Memory reconsolidation has been popping up on my radar as a key way to explain how transformation happens. In short, it involves reactivating memories and changing them with disconfirmation, before they return to long-term storage. What just occurred to me this week is that this is also what we’re doing when Focusing on positive memories!

Memory Reconsolidation

Memory reconsolidation is a neurobiological process in which previously stored memories become malleable and subject to change upon retrieval. First proposed in the early 2000s, this concept builds on earlier theories of memory consolidation, which suggested that once memories are stored, they remain stable. However, research has shown that when a memory is recalled or reactivated, it temporarily enters a labile or easily changed state. Importantly, this must be in a felt or experienced way; it doesn’t work if it is only done cognitively. Once the memory is destabilized, there is a reconsolidation window of about five hours during which memories can be updated. What’s important at this stage is for there to be some disconfirmation, also called error prediction; some proof that the original perspective isn’t complete, or even is completely untrue. Finally, the memory can be reconsolidated; this restabilization happens via protein synthesis. Memory reconsolidation is a crucial mechanism for therapies targeting traumatic memories, such as in PTSD treatment. You can learn more about experiential therapy and memory reconsolidation in this video by Dr. Tori Olds.

Focusing practice, in being with the felt sense with a Focusing Attitude, makes most (if not all!) Focusing sessions also memory reconsolidation processes. In Focusing, it is very common to be with memories—including long-standing traumatic ones—either explicitly, or implicitly as they’re a component of the felt sense. And because we’re there with them with our welcoming, receiving Self via our Focusing Attitude, and the Focusing Attitude of our listener when practicing in partnership, this changes the experience; it provides the perspective change needed for disconfirmation, to shift the experience of the memory. No wonder Focusing can result in such powerful felt shifts.

Felt sense body card of an experience of clarity — **!Experience of feeling clarity, after getting the right handle, *Algoma*, of my calm and good energy experiences of hiking as a child.**

Using Positive Memories in Focusing

I often use positive memories as an preparatory exercise for Focusing, either in courses or with clients. This is one way of finding the energy we need to create the space and heart-centered energy in the body for the process of Focusing to unfold. When we go to a specific memory of a time we felt calm or compassionate, we embody that energy and in so doing can shift our state to be more grounded and centered in the present. (If you’d like to have this experience now, you can do an Insight Timer or YouTube video exercise to access a state of calm in my blog titled Finding some calm: the power of memories and the right name for them.)

The next step is to name that positive memory experience, so that we can return to it over and over again. In Focusing, we call that getting a handle. We ask the body for a word, phrase, image, gesture, sound or other symbol that captures the embodied experience. When we find the right handle, the one that really resonates with our felt sense, we really know the meaning of the experience for us. Having that handle also allows us to call up the experience at other times, to use it as a resource.

I share in the blog above my experience of having a handle not quite fit. It was originally “Lake Superior” for experiences of hiking in northern Ontario growing up, but it didn’t quite resonate. And then one day I got clarity with the handle “Algoma.” That one really fit! That is the name of the region, and encompasses both the Lake and the forest where we hiked. Now, I can just say Algoma and I feel a gentle wave of calm in me.

So once we get a felt sense and handle for a positive memory, we can use it to over and over again to activate the state needed for Focusing practice. We can also use it at any time we need that resource.

The Power of Crossing the Felt Senses of our Positive Memory and our Issue

I’ve also long known we can turbo charge the use of our Focusing on positive memories when we cross these felt senses into a Focusing session about a different issue. This work is quite magical. Students who take my Transform Yourself with the 8Cs of Self-Leadership course have reported not recognizing themselves in their journalling from the beginning of the course, they have transformed so much by doing this crossing work!

Crossing is holding two things together and allowing them to mix (e.g. mixing yellow and red, and getting orange). In Focusing, it is an interaction between different felt senses, where each modifies and enriches the other, leading to new meaning. In Gendlin’s other process, Thinking at the Edge, it is a crossing of concepts. Crossing allows for deeper understanding, felt shifts and creative insights by integrating previously separate aspects of experience in a way that feels fresh.

In our 8Cs course, we cross the 8Cs of Self-Leadership named by Richard Schwartz in Internal Family Systems with an issue in our life. We take one C quality each week (the eight are: calmness, connectedness, curiosity, clarity, creativity, compassion, confidence, and courage) and we Focus on a memory that has that quality, as described above. We get a handle for that C memory (e.g. confidence) and we create a felt sense body card of the embodied memory experience (I shared mine for clarity above). Others have come up with similar ways to do this, for example Alex Maunder and his Quantum Focusing.

Once we have the memory mapped on a body card, we can then invite the body to give us a felt sense for the issue we’re working on that week (either a fresh issue, or this work can also be used to unpack a larger issue that we intentionally return to, week after week, over the course of eight weeks), and then we hold both felt senses in our awareness, together. In essence, we cross two felt senses and they dance, they move and the “positive” one is able to better resource the issue and process.

“Keeping with one issue and continuing to revisit it each week is a whole new experience for me. A much needed step in my processing. Getting to know my 8Cs has been such a resource for me.” 8Cs participant

Another way of saying this is that we are boosting our Focusing Attitude when we bring in a stronger sense of that C quality. For example, when I crossed a memory of curiosity—in bringing my tomato plants into the house different ways, to see which would yield the best results—with my feelings of inadequacy about my social media use, I got the insight that I could also be curious with my social media posting. To say to myself I wonder when posting, and then see what resonates with my audience, rather than getting stuck in analysis paralysis of what will work in advance. This created so much space to just experiment!

Putting it all Together

So my new insight this week is that the experiences of Focusing on a “positive” memory, either as a stand alone experience, or crossing an embodied experience of such a memory with the felt sense of an issue, are both providing some disconfirmation to change the memories. The positive memory goes from being a nice experience you had in the past to being an ongoing resource that can be used anytime in the present and future. There is a new perspective: that the energy of the memory wasn’t a one-off, but something we can have and be again, as we have felt that way with our felt sense during our Focusing session.

This strengthens our sense of Self. To me it is a superpowered Focusing Attitude. We feel that we can access ourselves in a different way, or re-access. In the words of one of my students “I reviewed my 8Cs body cards yesterday when my energy was wonky and it was SO helpful to have the visuals!!!!! I was so happy to see how easily my state was able to shift.”

In short, using positive memories in combination with our Focusing practice—either before or during—has a beneficial effect on our process. We experience transformative felt shifts as our beliefs about who we are and who we can be change in a felt way. Memory reconsolidation is a way to explain why Focusing process works, and bringing Focusing and the felt sense of positive memories, or even Focusing in general, can boost memory reconsolidation work as it brings the memory online in a very felt way, and positive memories provide juice for the disconfirmation.

Bring more positive memories to your Focusing

Are you wanting to work on your Focusing and Focusing Attitude via positive memories? I invite you to join one of my 8-week courses that really explore this work:

Transform Yourself with the 8Cs of Self-Leadership: The course is designed to either work through one large issue, week-by-week, or you can bring a new issue each week. We do so with the resourcing of that week’s “C” quality energy, which include self-compassion, and other qualities like calm, curiosity and confidence. We cross the C of the week with your issue. Overall, the experience strengthens your access to your Focusing Attitude with much more detail for each energy.
Creating your Special Project: a TAE exploration of Focusing and You: In this course, we give a lot of space for the felt sense to form and speak to us. It creates a very gentle welcoming in our Focusing Attitude. Our experiences/facets help this grow. We also learn Gendlin’s second practice, Thinking at the Edge.
Understanding who you are: mapping your nervous system, parts and timeline: In this course, we explore our autonomic nervous system from a polyvagal theory perspective, and better get to know our grounded, hurt and protective parts with felt sense body cards. Our first three weeks are spent building our Focusing Attitude by tapping into positive memories.

In our safe shared space, we will better get to know our Focusing Attitude with our positive memories, and use it to hold space for each other and our felt senses to change, one felt shift at a time. Not ready for a course yet, begin with the on-demand recording of our workshop Grow access to your Self. Or take a beginner Focusing course or workshop, which is a pre-requisite for the below courses.

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