Our fear of being lost is primal; it is intrinsically encoded in the human brain, just as our response to snakes. Though getting lost can be frightening, it can be beneficial for our mental health.
Being lost forces our brain to prioritize new information over old information, resulting in the earlier trauma memory getting overwritten. When in danger, our brain cannot afford to be stuck ruminating about past hurts and pain. Its quick-acting system of keeping us safe reflexively shifts our focus to the present.
Losing our way forces the brain to shift from autopilot (procedural memory) to present, high-level navigational and situational processing.
Navigation Is Crucial For Our Survival
Navigation is such a fundamental skill; it helped our ancestors explore, find food, and be safe.
Moving through an unfamiliar environment engages multiple brain areas and involves high-level cognitive skills. The amygdala (our threat center) shifts its focus to present danger, while the hippocampus(the seat of our memory) and surrounding brain structures like the entorhinal cortex (navigation hub) and pre-frontal cortex (thinking-decision making region) work in tandem to modify old maps and construct a new cognitive map of uncharted territory.
It seems the hippocampus uses memories of places and spaces as a kind of scaffolding or map on which to organize other memories. This means that changing our physical surroundings, or spatial environment, can disrupt past memories.
Our brain uses the spatial system to help store autobiographical memories. Like, when we think of an event, the location where it occurred automatically comes to mind.
Fighting Fear With Fear
The underlying reason for nearly all childhood trauma is fear – fear of violence, fear of rejection, fear of being abandoned, fear of not belonging.
This fear becomes intertwined with our psyche; it fills us with a sense of helplessness and existential dread. The brain structures that keep our trauma memories active are the same regions needed for spatial navigation.
The amygdala, a structure involved in processing fear and threat, works in concert with the hippocampus, which organizes memories, and the prefrontal cortex, which interprets and contextualizes emotional experiences. When we encounter threatening or traumatic situations, this triad of brain structures engages robustly, ensuring that the memory is encoded and not forgotten.
Overriding Rumination Loops
Rumination is just the brain’s way of reminding us of danger, but only until another challenging situation arises. Woefully, one can’t stop intrusive thoughts by thinking differently. However, you can force your brain to shift focus.
Nonetheless, being in a potentially dangerous situation automatically moves focus to that threat. Imminent peril reflexively shifts the brain’s attention, overriding existing intrusive thought patterns
Doing this regularly and consistently slowly rewires our brains to think differently. Neurons that fire together wire together.
Getting Lost And Finding My Way Back
One day, serendipitously, out of boredom, I decided to explore the mini-forest near my residence. Initially, I was kind of afraid of getting lost, but something egged me on. Additionally, I feared encountering snakes. Finding my way through untrodden paths challenged my fear-frozen, numbed-out brain. It was nerve-wracking the first time. However, when I managed to find my way out, the relief and elation were indescribable.
On returning to the safety of my home, I felt a perceptual shift in my emotional state. I attributed it to being in nature and hearing bird sounds, which felt calming. And so, I decided to make it a daily habit. Every foray into the unknown boosted my confidence, but I could also feel something changing on a deeper level, like leaving my old self behind, and something new was coming into being.
I’ve mentioned in my scoliosis and breathing video how doing this changed my breathing. My nervous system shifted from threat response to being in a challenge state, changing our encoded stress response from threat response – deer in headlights, frozen in fear, to challenge-response, calm-focused eyes of a tiger locking onto its prey. This helped rewire my mindset from hunted to hunter, from helpless despair to hopeful thrill.
Finding our way through challenging situations rewires our thinking and feeling state. From fear and confusion, we gain clarity and confidence. It transforms our self-concept. We are no longer hopeless or helpless; we are capable.
Real Life Exposure Therapy
Getting lost and discovering a path out is akin to real-time exposure therapy. It’s somewhat similar to the psychological principle of habituation and extinction.
Habituation (Getting Used to It)
The first time I got lost, my anxiety was high. But as I learned to navigate unfamiliar terrain and find my way, my brain learned not to panic. As I got more confident, my emotional response lessened over time.
Breaking Procedural Memory(habitual thinking and responding)
Procedural memory allows us to navigate familiar routes without conscious thought—in “autopilot” mode. Trauma is often stored as implicit, procedural, or somatic memories (how the body reacts, habits, and physical sensations).
Getting lost disrupts this, forcing the brain out of its habitual, unconscious routine. Disrupting procedural —the unconscious, habitual, and bodily responses are a requisite for deep trauma healing.
Prediction Error
Our brain is a prediction-making machine. The fear of being lost is often paired with a mental image of danger. When you get lost and nothing bad happens, the brain updates its internal threat models.
A major component of exposure therapy is the “prediction error”, the difference between what the person fears will happen and what actually occurs. Prediction errors disrupt earlier hippocampal schemas and move from internal, trauma-memory processing to an externally oriented focus. Thus encoding new memories of our world and how we view it.
Extinction of Fear Response
When the feared outcome does not happen, the brain updates its internal threat models. Small wins, tolerable discomfort, and repeated exposure gradually build within us the capacity and ability to tolerate stress.
We feel less anxious, not only in unfamiliar places but also in the face of the unknown. Repeated exposure gradually dissipates our implicit fear response. We move from learned helplessness to feeling confident.
Building Self-Efficacy
Successfully finding your way back builds confidence in our ability to manage unpredictable, stressful situations. It changes how we see ourselves and how we deal with life’s challenges. Over time, our improved self-efficacy makes us anti-fragile.
Navigation Skills Drive Neuroplasticity
Active engagement in navigation—such as map reading, landmark recognition, and wayfinding—is a powerful driver of neuroplasticity, stimulating structural and functional changes in the brain that improve memory, cognitive flexibility, and overall brain health.
Studies have shown that the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are impaired navigation skills.
You may have read about the study on the London cab drivers and their increased hippocampus volume. Exercising your navigation skills does have many benefits.
I know I am a different person from the one I was before I began my forest forays. I’m no longer that frightened, helpless trauma-personality. Getting lost has helped me find myself.
Wayfinding To Your Lost Self
Most of us childhood trauma survivors suffer from a loss of self – we don’t seem to know who we are and our place in the world. Our emotional coherence and our sense of where we are in the world are inextricably linked.
Something magical happens as we find our way through our lostness; our inner fragmented parts of our psyche come into alignment. Imperceptibly, the internal chaos evaporates into an infinite knowingness – a confidence in who I am.
Trauma disrupts proper memory consolidation, and being lost and finding our way out can help our brain reconnect the dots. That’s what I think happened to my brain. I could actually feel the scattered thoughts calming down and feeling more grounded in myself.
Calm Certainty Helps Us Through Chaos
We can’t think our way out of being lost; we have to move, explore, and find our way out.
The first step is calm down and notice your surroundings. Take a deep breath and take in the landmarks, the signs to follow. Stay focused, remember you aren’t lost, you’re just somewhere you’ve never been before.
I end with these powerful words from American poet David Wagoner’s poem “Lost.”
Stand still.
The forest knows
Where you are.
You must let it find you.
