Memories can be distressing. Many clients tell me about how they are troubled by events and memories from their past. Although those memories come from experiences that happened in the past and are over. Those memories can still have an impact later down the line. Distressing memories can cast a long shadow over the present and can extend into the future – unless those memories are addressed.
Quantum physics demonstrates (in theory) that time is not fixed, nor is it linear or only flowing in one direction. Time is fluid and flows backwards and forwards simultaneously. In other words everything is happening at once, there is no past no future only the present moment. This was an update on prior thinking about the arrow of time pointing forwards only in one direction.
What science has also revealed about space or “distance” between objects is that they are actually not as separate as we may seem. It is our own perception and limited beliefs on the illusion that time and space are fixed.
Quantum entanglement was proven in 1997 by scientists in Switzerland using photons of light (the stuff which make up our universe). The scientists created two photons by dividing a single photon into two. These ‘twin’ photons behaved as if they were still one and the same, or as if they had never separated.
Therefore the thinking is that if the universe was born of the same matter, then it cannot by definition ever be separated. In other words it is all a holographic mix which can be rescripted for therapy purposes. So much has been written on the subject of quantum theory and our memory processing.
How is quantum physics relevant for therapy?
The good news is that techniques such as EMDR and Matrix Reimprinting are excellent for addressing traumatic memories. EMDR uses eye movements (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) as therapy to detach the emotional overwhelm from difficult scenes in the past. It can bring tears but then usually it brings greater perspective and more peace. How does EMDR work? Our best hypothesis is that memories are reprocessed by moving information between the two brain hemispheres (aided by the eye movements left to right, or through bilateral tapping on the body). Matrix Reimprinting is a more creative visual approach which entails redirecting a memory scene to resource the client with what they needed back then but didn’t get at that time. By recreating and rescripting the memory scene, the client feels more empowered by the current self to support the echo self from the original experience.
These are just two ways of moving the traumatic memory from a stuck place in the brain into a more resolved state, shifting to a place in the brain where the memory can be stored without emotional overwhelm. This is the ’emotional freedom’ of the tapping process in EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
