Moving Away from Old Memories

Today, like most days, I find myself thinking about a piece of my past . . and usually it's not the one I want plastered across the nearest (or furthest) billboard. And I can't help but wondering why my mind chooses to save that memory over the ones of joy and excitement? In an attempt to understand, I put my intellect to work and I remembered how in a recent class, we were discussing the biopsychological connections of the brain . . .and how memories are stored.

The truth is that our memories are stored in an event/emotion complex . . in other words, when we have strong emotions tied to what is happening in our lives, those memories seem to get priority in the storage area of our brain (the occipital area). And when something occurs in the present, our mind (trying to make sense out of what we are thinking) rifles through old backlogs looking for some connection and voila .. the events that the mind wanders through first are those with the highest emotional valence.

Since our thinking takes place in the frontal association area (the frontal lobe) and our memories are stored in the back of the brain (the occipital lobe) . . now we're talking about the pathway from memory to processing . . and yes, you're right . . our emotional center (the amygdala) lies right in the midsection so that thoughts passing back and forth between memory and current reflection pass through emotion . . back and forth . . .back and forth.

So, it's really important for us to detach ourselves early from the highly charged emotions of certain events before we store them into memory. And yet, this is often difficult. We seem to feel some need to hang on to those words and actions that made us feel angry or sad . .rather than replaying to good words and actions over and over in our minds.

How many times have I cried or berated or sabotaged myself for something that happened years ago . . .rather than smiled and high-fived the joyful?

So, today . . as I reflect on that old memory that popped into my mirror this morning .. I'm trying to see it as an opportunity of choice . . an opportunity to remove the emotion from it . . .to lessen the charge. In it's place, I'm choosing to ripple back through some positive moments (a wildly positive ovation from a large group after a presentation . . .a compliment from a woman at the grocery store . . a fabulous meal . . .coffee with my kids).

It's amazing how the influence of old memories can affect our attitudes. Are you willing to risk letting an old negative memory go in favor of charging your storage area with a newly positive one? Go ahead . . try it :) Cheers!