In last week's Thought (The Power of Change, October 14, 2002), I stated that the universal constant of change affirms how our illnesses, like all natural states, have come into being through a history of circumstances. They are not conditions that were simply "set in stone" by some ancient, unchangeable genetic edict.

In Primal Integration we experience that emotional illness is, in fact, a symptom - an expression - of all the unresolved hurts we have accumulated. Over time, the hurts that our systems could not withstand, assimilate, or release gather more and more "weight." This pile of "unfinished history" is the illness. (See Homework That Heals - Expression; January 7, 2002).

Single-celled microorganisms in a toxic environment often survive by absorbing - yet containing - the toxic materials within "bubbles" called vacuoles. To regain health, they release the toxic contents of the vacuoles when they are in a less toxic environment. As multi-cellular creatures, we follow the same principle with emotional illness and healing. Our entire history of toxic hurts are stored as imprinted patterns in our bodies and brains. To heal we need to revisit these trapped memories and release them - through expression of feeling - into a safe environment.

When people allow full expression of their painful feelings, they release the untouched emotional content of hurtful situations within their normal memory recall - and beyond. Sometimes the traumatic memories were imprinted in infancy, birth, and even in the womb. Many people who have experienced these early feelings have had their memories independently corroborated by medical records and eyewitness reports. Everything has a history, and our cells store the memory of that history.

Although this essential, common-sense theory was created and proven through the experience of thousands of primallers, mainstream medicine and psychology are still in denial. In spite of recent research to the contrary (http://www.birthpsychology.com/lifebefore/earlymem.html), medical science still says that early memory is impossible. Since the causes of emotional illness are deemed inaccessible, most modern "health" practitioners limit themselves to manipulating symptoms with drugs and behavioural engineering. Unfortunately, symptom "treatment" is only symptom treatment. It is no different than painting withered leaves green - or white roses red!

The "limited memory" argument states that the nervous system and brain are the only organs that can record information and recall it (memory). Neurons (brain cells) cannot code memory until they are fully protected by a myelin sheath. The process of myelinization begins on the spinal cord during the second trimester of pregnancy and continues up into the brain until the age of twenty. Since most of the brain is not myelinized at birth and early infancy, scientists conclude that early memory recall is impossible.

Essentially, mainstream science is saying, "If you can't prove something by our methods, it doesn't exist." This is virtually the definition of the word denial. Instead of this scientific irrationality, the logical approach would be to look for clues to another memory system in addition to the myelinized neuron. If the neuron is a cell, and it can record memory, it is reasonable to assume that other cells may be able to imprint experience as well. And if groups of neurons (intrabrain organs) can record complex patterns of information, maybe other organs also have this capability. After all, even a single-celled organism will experience a stimulus, register it, and base future actions on that experience, which is a rudimentary form of memory and learning.

In the book "Molecules of Emotion," neuroscientist Candace Pert explains her pioneering efforts in the discovery of cell receptors. The theory is that all cells receive and pass on information via cell receptors in the same fundamental way, regardless of whether they are neurons or heart cells.

Receptors are molecular "key holes" on the cell surface that play a similar role as sensory organs of the body. Light is admitted by the eyes, after which the visual brain centers respond in various ways. Similarly, cell receptors allow various molecular substances (information) access to the cell which responds with a cascade of intercellular activity. Cells have thousands of receptors that can only be "opened" by molecules (called "ligands") that match them, like keys in a lock. Information that can affect or imprint a cell can be regulated by the receptor. When we feel pain, we are experiencing the actions of a multitude of cells and the molecular traffic between them. This experience passes through the cell receptors and is coded on a molecular level. Overload can be blocked at the cellular level by a closure or blocking of cell receptors. Therefore, both memory imprinting and memory repression can be blocked by any cell and organ. Our entire body - from conception on - is the living story of our experience, our history. The storybook can be written, it can be locked away - and it can be unlocked and reread.

Since the history of our illness is accessible, then the path to healing is also accessible. If the cause of our illness is repressed pain, then the path to healing is to revisit it, feel it, and release it. Our history is here with us, in every cell, waiting to be experienced and worked through.

This is both common sense - and ancient wisdom.

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