Early Memory by Karen Melton

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life KarenE-bookbyMelton

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From preconception to birth we are conscious and sentient, and it is during this period that we are forming our foundations for life. Everything about our pre- and perinatal life is stored in our implicit memory. Explicit memory is cognitive, mental and linear in nature, whereas implicit memory is alive in the present in all aspects of our life, and is constantly expressing itself through our: health way we're wired felt-sense

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life

Our early imprints can help us to make deeper sense of our lives as we understand the underlying currents and drives at play, and why we feel the way we do. They can give us a sense of a coherent narrative and an understanding that transformation is possible through working with our Little One within (prenatal self). Imprints can be healed and in tegrated and we can have more choice about how we want to be, and how much we want to show up, in our lives.

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Listening to our early imprints, our Little One within, is the key to unlocking our healing journey and to a deeper understanding of ourselves. Each imprint holds within it three elements - the story of what happened to us, how we responded to it back then, and information about what is needed to heal and unwind that experience. An imprint is a wonderful package of potential!

Little One's do extraordinary things to get here, and I'm always in awe of them. They will find a way to make it through adversity, trauma and challenges. Connecting with Little One's is a magical experience because they are the part of us that remains connected to Source and soul. Through them we can re-connect with our soul essence, and with Source.

Implicit memories, which I call imprints, are active in our lives at every level. Our early imprints are particularly influential and profound because they form our foundations and our core self. Although our early imprints are very active in our lives, we often remain un conscious of their influence. Even though they are, in a sense, hidden from our conscious, thinking mind we can choose to become more aware of them.

Our level of embodiment, the degree to which we can occupy and be present in our body, affects whether we feel grounded and coherent or dissociated, out of our body, discon nected and adrift. Imprints impact and influence our embodiment experience, and when they are healed and integrated we can enjoy more presence and sense of ground. We can also have more access to our most valuable resource - our body - which is constantly giving us feedback about where we are inside of ourselves, and what's going on around us. Our body is a fantastic resource and can be our best friend.

Why Become More Aware of Early Imprints?

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life

1. Nervous system 2. Emotions 3. Senses 4. Psychology 5. Beliefs and mistaken beliefs 6. Unconscious 7. Physiology,

8. Somatic

We can meet our deeper selves by exploring our early imprints because it's through our core imprints that we can discover the story of our personal journey into life, and remember our souls purpose. Familiar feelings, life patterns and dynamics can begin to make a different kind of sense to us as we learn about their earlier origins. We may also understand much more about our relationships, parenting, and attachment styles.

The Foundational Period: Preconception to Newborn

Early imprints arise from our personal experiences coming into life, the environment in which we grow and develop during the foundational period (primarily our mother and her intimate others), and our family-of-origin and ancestral imprints. Outer layers of imprinting arise from community, cultural, and country conditioning.

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The Journey into Our Body

Embodiment is at the very center of our journey into life; we simultaneously enter into our mothers body, and begin to grow our own body. The level of embodiment we can achieve - how much we can land in, and occupy, our own body - is affected by our en vironment/mother, our own experiences, and the parenting we received throughout the foundational period. Our level of embodiment affects to what extent we can show up in our lives. We are always having our own experience throughout the pre- and perinatal period, and we are conscious and sentient.

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We might want to become more aware of our early imprints so that we can: Understand ourselves more deeply both personally and relationally Practice self development and better self-care

Imprints color our world view, e.g. I am safe/not safe, I am wanted, loved and welcome or not wanted, unloved and unwelcome. They affect our perceptions and are wired into our very being from a time when we were growing our new body inside of our mothers body.

• Nurture new internal resources

• Have more conscious relationships

• Have more choice

Early imprints are somatic (of the body) in nature. In every moment our body is giving us feedback and information. It's telling us where we are in ourselves (what part of us is speaking the loudest), as well as keeping us in touch with what's happening around us, both in our relationships and in our environment.

Little One's Are Lonely!

• Heal disruptive imprinting and trauma

E-Book by Karen Melton

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life

• Connect with our souls essence

All of our early imprints, from preconception onwards, can be accessed through our energy and physical bodies, both of which work entirely in concert. The practice of listening to our deeper self begins through listening to our body, which is our most fantastic resource.

• Have a better quality of life

Healing and integrating our imprints can dramatically change our perception of life from unsafe to safe, anxious to calm, ambivalent to living in clear choice and presence. It may mean that we have a calm regulated nervous system instead of feeling triggered and dys

We can identify each one of our precious parts through our felt-sense and physiology, because they each have their own signature felt-sense. In this way, through our body, we can know which one of our younger selves is the 'dominant expresser' in any given moment. Imprints and parts will often show up in the same physical location with a recog nizable and familiar feeling, this may be a felt-sense of:

• Become more aware conscious parents

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life

E-Book by Karen Melton

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Unresolved issues and trauma arising from early imprinting can be healed, embraced and integrated giving us the choice to live our life more in the present. The present is where we have access to clarity, choice, connection, presence and resources. When we are living, or expressing, from our Little One we are only accessing prenatal levels of resource and understanding; these resources are not developed enough to be effectively in charge of our adult life. Little One's are often running big parts of our lives, and it's a task that is far too big for them.

Learning to Listen to Our Little One Through Our Body

• Feel more present, grounded and connected

Each of us adults has within us a prenatal baby self (Little One), a newborn self, other inner children of various ages, and a teen self. Each of these beloved parts of us has their own physiology, experiences and responses to all that occurred growing up. We are ad ept at shape shifting in response to our growing environment, and this ability is both a resource and strength. Each one of our inner parts also has its own memories/imprints, beliefs, mistaken beliefs, felt-sense, nervous system cycles, perceptions, imprints, expe riences and needs. They all have a story to tell, and may have unresolved challenges, or traumas that need support and to be heard.

When we heal, and develop awareness of our early imprints/Little One, we can learn to be aware of when we are caught up in memories, perceptions and beliefs from 'back then' and lovingly choose to live more consciously in the present. This kind of awareness takes practice, support, healing and some new understanding about how we got wired prenatal ly, and what we can do about it now to live more in the present.

We are, as yet, largely unaware that our prenatal babies need connection, love and par enting much earlier than has previously been known. Isolation is a normal part of early imprinting because we are not parented during this period and there is so much happening during this time that we are going through on our own. Even our experiences before conception are significantly impacting our embodied lives, as imprints from that period land in our physical body. In other words, what we experience energetically before conception will show up in our body, and will affect our lives. Preconception, prenatal and birth memories can be accessed and healed through our body.

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land more fully in our body we can be more present in our life and realize our soul's purpose. Early imprints, held in the very youngest parts of ourselves, usually hold information about something we went through and/or an ancestral level of imprinting that we adopted that is as yet unresolved. The resolution and integration of our early experiences, events and environment frees us up to live more in our essential soul essence in the present, rather than through the lens of what happened back then.

The wisdom and resources that we need to take the path of presence, healing and deeper embodiment are not taught to us in western culture, so we often grow up constellating around our unconscious early imprints. They are held in our body and have never been heard, integrated or transformed. Our personal and cultural unconsciousness and gener al lack of knowledge about early imprints, and about the consciousness and sentience of Little One's coming into a new life, causes a great deal of isolation for us all. During most of our creation journey we are not consciously acknowledged, parented or presenced until we are born and can be physically held and seen. Even then we are not considered con scious and sentient, or to be having our own experience.

Notice when your attention wants to go back into thinking/your head, and very gently move it back down to your body

Source - our sense of where we were before conception

If it feels right, you can place your hand on a somatic location

You may want to record these instructions or have someone else read them to you slowly as you drop in to the exercise.

focus of your attention to gently and easily slip down from your head into your body - you can visualize melting down into your body

Finding a somatic practitioner, alongside other somatic practices such as yoga, dance, feldenkrais, vipassanna meditation, energy psychology, and many more, can be very help ful for learning to tune in to your body, raise your self-awareness and begin to heal.

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Turn off all technology and get comfortable sitting or laying down

• Anxiety and panic

If you have an impulse to move any part of your body, trust it and gently and slowly follow the movement, taking your time

The Pre & Perinatal (PPN) Life Continuum, and Imprints

If you do this practice with a partner you may want to share your experience with each other at the end.

We are also able to access wonderful positive feelings, and states, when connecting with our Little One's because they are still so connected to Source and their pure soul essence. Little One's are magical, sweet, smart, resilient, determined and utterly awe inspiring! Connecting with a Little one has its own special magic. When we're listening to them we can begin to understand ourselves more deeply, advocate for our needs, and make coher ent sense of what's moving through us in any moment.

• A revved nervous system (running fast)

• An inability to finish or start projects and many more

• Fear, e.g. felt in the digestive system or chest/heart or elsewhere

Notice if you are drawn to a particular area of your body, and allow some time to get a felt-sense of what that somatic location is sharing - it may be a feeling, an image, a sen sation, a memory, etc

Stay open and curious

• Disconnection - leaving our body - just like we did back then

The continuum begins at Source through to birth as follows:

Take three gentle deep breaths into your belly as you relax. Let go of tension on the out Allowbreathe.the

Make some notes, or draw before talking to anyone about your experiences

Somatic practices and therapies can support healing and new somatic awareness, and help us a great deal with learning how to feel more connected to ourselves, develop our felt-sense and trust our intuition and instincts. I recommend the support of an experienced somatic pre- and perinatal practitioner to get started with healing early imprints.

• Tightness/contraction in various locations

Source - Family Field - Conception - Implantation - Discovery - Birth

What happens at one stage of the PPN life continuum affects the next stage, and other stages further on down. It influences our perception, beliefs, felt-sense, responses and resources, E.g. what we experienced when leaving Source - could later affect how we feel leaving the womb. The earlier experience, and our response to it, will affect how we expe rience and perceive the next developmental stage. Feeling wanted and loved at Discovery could create a sense of safety and welcome during our prenatal experience, allowing us to blossom and thrive, and feel safe to happily emerge at birth.

Create some private quiet time in which there will be no interruptions

A Somatic Awareness Exercise

When you feel complete share some gratitude with your body

Birth - we move from inside to outside

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Implantation - we find our first home and burrow into the womb lining Discovery - our presence in the womb is discovered

If this was of value you may like to continue to do this practice regularly

If you'd like to work with an intention for this exercise, spend some time finding your in tention now before you go any further. Go slow throughout, be very gentle with yourself and don't force anything. Accept what you experience even if you don't understand it, or it doesn't make sense to your mind.

Open up to your curiosity and to the wonder of your body Allow what arises into your awareness from your body to be perfect in the moment

• Hypervigilance (on alert)

Family field - prior to conception we enter the combined energetic field of our family Conception - sperm is granted access to the egg

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton

2. Can there be some differentiation between how the previous one's came in, and how I can come in/give birth?

• Is it this baby's purpose to experience breech birth?

• Does something need to be acknowledged or processed before movement can happen?

What if, in her breech presentation, baby is saying, "I'm too scared to come out there because ....!" Maybe baby feels a lack of safety in the family, or an unresolved event be tween the parents needs some attention. Perhaps there is a herstory of breech births in this family, e.g. that's just how we come out, that goes back many generations and has remained unresolved. As we consider all of these possibilities and questions we can also hold that perhaps this baby is meant to arrive breech. We can make space, drop in to our non-verbal knowing, and listen.

Unconscious beliefs and imprints can repeat through the generations and each time they arise there is an opportunity to heal, integrate, differentiate and transform. Within our ancestral imprinting there may be unspoken questions such as:

3. Parents' early imprints affect how they bring in their children

In thinking about breech presentation with these added layers of awareness we can begin to feel the possibility of new openings, and for healing to enter into the birthing dyads' ex perience. We can slow down, pause, listen and wonder. To support the dyad in their breech presentation, and to bring new resources to them in the experience, we can:

From a medical perspective the intervention to turn baby around manually could seem like a right action. But, let's take a pause and consider that there may also be many other layers of experience, and imprinting, contributing to the breech presentation. Perhaps there is a way that we could support the mum/baby dyad in their journey together to find a more natural and healing resolution, without medical intervention?

• Support their instincts and intuition

3. Are we ready to heal and transform the imprinting?

• Is there something scary or worrying for baby about this family's current dynamics?

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• Trust both of them, and the process

If after all of this a medical intervention is still considered to be the way forward we can let baby know what's going to happen, how the intervention may feel, and assure them that we will stay connected to their experience of the intervention with empathy, love and

Imagine you're witnessing a birth in a hospital at which a doctor and a couple of nurses are attending. The mum, Sarah, is working to give birth and her baby girl is working to get born, they are both fully engaged in an intimate, instinctual and relational birthing dance.

• Was mum born breech, and if yes - how is it affecting the present situation?

• Is mum's unresolved birth trauma surfacing and affecting the present?

4. There may be unresolved imprints from earlier in the their journey affecting the present situation

• Why is baby facing in the opposite direction to the exit?

• Hold a loving space that accommodates consciousness and awareness

• Does mum need to pause, get some support, and check-in with herself/baby?

An Experiential Moment:

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The doctor has told Sarah that her baby is in a breech presentation and that she wants to turn her around manually to get her into a better position to exit the birth canal. This involves the doctor physically manipulating baby into a head down position; most medical doctors don't like to deliver breech babies and have little to no experience of doing so.

Let's consider what's possible when, in addition to our understanding of the PPN Life Con tinuum, we have also become aware that:

1. Is it possible in this present moment to heal/stop repeating this dynamic?

We can find out more about what's happening in a breech presentation when we listen deeply to the mum/baby dyad, and especially to the baby. It's possible that a relational and empathic response such as pausing, slowing down and tuning in, listening and won dering, and making space for the dyad may shift the 'breech' situation from the inside out, rather than outside-in.

Now we can open up to the wonder of what is actually going on within a "breech presen tation" and we may begin to get curious about the following:

1. Babies are conscious and sentient and having their own experience

2. Mum and baby are a dyad who are in a continual intimate relationship

• Is there is an unresolved prenatal event or challenge affecting this birth?

• Perceive the dyad at the center of the unfolding

Creating safety, slowing down, taking a pause when needed, and knowing that, as we sit in the witness position, this birth is just one part of a very long story about a soul embody ing, a journey that may span dimensions and generations.

E-Book by Karen Melton Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton

• What is baby feeling about moving out into the world, and further in to this family?

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life

Throughout our journey into parenting our own imprints can awaken, both the positive and joyful and the challenging and traumatic. When we conceive a baby our own conception imprinting can influence our experience in the present because our past powerfully colors our perception and felt-sense. This happens in particular if we have unresolved imprints. A prenatal event, a joyous or challenging womb environment, or a family loss during our foundational period can all arise as we enter parenthood.

John's twin later left during the prenatal period in the first trimester. He didn't know his twin was going to leave so it was a shock. After the loss of his twin John felt overwhelmed by grief. He was committed to coming into his new family, but was torn in two directions because he also wanted to follow his companion back to Source. His heart yearned for his twin, and yet his souls' purpose called him to move forward into life in a body. He felt torn between the two. His loss and grief, in addition to his original ambivalence, and the push he'd felt at leaving Source, became entwined. John's initial ambivalence, added to two later developmental stages that lacked choice (leaving Source and his twin leaving) got layered together in his grief.

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present.

In adding our awareness of both the PPN Life Continuum and baby's' consciousness and sentience we've arrived in a different reality all together. We have many more options for supporting the mum/baby dyad at all stages on the continuum because we are aware that baby is having her own experience, and that she will go through many stages before birth that can affect her birthing experience and dynamics.

One of the consistent places in life that our imprints will arise, and speak louder, is when we decide to become a parent. The moment we decide to conceive, we somatically and energetically remember our own preconception period. When we conceive, whether con sciously or not, we will remember our own conception, and so on. When our imprints arise naturally in this way we have an opportunity to heal, and to become more aware of how they are affecting our lives. It's an opportunity to listen to our Little One's experiences and take some time to heal and integrate. Taking ownership of what's moving through us, and profoundly affecting our lives, is very empowering and improves our parenting.

presence throughout. This allows the intervention experience to be integrated if it is car ried out at the baby's pace, which is much slower than us adults. This kind of connected, authentic and empathic approach mitigates trauma and increases connection and secure attachmenent.

In entering parenthood our own early imprints can have a big influence on how we experience the journey as an adult, and can also impact our baby's experience from precon ception onwards. We have an opportunity to become more aware, conscious and to heal on the journey to parenthood, and in doing this we become better parents who know the difference between their own imprinting, and what their baby is going through. This leads to clear, conscious, differentiated parenting.

Imprints and the Journey Into Parenthood

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If we had a prenatal event happen in the second trimester during our journey into life we can unwittingly, and unconsciously, recreate it in present-time during our own pregnancy in the second trimester. It may not look exactly the same as what happened to us, but it will have the elements, qualities and felt-sense of our own prenatal experience. These are

A PPN Life Continuum example: A Soul-Baby's Preconception Journey

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton

We also know that mum has been born and she has her own prenatal and birth imprints that may be activated in her prenatal journey, and birthing experience. There are many dynamic layers that we cannot begin to perceive without cutting edge information from the somatic pre- and perinatal field to inform and guide us. This information can only vastly improve outcomes for pregnant and birthing families, and for the babies coming in.

As an adult, a part of John was disembodied/dissociated. The prenatal part of him, his Little One, was still reaching back to his twin, and to Source. These earlier challenging experiences were unresolved and affecting his life and relationships. With support as an adult John was able to grieve for his lost twin in a safe therapeutic container, integrate what happened when he was leaving Source, and really step into his choiceful self in the

As John was leaving Source to go towards a new family, he felt ambivalent and somewhat coerced to leave Source. At his leaving point he wasn't feeling fully ready to go and he felt 'pushed' to go forward by a being who was with him at the exit. Shortly after leaving Source he perceived the presence of a companion (twin) with him. John felt that he had not made a full choice for himself about coming here, and felt interrupted in that transi tion.

The PPN Life Continuum for Future Parents:

As we move towards becoming a parent, perhaps we make a decision to conceive a baby, we are now potentially, and unconsciously, activating our own preconception imprinting. This is because in the present we have entered into the preconception phase of becoming a parent. Another way to language this phenomenon is that our Little One within - our prenatal self - wakes up and speaks louder about her own preconception experiences. A challenging preconception moment experienced in isolation can remain unresolved and speak very loudly when we decide to become a future parent, and may even disrupt fertility.

for parents to spend at least nine months preparing for conception so that they can take a look at their own journey into life before stepping into conception consciously. Our own imprints are largely hidden unless we decide to open to new awareness about how they are playing out in our lives every day, in every area. It's possible to work through some of our own significant early imprints and have much more choice about how we par ent in the present.

Early Memory: How We Remember Our Prenatal Life E-Book by Karen Melton

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We can heal and integrate our early imprints, and become more conscious about what's at the root of our life perceptions, beliefs, feelings, relationships and attachment dynamics. Unresolved imprints may have a lot of energetic and emotional charge which can be reduced through healing. When our Little One's are heard our nervous system can settle and we can move from feeling unsafe to safe, unwelcome to welcome, etc.

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Moving Forward with Early Imprints

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memories that are telling us about what happened to us, and what remains unresolved from back then. This dynamic repeating is constant throughout the whole PPN continuum and provides us with an opportunity, as parents and future parents, for healing, new awareness and conscious early parenting. Becoming a parent is a huge opportunity to heal ourselves and to become a more aware parent who understands that the journey into life is significant in every way. We all need parenting much earlier than has previously been

On my website you will find some early parenting support options under the Love Your Baby Into Life classes and individual sessions.

Karen Melton

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