Chapter 6: Rebuilding Trust in the Present

In Chapter 5 we wrote out an intense memory. 

We also went over how, after going through an awful experience our survival brain can become chronically anxious that we'll face a similar situation again. It will stay on high alert, until it gets clear evidence that we're no longer vulnerable to the same type of threat.

In other words, unresolved intense memories can make our nervous system react to our present-day environment as if it's still unsafe. This reactivity, called “hyper-vigilance”, is our brain's way of helping us, by keeping us constantly prepared for danger.

Intense memories—the ones that still feel unresolved—are more than just auto-biographical recordings. They become part of our survival brain's "how-to guide" for avoiding or dealing with similar experiences in the future. Constantly reminding us:

“Don't forget what happened… We need to always be on the lookout, just in case. Remember how bad it got? We can’t let that happen again.”

Since this part of our brain is pre-verbal it doesn’t actually “speak" to us using words. It gets our attention in other ways. Things like flashbacks, anxiety, isolation, nightmares, and chronic tension, or pain. These are signs that our “alert system” is overwhelmed, unsure if we are truly safe.

To stop living as if the past is still a threat, we need to rebuild trust with our survival brain. This means helping it understand what happened to us and showing it that the world is safer now.

Writing about a past memory, as we did in Chapter 5, is one way to give our brain a more detailed understanding of what happened.

Now, we’ll take it a step further by bringing those details to life—by transforming our past-tense writing into present tense.

Embodied Redemptive Storytelling

Step Eight: Bring it into the Present. 

We have a first draft, and its time to take the next step: bringing the words into the present.

Normally, when we tell a story we don’t tell it as if it's happening right now—we tell it in past tense. In this step, we'll convert the past-tense version into present tense.

To do this, we imagine ourselves being back in the event and rewrite what happened as if it's happening right now.

Here’s a short example (from the writing I shared in the last chapter):

—

Past tense writing

It still bothers me how I confiscated weapons from Iraqi civilians who hadn’t committed any crimes. I remember one guy in particular. He was just another middle-aged Iraqi local passing through our checkpoint. I used my limited Arabic to ask him if he had any weapons in his car. He shook his head no. I asked him to open the glove compartment, he seemed confused and nervous. That’s when I noticed the barrel of a rifle sticking out from under the passenger seat. I remember thinking, ‘Ahh shit c’mon dude, why not just say something?’. The old man didn’t seem like a threat but I couldn’t take any chances. I pointed my rifle at him and called to my squad leader for backup. It was uncomfortable to watch him get increasingly worried because in my gut I didn't sense he was a "bad guy". He looked like he was a father. It didn't occur to me until later that I was possibly depriving him of a way to protect his family. I just couldn't risk him using that weapon against one of my team.

Rewritten into present tense (First-person view)

A car is pulling up to me at the checkpoint. Looks like another Iraqi local. Middle-aged, male. I lean my head head down to the passenger side window, point to my M4 and ask, “ayu 'aslihatin?” <any weapons?> . He shakes his head no. I point to the glove compartment and say,  “Aiftah hadha”, <open this> he seems confused. My eyes scan around waiting for him to respond—wait, what is that? Is that a rifle barrel sticking out from under the passenger seat? Ahh shit. C’mon dude, why not just say something? A voice in my head says ‘He’s not a threat. He looks like he's a father. Let him go on to his work or his family’. Another voice says “What if I’m wrong? What if he shoots someone on my team?” I notice he looks worried. I raise my rifle, point it at him and shout down the road to my squad leader “Need some help here!”.

This is just an example of what it looks like to re-write an event from past tense into present tense. Our stories will typically be longer than this, but not always.

Either way, to make this change into present-tense happen, we go through one line at a time:

turns into,

The next line,

turns into,

the next line,

turns into,

and so on...

As you convert your own writing in this way, sentence by sentence, you'll see how this shift in perspective sharpens your ability to recall the event more clearly.

For example, when I closed my eyes and imagined being back in the moment, I remembered speaking simple phrases in Arabic. I had to look up the words I used back then. I also remembered small movements I made, like leaning down, pointing to my rifle, and so on.

These details matter because the more information we recall the more our survival brain gets a grip on the past situation and relaxes around it. To put it another way, the more accurately we bring the past to life, the more our nervous system can shift from feeling overwhelmed by the past to feeling in control of it in the present.

Some parts of the story got left out during the re-write because they involved thoughts I had after the event, not during it. That's okay. This writing is about what was present in the past, not how we've analyzed it afterward.

Remember, these old “trauma stories” are not who we are. They are protective coping strategies created by our brain to help us make sense of what is, at times, a dangerous and chaotic world.

If we don't update these stories, we risk staying stuck—living as if those old threats are still threats to us today. By rewriting them, we shift how our nervous system views the world. That's why, when our story changes, our life changes too.

Take the story you wrote in Chapter 5. Picture yourself back in that moment. Rewrite it in the first-person present tense.

Then, continue to Chapter 7: Warriors Returning to Our Senses