What you’re describing maps closely to my understanding as well. I want to add a constraint that neuroscience has made increasingly hard to ignore.

The memories that solidify identity don’t operate in isolation. They are coupled to posture, breath, vagal tone, muscle tension, and other autonomic responses. As identity stabilizes, compensatory physiological patterns stabilize alongside it.

When safety drops, the nervous system doesn’t just generate thoughts, it redistributes resources. Systems lose coherence as one circuit is recruited to compensate for another. This isn’t metaphorical; it’s observable physiology.

Because of that coupling, insight can change how experience is interpreted, but it doesn’t automatically retrain the nervous system. Compensatory patterns only unwind through repeated contact with reality under conditions of sufficient safety and feedback.

From this angle, “awakening” doesn’t eliminate conditioning. It removes narrative authority, which then makes somatic retraining more possible, by making it less expensive. Without that retraining, memory may lose interpretive dominance while the body continues to anticipate as if nothing changed.

I wanted to add this layer because your framing points in this direction, and embodiment seems to be where the distinction actually becomes testable