experience, the analogy that came to mind is the kind of presence that we offer when we're with somebody we deeply care about who's struggling. So, for example, if you're a parent and you're with a child that's having a temper tantrum, or you're with a dear friend that maybe just suffered a terrible loss or is suffering in some way. And in those situations, it's a really interesting mix that's going on internally.

It's this really beautiful alchemy of care on the one hand, presence on the other. And oftentimes that's all it needs to be. If you're with a kid who's having a temper tantrum — I think we all know, those who are parents, I'm sure you experienced this many times — if you get in there and try to stop your kid from having a temper tantrum, not only are you not gonna stop them from having their temper tantrum, pretty soon you're having a temper tantrum. You're both just having a temper tantrum together.

But if you can stay grounded in that situation and you're just there with that caring presence and you're just holding space — there's nothing more to do than that — you kind of love them, you see that they're suffering, you're not taking it personally if they're shouting or whatever they're doing. Similarly, if you're with a good friend who's struggling and crying, you just need to be there. And again, you're fully present.

You're not checking your phone or doing other things or thinking about other stuff, but you're infusing that presence with care and concern and love. Somehow that alchemy is incredibly powerful. We know when we experience it, we know when we give it to somebody else — it's a gift. But somehow we don't learn to do that for ourselves.

In many ways, meditation — or certain kinds of meditation — is learning to have that same caring, infused presence, but we can direct it to our own inner experience. And that's exactly what I felt. It was almost like I was just opening up this space, and I wasn't trying to let go of anything or move beyond anything. But somehow that magical alchemy of care and presence just allows that stuff that's blocked and stuck in the system to start moving.

Can You Delete a Memory?

But the thing I wanted to ask, because you talked about reconsolidation and you can change the associations — I wonder, can you disrupt it altogether?

Because it felt in some respects — I mean, we'll see if this reemerges again, but it certainly hasn't happened since then. In this case, it almost felt like a release. It started as a block of ice and then it turned into water, and then it turned into vapor, and then it dissolved, is kind of how it felt.

I'm curious if there's any research on actually disrupting reconsolidation or blocking the re-encoding of it.

Yeah, there is. Most of those studies have been done in animal models. They're not studies that we ourselves have done, but other scientists working in animal model systems to look at very detailed circuits in the brain.

And there have been some claims, based on this work in animals, that it's actually possible to delete a memory by blocking its reconsolidation. So once the memory is retrieved, it's in this state of plasticity where it can be reconsolidated, but if you somehow block the brain's ability to reconsolidate it, you can potentially delete it, which is kind of a radical idea.

To the best of my knowledge, that has never been shown definitively in humans, because in animals you can block reconsolidation by selectively interfering with specific neural circuits, either pharmacologically or surgically. You cannot do that in humans. And so the same kind of experiment has never been done in humans. But it's certainly in principle possible using meditative strategies to do that.

Although in your case, I assume that the memory itself is not gone. You still remember the situation. It's just that the affect associated with it is —

Yeah, that's true. It's not as though I don't remember it. That's certainly true. But the emotional memory seems to be — like now, even right now when I bring it up, oftentimes with a highly emotional situation — and this was kind of my lowest point probably in my life, emotionally, and it was incredibly painful — and there was even a visceral, almost physical feeling that accompanied it.

When I had this memory on retreat, it was the physicality of it. It was that almost energetic — like, ugh — just a feeling of awfulness. I don't even know how to describe it, that came along with the more episodic memory component to it. But now that feeling — that's fine, that's fine — is like nowhere. I don't even have a hint of that.

The Magic of Plasticity

And so one of the cool things is — I mentioned the structure of the hippocampus, which is so important for this — and research shows that even relatively early-stage meditators, after just a few months of practice, are showing functional changes in the hippocampus. And one of the things that is so interesting about the brain is that just in front of the hippocampus is the amygdala, and it's directly connected to the hippocampus.

It's likely that our brains are wired this way for a reason. And one of the things you mentioned earlier, Cort, is so important, and that is that we tend to remember things that are emotional better than we —

You can see why, from an evolutionary point of view, why the brain is structured that way.

Exactly.

If you're threatened, if you have a physical threat, you don't wanna forget that. So you can remember the next time you're in that situation.

Right. Or on the more positive side, if there's a really nutritious food in a particular location, you wanna be able to remember that location so you can get to that food again.

And so there are evolutionary reasons why it's important for us to have really good emotional memory. And this is probably why the amygdala, which is a key site for emotion, is literally sitting on top of the hippocampus and they're closely interconnected. But in your situation, what likely is occurring is that the negative amygdala inputs to that emotional memory are no longer there. They've been extinguished. And so you can still retrieve the memory without the associated emotion. And that's really the magic of plasticity.

From Ice to Vapor

So the take-home really seems to be that it's possible for all of us, through really neuroplasticity at a more granular level, to move beyond these old patterns.

And probably one of the things that practices like meditation are doing is they're changing the trajectory and the way memory reconsolidation works. Not necessarily — I mean, maybe it's possible to delete the memories — but more importantly, we can change all the associations with the memory. So like when I think about anxiety now, actually, I feel gratitude about the experiences I've had with anxiety, because of probably all these built-up associations where I've seen how it's helped me gain insight into my own life and mind. It's helped me to be a benefit to others. It's been beneficial in so many ways. But of course it's probably hundreds or thousands of remembering, changing the associations, reconsolidating, and repeating that over and over.

Daily Resets

So maybe we could talk about the practical side of this, because it's not like there's a quick fix, silver-bullet thing going on here. It's really just many, many small steps. But all those small steps together are incredibly powerful. So I'd love to hear what you do. There's one thing that I immediately thought of in my own life that I do regularly.

I found it incredibly helpful, and I never really thought about it from this point of view of memory reconsolidation and of releasing, reframing, and releasing all of this trauma and stuff that gets built up in our system. But it's really, for me, important to take time each day for some — what I kind of think of as daily resets. And in particular, at the end of days, I like to just lie down in my bed and just lie there for a few minutes.

A very light awareness of my body. And what I notice is it kind of feels like all this stuff has just sort of built up in my mind-body system in that given day. And I don't even really think about it because we're just rushing through the day. But when I pause — it's really just a little space for being versus all the doing.

It almost feels like all the stuff that's getting locked in the system can just move and be a little more fluid. And I can almost feel a little baby version of that release I talked about, that I experienced more intensely in retreat. So having those periods — especially at the end of the day — where it's just creating that space again, imagining like you would for a young child that's upset or a friend that's upset and just holding that space, it's incredibly healing.

And then on a smaller level, even doing that for short moments throughout the day. Like between meetings, just taking a 30-second pause, a few deep breaths, and just resting for a few moments. It's amazing to me how healing that magical alchemy of care and awareness is when I just bring it to my own mind-body system. So just for me, it's those daily resets and small momentary resets throughout the day. I'm curious if there's anything you do that has helped you, even if you weren't thinking about memory reconsolidation, which you're probably not. But what do you do?

Interstitial Spaces

No, that's great. One of the things I always do is around mealtime.

I'm someone that needs to eat three meals a day. And so around each meal, there are at least three opportunities to spend at least a minute or two just pausing. It's an opportunity to express gratitude for all the people it took to bring food to my body. It's also a wonderful time to reflect on our interdependence on all of these systems, and really to tune into what's going on in my body, my mind, and to allow things to settle.

When I work at home, I will often just take a break. I have a comfortable, sort of easy chair in my study, and I'll switch from my desk chair to my easy chair and just spend a few minutes letting things settle. That's helpful. When I'm here at the Center, as I am here today, I try to — to the extent that I can — build in at least a couple of minutes between meetings to reflect on the upcoming meeting in a way that could be helpful. Just thinking about how I can show up in the best possible way and be as helpful as I can to whatever it is that we're doing next.

If we pay attention, there are lots of these kind of interstitial spaces in our everyday life, even in lives that are quite busy. I would certainly consider myself to have a pretty crazy schedule. But even in the middle of this crazy schedule, if we harness it, I think there are these opportunities every day to have these brief pauses, which really can help.

Closing

I couldn't agree more. And I think in different ways, we're both talking again about that magical alchemy between care — being of service, whether it's caring for ourselves, caring for others, caring for the world — mixed together with the healing power of awareness. And there's something just incredibly powerful about that.

So maybe we can wrap it up here. I think we uncovered a bunch of other little topics and conversations that we can pick up on in future discussions. I think the shift from doing to being is one that I would love to dig into with you maybe in an upcoming discussion. And a note of thanks to those of you who are listening to this. I think Richie and I are both motivated really just by wanting to share all of the many things that we've learned from the science, from the world's wisdom traditions, and all the remarkable people we've met over the world — just to pass on the generosity that we've been benefited by. So hopefully you found this helpful, and hopefully we'll see you in our next conversation through Dharma Lab. Thanks for being here.

Thank you.