How much of your time and energy do you dedicate to memories or past events? Does it serve you? If you indulge in spending time in your memories, remember with purpose and make them work FOR the present moment rather than against it.
In Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), we work with memories in specific ways. We may choose to elicit a memory to remember the positive resources we demonstrated in an event. It can be a useful reminder of already having all the resources we need inside. Conversely, we might elicit the memory of an event attached to an unhelpful emotion. The purpose of the latter elicitation is to release the emotion, accept the learning we achieved from the event and move forward. Effectively, we integrate that part of ourselves into our entire experience.
Whichever approach we take, our objective is to enhance performance in the present and feel more positive and confident about every task we engage in. In simple terms, we aim to enhance the present by minimising the impact of negative memories and increasing the influence of positive ones.
How Do We Remember With Purpose?
To remember with purpose we want to understand precisely what memory is.
Memory belongs to the realm of feminine energy, the right side of the brain. Recently, I was re-reading “The Two Hands of God” by Alan Watts. He delivers such an insightful description of memory and I’m sharing this with you.
Watts reminds us of Ancient Egyptian mythology. When Isis reassembled the dismembered body of Osiris (after Seth cut him into fourteen pieces) she, quite literally, RE-MEMBERED him.
What does this teach us? Rather than being a process or mechanical act, remembering is a restorative and creative act. When an old photo drops out of a book or file, we re-create the story around that image in our minds.
To recreate our perception of that person, or event in our memory, we add a piece ourselves. That piece contains the emotional content of our own experience of that person or situation. What we do is create a new entity or being. We recapture the elements of the forgotten and return them to reality in a new framework of wholeness.
Re-perceiving Our Memories
The creative act of memory is the province of the feminine principle and is, therefore, always coloured by emotion. The word for memory is derived from the Old English word ‘mournan’, meaning “to mourn”. As a result, it’s useful to be aware of the potential for the emotion of loss in memory and redirect our focus towards the positive learning of any given situation.
In Western culture, we have a tendency to lean towards the symbolism of light in feminine principles. Take, for example, the Christian concept of the Virgin Mary. We seem to ignore the alignment with the moon or darkness. However, the unconscious mind is less forgetful, and negative emotions of past events can lure us into brooding or lengthy darker emotional spells.
With this awareness, we arm ourselves with the possibility of redirecting how we remember people, situations, or specific events so that they support us in the present, rather than draining valuable time and emotional resources.
Remember that emotions are unbound by time or specifics and operate at the quantum level of our experience. If you find mind hijacked by past events you might want to take action.
Quick Release For Unhelpful Past Experiences
Think of an event from the past that you experience in your memory through the lens of negative emotion. Time travel in your mind back to the event that feels most relevant to this emotion. Take a bird’s eye view of the event and notice what’s happening. What can you see, hear, feel yourself feeling in that event?
Take a couple of minutes to closely observe and notice (from your current perspective) what positive learnings you gained from having this experience. Speak those learnings out loud and acknowledge what feels good about those positive observations. Take a deep breath. Now, observe that event again and notice whether it feels the same, or different. Keep finding the learning until the memory feels completely neutral. As you integrate those learnings you integrate that separated part of yourself back into the greater whole.
You can do this with as many events as you choose. Just follow the same pattern. Observe, release the emotion by finding the positive learnings, and integrate.
You may also be interested in working with my Redesign My Reality Toolkit to support you in letting go of the distracting elements of old memories and remembering them in a more helpful way.
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