[jodrellblank]

> "and the thought that was there was the memory of.."

I haven't read the book; what's the distinction between "the brain has a painful memory which is making it tense muscles" and "the muscles are tense because the memory is encoded in the body and muscles"?

I mean, if someone sees a balloon and curls/cringes/flinches their body away because they hate balloons bursting, how would one tell apart "flinching is caused by brain memories of stressful noise" and "flinching is caused by body memories of stressful noise"?

[michael1999]

Either can create the other. Thoughts can raise or lower the heart-rate. Bracing the body can restrict breathing. Shallow breathing changes the acidity of the blood which then activates the sympathetic system which changes thinking.

The thesis of TBKS is that the body can continue a feedback loop which encodes a prior strong emotion without active thought. Consider something as simple as a limp that persists after the acute injury has healed.