How emotional pain is stored in the brain

At certain times in our lives, events took place that overwhelmed us, whether because we were not at our best at the time, or because of the severity of the event; our brain was “flooded” and could not properly process the event when it happened. The result was that the impressions of the event — thoughts, feelings, body sensations, pictures and smells — were kept unprocessed, in raw form, by the brain. When a present event connects to such a traumatic event from the past, it serves as a trigger for the activation of the unprocessed contents. These contents, which were kept in their raw state — thoughts, feelings, emotions — rise up again in their raw state. In such a situation, we feel in the present as we did while the past event was happening.