PTSD – A Way Out.com A mindful way to heal

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What is implicit memory?

•  Encoded throughout our lives. •  Probably the only type of memory infants have. •  Allows us to remember how to do something without being conscious of how to do it, such as riding a bicycle, walking—anything procedural.

•  Gets stored without our conscious awareness.

•  Gets retrieved without our awareness—“I don’t know I’m having a memory.”

•  Past memories come flooding in without knowing they’re from the past; it feels like it is all coming from the present.

•  Drives behavior without our awareness—often negatively.

•  Primes us to respond in a certain fashion.

•  Readies us for the future.

•  Designed to protect us.

•  Can create here and now perceptions and beliefs that are actually from the past.

•  Can show up as a physical feeling in our body, an emotional reaction, a behavioral pattern, or a bias.

•  The amygdala is responsible for implicit memory as it scans earlier memories of danger.

•  Procedural memory is a subset (how to do things).

Why do we care?

•  Implicit memories can emotionally hijack our prefrontal cortex and drive behavior without our awareness.

•  Can often create a total misinterpretation of a current situation.

•  Implicit memory is like the child that lives within us.

•  Implicit memories may show up in body sensations.

•  Mindfulness allows us to integrate implicit with explicit memory to improve emotional response and behavioral patterns.
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