What Is an Emotional Flashback?

What if your holiday stress wasn't about what's happening now—but about what your nervous system remembers?

In this episode, co-hosts Elisabeth Kristof and Jennifer Wallace unpack the neuroscience of the holidays, exploring how sensory cues like songs, smells, or family dynamics can reactivate old emotional patterns stored in the body. Together, they explain how neurotags—the networks of neurons linking memory, emotion, and physical response—shape our experience of the season and why this time of year can trigger emotional flashbacks or overwhelm.

You'll learn how to recognize when the past is replaying through your nervous system, how cycles like circadian and seasonal rhythms affect capacity, and why rest is a biological need—not a luxury. The conversation moves from emotional regulation and boundaries to post-traumatic growth, exploring how slowing down and honoring natural rhythms can transform holiday survival into healing and integration.

This episode offers neuroscience-backed practices to help you reclaim presence, build new associations with safety, and rewrite your nervous system's holiday story.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 – Seasonal mismatch & why holidays strain the nervous system

• 2:43 – What are neurotags and how they shape holiday reactions

• 6:39 – Emotional flashbacks: the body's real-time state shifts

• 10:20 – Orientation and regulation tools for holiday triggers

• 12:26 – Boundaries as nervous system protection

• 18:19 – Honoring natural cycles: seasonal, menstrual, and circadian rhythms

• 27:30 – Post-traumatic growth through rest, reflection, and integration

Key Takeaways:

• Neurotags explain why certain holiday cues can trigger powerful emotional and physical responses.

• Emotional flashbacks are not regressions—they're real-time nervous system shifts that can be regulated through awareness and sensory grounding.

• Setting boundaries is a form of nervous system protection, not disconnection.

• Seasonal, menstrual, and circadian rhythms all affect capacity—rest is a biological requirement for resilience.

• Post-traumatic growth happens in the pauses—through rest, orientation, and compassionate self-boundaries.

Resources Mentioned:

• Boundary Rewire Course: boundaryrewire.com – Repattern your nervous system for safer, more authentic boundaries.

• Rewire Trial: rewiretrial.com – Learn neurosomatic tools to regulate and rewire your system.

• BrainBased.com – Explore applied neurology and somatic tools for behavior change and resilience.

• Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification – neurosomaticintelligence.com

• Sacred Synapse https://www.youtube.com/@sacredsynapse-23

If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe to Trauma Rewired wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a review to help more people discover trauma-informed education grounded in neuroscience.

For deeper support this season, explore Boundary Rewire—a 5-module neurosomatic course designed to help you repattern stress responses and create boundaries that feel safe, natural, and grounded in authenticity. It's just $27 through the end of the year.

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