Are You Stuck in the Past? How Brainspotting Helps Break Free from Painful Memories
"Healing doesn’t require you to throw away the good memories. In fact, the healing process allows you to own the good times without getting stuck in the pain or the triggers associated with the bad ones."
Are You Stuck in the Past? How Brainspotting Helps Break Free from Painful Memories
If you’ve gone through a divorce, especially a life-saving divorce, there’s a part of you that may feel stuck in the past—haunted by memories, feelings, and experiences you can’t quite shake. It’s not uncommon to find yourself trapped in a cycle of rumination, constantly replaying painful moments over and over again in your mind. Perhaps you feel hypervigilant, always on guard, or deeply triggered by the smallest reminders of what you’ve been through. These are not just thoughts—they are remnants of trauma, stored deep in the brain and body.
As a betrayal trauma specialist, I see this all the time. Clients who are struggling to move on, to create the life they want, often find themselves stuck in the past. The memories of betrayal, emotional pain, and the aftermath of their divorce keep them from fully living in the present. They can’t seem to stop ruminating on the “what ifs,” or they find themselves in a constant state of alertness, worried that they might be hurt again. But here's the thing: This pain doesn’t have to define your future.
Let’s explore how Brainspotting can help you break free from those painful memories, understand why these thoughts are so persistent, and why healing doesn’t mean you have to throw away all the good memories that existed alongside the bad ones.
Why You Get Stuck in the Past: The Role of Trauma in Your Brain
When we experience trauma, especially a betrayal or an emotionally difficult divorce, it doesn’t just affect our minds—it affects the deep, survival-oriented parts of the brain. The emotional impact of those painful memories is stored in the limbic system, amygdala, and brainstem, which are responsible for how we process emotions, threats, and memories. These areas of the brain don’t deal with information in the same way the neocortex does. They’re more primal, tied to our survival mechanisms, which is why the emotional response to trauma can feel so intense, even long after the event.
Trauma leaves behind what I call "shock residue"—energy that doesn’t get processed in the moment of distress. Our nervous systems go into overdrive, flooding our bodies with chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol to help us survive. But when the trauma is ongoing, as it often is in cases of betrayal or abuse, our bodies don’t have the opportunity to release that built-up shock. It stays stuck in the nervous system, creating patterns of hypervigilance, rumination, and emotional reactivity. That’s why you might still feel like you’re back in the past, unable to fully move on.
The Role of Brainspotting in Releasing These Stuck Memories
Brainspotting is a modality that helps you access and process trauma where it’s stored in the brain and body—deep within the areas responsible for emotional memories. Rather than just talking through the trauma, Brainspotting uses focused eye positions to locate and activate the part of your brain that holds onto the unprocessed pain. By identifying these "brainspots," you can start to release the stuck emotions and memories that have been keeping you trapped in the past.
When you focus on these brainspots, the trauma memory that’s been stuck in your brain and body can finally begin to surface. You don’t have to force the healing process or dredge up every painful detail. Instead, Brainspotting helps to allow the trauma to come to the surface safely, where it can be processed, integrated, and released without the overwhelming emotional reactivity that often accompanies revisiting painful memories.
How We Get Stuck in the Past: Rumination and Hypervigilance
Rumination and hypervigilance are common responses to trauma, especially for those who have experienced betrayal or a difficult divorce. You might find yourself:
Constantly replaying the painful moments of your marriage or divorce, trying to understand what went wrong.
Ruminating on past arguments, behaviors, or lies—not able to let go of how it ended.
Fearing that you’ll be hurt again, constantly checking for signs of danger, whether it’s in your new relationships or even in daily interactions.
Feeling like you can never fully relax, always anticipating something bad is about to happen.
These patterns are deeply tied to trauma, and they make it feel like you’re still living in the past. Your nervous system has been programmed by these past events, and it keeps you on high alert, believing that you need to stay vigilant to avoid being hurt again. But the truth is, these responses are just the body’s way of trying to protect you, even though it ends up keeping you stuck in the very memories you want to move beyond.
Brainspotting helps interrupt these patterns by releasing the stored trauma. It gives you a way to process and move beyond the rumination and hypervigilance, allowing you to feel safe again and step out of the emotional cycle that’s been holding you back.
The Misconception of Throwing Away All the Memories
One of the biggest misconceptions I see in my work with clients is that healing after a life-saving divorce means throwing away all the memories—both the good and the bad. We often feel like we have to erase the positive moments we shared with our ex-partner in order to protect ourselves from the pain. It’s as if we think we can’t heal unless we completely cut ourselves off from the past, or worse, that we can’t have peace unless we forget about the good times entirely.
But here’s the truth: Healing doesn’t require you to throw away the good memories. In fact, the healing process allows you to own the good times without getting stuck in the pain or the triggers associated with the bad ones. Brainspotting helps you process the shock residue from the bad memories while allowing you to hold onto the positive moments that shaped who you are. It helps you separate the joy from the pain, so that you can remember the good things without reliving the trauma.
You don’t have to erase your past to heal. Healing means integrating all parts of your story—the good and the bad—so that you can move forward with peace, confidence, and acceptance of your journey.
How Brainspotting Helps You Move Forward
When you are no longer stuck in the painful memories, you are free to create a life you choose—one where you are not defined by the trauma of your past. Brainspotting can help you get unstuck, so you can finally let go of the emotional reactivity that comes from past events. It allows you to move forward, not by erasing your past, but by processing and releasing the trauma that’s keeping you from truly living in the present.
By addressing the deep-rooted trauma that keeps you anchored to the past, Brainspotting helps you build the life you choose, free from the emotional weight of the past.
A Personal Invitation
If you feel stuck in the past, reliving painful memories or feeling like you can’t move forward after divorce, I invite you to reach out for a consultation. Let’s explore how Brainspotting can help you process the trauma that’s keeping you stuck and support you in releasing the emotional charge of painful memories. Together, we can work on giving you the freedom to create the life you deserve, where the past no longer holds you back.
Healing is possible, and it starts with releasing the trauma that’s been keeping you stuck.
https://amiewoolsey.com/brainspotting
