
Dharma Lab DL Ep. 17: Trauma, Memory, and the Brain's Capacity to Change
REMINDER: Live Q&A with Richie and Cort TODAY at 7pm ET on Substack.
Why do certain memories feel like they still live in our bodies years after they happened? And why do some difficult experiences become turning points for growth while others leave us feeling stuck?
In this episode, we explore the neuroscience of trauma and the contemplative tools that help us reshape old emotional patterns. A central part of our discussion is the role of plasticity in both trauma and healing:
“Trauma wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t plasticity. The same quality that allows experience to wound us also allows us to heal.”
We look at how emotional memories are encoded in the brain, why they can resurface with such force, and how memory reconsolidation creates a natural opening for change each time a memory returns. We also share a powerful experience from a recent meditation retreat, where a long buried emotional imprint surfaced and released through simple, spacious awareness.
Again and again, we come back to one insight:Our emotional past is not fixed.Each time we remember an experience, the mind updates it. The state of our mind and body in that moment influences how it is stored again.
Meditation helps create the conditions for this shift. A calm and open nervous system changes how old patterns settle in the body. Presence and care make the difference between a memory that stays tight and one that begins to loosen.
In this episode we explore:
* Why trauma exists on a spectrum and why we are more resilient than we often believe
* How emotional memories form and how sensation, context, and meaning become linked
* The science of reconsolidation and why remembering a memory makes it editable
* How meditation supports emotional release and re-patterning
* What happens in the hippocampus and amygdala during emotional release
* Simple practices that help us reset between activities or at the end of a day
* How offering ourselves the same caring presence we offer others can shift deep patterns
A final takeaway:
Reconsolidation shows that nothing in our emotional history is final. Each encounter with the past becomes a chance to update it. When a memory returns in a calmer mind, it settles differently.
Warmly,
Cort + Richie
Podcast Chapter List
00:00 Why memories change every time we recall them
01:21 Opening greetings & Center for Healthy Minds
02:34 Introducing today’s topic: trauma & old baggage
03:00 How neuroscience defines trauma
04:03 Trauma, neuroplasticity, and brain change
05:40 Trauma as a spectrum, not a binary
07:44 Innate resilience and basic goodness
09:11 When difficult experiences become patterns
10:55 PTSD vs. post-traumatic growth
11:52 Personal stories of challenge and insight
12:58 Why some adversity overwhelms us — and some transforms us
13:32 Growth mindset & the belief that change is possible
15:33 Why we get “stuck” with old emotional residue
16:07 Cort’s retreat experience: when old pain resurfaces
17:20 Open awareness and effortless presence
18:00 Memories, emotion, and bodily release
19:08 What’s happening in the brain during emotional release
20:06 Consolidation vs. reconsolidation
22:03 The hippocampus and encoding emotional experience
23:53 Retrieval, reconsolidation, and the chance to reshape memory
25:36 Why memory is always an interpretation
27:08 Re-encoding old memories in a calm body
28:40 How meditation creates a new emotional context
29:38 Care + presence: the healing alchemy
30:52 Can reconsolidation be disrupted entirely?
32:22 What animal research shows about memory deletion
33:00 Emotional memory without emotional charge
34:06 How meditation alters hippocampus–amygdala pathways
36:00 Updating anxiety and old narratives through practice
37:05 Practical tools: daily resets
38:30 Micro-pauses between activities
39:33 Mealtime gratitude as nervous system reset
40:53 Finding small spaces for awareness in busy lives
41:33 Shifting from “doing” to “being”
42:00 Final reflections & gratitude
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