Orion: Aisha, have you ever felt like you're stuck in a loop? Maybe it’s in a relationship, or a recurring self-doubt that sabotages your confidence. You know you should react differently, but in the moment, it’s like you’re on autopilot, and an old, unhelpful program just takes over.

Aisha Oiza: Absolutely, Orion. I think everyone can relate to that feeling. It's that frustrating moment where your logical brain knows one thing, but your emotional reaction is doing something completely different. You're left wondering, "Why did I do that? That's not who I want to be."

Orion: Exactly. And that feeling is at the heart of Francine Shapiro's incredible book,. It argues that these automatic reactions are actually echoes of unresolved memories. Today we'll dive deep into this from three perspectives.

Aisha Oiza: I'm ready.

Orion: First, we'll explore how these 'unprocessed memories' put our lives on autopilot, especially in our relationships. Then, we'll discuss the shocking ways these memories can manifest as real physical pain. And finally, we'll focus on a practical technique you can use to start identifying the root causes of your own 'stuck' points.

Aisha Oiza: This sounds like it gets to the very core of mindset and self-awareness. Let's get into it.

Orion: Great. Let's start with that idea of being on autopilot. The book explains that our brain has a natural information processing system. It's designed to take our experiences, learn from them, and file them away. But sometimes, a particularly negative or overwhelming event gets... stuck. It's not filed away properly.

Aisha Oiza: It's like a corrupted file on a hard drive. It's still there, taking up space and maybe causing system errors, but you can't access it normally.

Orion: That's a perfect analogy. And to make this real, let's talk about a story from the book, the case of Justine. Justine is a successful 25-year-old woman, but she has a disastrous pattern in her love life. She consistently chooses emotionally unavailable men, and the moment they try to break up with her, she becomes extremely clingy, begging them not to leave.

Aisha Oiza: A pattern many people might recognize, either in themselves or others. It's often labeled as being 'needy' or 'insecure.'

Orion: Precisely. But in therapy, the cause was traced back to a single incident when she was six years old. Imagine this: Justine is in her bedroom on the second floor of her house. A severe thunderstorm starts raging outside. She's terrified. She starts crying and screaming for her mommy and daddy.

Aisha Oiza: Oh, that's a primal fear for a child.

Orion: It is. But her parents are downstairs in the kitchen. The storm is so loud they don't hear her. They never come. Eventually, she cries herself to sleep, feeling completely alone and abandoned in the dark.

Aisha Oiza: That's heartbreaking.

Orion: Now, fast forward nineteen years. Justine is 25. A boyfriend says, "I think we should see other people." Her conscious, adult brain understands the words. But the unprocessed memory—that corrupted file—gets triggered. Her brain doesn't just hear a 25-year-old man breaking up with her. It hears the thunder. It feels the terror and abandonment of being six years old and alone in the storm. And she reacts not as a capable adult, but as that frightened little girl.

Aisha Oiza: Wow. That is incredibly powerful. It completely reframes how you'd view someone's 'clinginess.' It's not a character flaw; it's a trauma response playing out in real-time. It makes me think about love relationships—how often are we arguing with our partner versus arguing with a ghost from their past?

Orion: The book's central idea is that the past present. Shapiro calls it an 'unprocessed memory,' and it's stored with all the original emotions, physical sensations, and beliefs from that time. The belief "I'm all alone and no one will save me" gets locked in.

Aisha Oiza: So, the path to improving our mindset or relationships isn't just about 'thinking positive' or using willpower. It's about finding and dealing with these unprocessed files. That's a much deeper, more compassionate level of self-care. It's not about fixing a flaw, but healing a wound.

Orion: You've hit the nail on the head. And it gets even deeper, because these 'unprocessed files' don't just affect our emotions. They can have profound physical consequences.

Aisha Oiza: You mean these memories can actually make you physically sick?

Orion: They can manifest as very real, very physical symptoms. This isn't just 'in your mind'; it's in your body. Let me tell you about Trisha. She was a 45-year-old social worker. A year before she started therapy, she was in a serious head-on car collision.

Aisha Oiza: Okay.

Orion: In the year that followed, she suffered from all the things you might expect: flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety. But she also had crippling back and leg pain. It was so severe that she needed a walker to get around. Doctors had done all the scans, all the tests, and they couldn't find a sufficient physical reason for the of her pain.

Aisha Oiza: So there was a disconnect between her physical injuries and the level of pain she was experiencing.

Orion: A huge disconnect. So, in an EMDR therapy session, the therapist had her focus on the memory of the accident. As she did, Trisha suddenly saw the image of the other car's headlights coming right at her. And as she saw this, her right leg—the one with the worst pain—flew straight out, as if she were trying to slam on a brake that wasn't there. It held that locked position for a while during the processing.

Aisha Oiza: Her body was re-enacting the moment of impact.

Orion: Exactly. She was physically reliving it. In that moment, as her body held that pose, she processed the intense feeling of helplessness from the accident. The book says at the end of that single session, she stood up... and walked out of the office without her walker. The pain was gone.

Aisha Oiza: That's... I'm speechless. That's unbelievable. So her body was literally holding onto the physical memory of the trauma. The pain wasn't just a symptom the injury, it was the of the injury playing on a loop.

Orion: Precisely. The book is filled with examples like this—phantom limb pain in veterans, chronic migraines, even sexual dysfunction—all linked back to unprocessed memories. The brain and body are one integrated system.

Aisha Oiza: This has huge implications for how we think about health and wellness. We're always trying to separate mental and physical health into these neat little boxes, but this suggests they are completely, fundamentally intertwined. A persistent, unexplained physical issue could actually be a clue from your body that there's an emotional story that needs to be heard.

Orion: It's a total paradigm shift. Which brings us to the most empowering part of this. If these memories are running the show, how in the world do we find them?

Aisha Oiza: Right. It feels like trying to find a specific file on a computer without a search function. Where do you even begin?

Orion: Well, the book offers a technique that acts as that search function. It's called the 'Floatback' technique. It's surprisingly simple in concept.

Aisha Oiza: I'm listening.

Orion: You start with a current situation where you felt 'stuck' or had an over-the-top reaction. You then identify the negative belief you had about in that moment. Not about the other person, but about you. Things like, 'I'm powerless,' 'I'm not good enough,' or 'I'm in danger.'

Aisha Oiza: Okay, so you isolate the negative self-cognition.

Orion: Exactly. Then, holding that feeling and that negative belief in your mind, you just let your mind 'float back' to the first time you remember feeling that exact same way, especially in childhood. Let's use the story of Sandra. Sandra was a corporate trainer, but she was terrified of public speaking. She'd even drink wine beforehand to cope.

Aisha Oiza: A classic confidence issue.

Orion: Her negative belief was 'I'm not good enough.' So, using the Floatback technique, she let her mind drift. And it landed on a memory from fourth grade. She's standing in the classroom, and her teacher, a Mrs. Alpert, is describing her to the teacher she'll have the next year. And right there, in front of her and the other teacher, Mrs. Alpert says, "She's a doozy."

Aisha Oiza: Oh, no. Just a casual, throwaway comment.

Orion: A single, casual word. But for a nine-year-old Sandra, that word 'doozy' lodged in her brain and was translated into 'I'm not good enough.' It created a lifelong fear of being judged in front of a group.

Aisha Oiza: It's astonishing how something so small, so seemingly insignificant, can have such a massive ripple effect on someone's confidence, their career, their entire life. It really highlights how vulnerable and impressionable we are as children.

Orion: And that, according to the book, is the 'Touchstone Memory.' The first domino in the chain. By identifying and eventually processing that memory, Sandra could finally separate the present—a room full of professionals who wanted to learn from her—from the past—a little girl being casually and carelessly dismissed.

Aisha Oiza: So it's about finding the original source code of the bug, not just trying to patch the symptoms over and over again. That's a very analytical, almost tech-like way to approach personal development, which I find really compelling. You're not just managing the behavior; you're debugging the root cause.

Orion: That's the perfect way to put it. So, to bring it all together: our past experiences, when unprocessed, create automatic programs that can hijack our emotions and sabotage our relationships.

Aisha Oiza: And those programs aren't just emotional. They can show up as real, physical pain, blurring the line between mind and body.

Orion: But—and this is the hopeful part—by acting as a detective of our own minds, using techniques like the Floatback, we can trace these reactions back to their source. We can find the 'Touchstone Memory.'

Aisha Oiza: It's a profound shift in perspective. It's not about blaming the past or staying stuck in it. It's about understanding its mechanics so you can finally take back control of the machine. It moves you from being a victim of your own reactions to being an architect of your mindset.

Orion: Beautifully said. So, what's the one thought you'd want to leave our listeners with today?

Aisha Oiza: I think it's a call to curiosity. For everyone listening, the next time you have a surprisingly strong emotional reaction—one that feels bigger than the situation warrants—try to get curious instead of critical. Instead of beating yourself up, just gently and privately ask yourself: "When is the first time I remember feeling this exact way?" You don't have to have the answer right away. Just asking the question is the first step. You might be surprised what your own mind reveals.