My brother, Joey recently visited from Colorado. We took it easy his last day here and lounged around. I caught up on journaling. If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you may remember I keep several journals, two of which are 5-year journals. One is titled One Line A Day: A Five-Year Memory Book and the other Q&A a Day: 365 Questions, 5 Years, 1,825 Answers. Both only require a sentence or two be written a day and each entry goes underneath the previous year’s so I can reflect on the past. I find them a simple and effective way to journal.
I explained them to Joey and read him a few simple examples. For May 23rd: What’s your hairstyle? May 3rd: If you could have a superpower just for today, what would it be? (In 2015 I answered ‘teleportation so I could see so many incredible things.’ For 2016 I answered ‘healing, so I could help Mom.’) In this example alone, I can see I’ve become less selfish over the course of one year.
I also explained that some questions were more intense and thought-provoking, and as for the one line a day journal, I write down something significant from each day.
Joey’s response was one of confusion. “Don’t they keep you living in the past,” he asked. “Aren’t they full of stuff you’d be better off forgetting?”
His question caught me off guard since I am a proponent of living presently. I had to think. Was I living in the past? I was learning from the past, and remembering things worth remembering.
“No,” I answered. “First of all, there’s great stuff in these,” I said, tapping the books with my pen. “Little things easily forgotten that make me smile. Also, they help me see how I’ve grown. Sure, there’s painful stuff, but I don’t want to “forget” anything. I want to understand and accept; identify the good in the bad, and not be caught off guard or made to feel uncomfortable by lingering thoughts and memories, because lets face it – do we ever really forget anything completely?”
Joey seemed to consider what I said, then shrugged with indifference and went back to his phone as if the conversation no longer interested him.
But the topic interested me, so I thought about it more. I know some people certainly want to forget, but they go about it by denial and avoidance. I’d like to forget things, and not all of them are bad. Some memories are incredible, but thinking of them hurts my heart and fills me with a bittersweet sadness and longing because a friendship ended or a love was lost. We are advised to express gratitude for the experiences and the memories, but it’s not always easy.
I love Jeanne Safer’s suggestion that we “celebrate” to compensate for our loss in these instances.
When there is something meaningful to retrieve from a past relationship, celebrating it is a genuine compensation for loss. If anything in your love was real—imperfect, ambivalent, obsessive, or selfish in part, but tender and true at the core—it is yours forever, even though the one you loved loves you no longer or never fully returned your devotion. The authentic core of love is eternal, even if the person who inspired it will never return to you. But you have to hold fast to it and fight through your despair and disappointment to find it, resurrect it, and claim it.
These memories of past relationships remain our property despite their demise. We have every right to hold on to them in order to celebrate what was, and to look back with a smile and grateful heart for the experience.
Other memories I’d like to forget because they trigger shame, embarrassment, and are altogether pretty horrible. For example, the memories that a building near my home evoke.
I drive past this particular building two times a day. Years went by when I couldn’t even bear to visit the town, let alone see the building. But the passing of time helped me heal and I learned to accept what happened there. Some days, particularly during the winter, the season when I lived in the building, a memory strikes me like a flash of lightning and I shake my head to dissolve the materialized image. I know I’ll never forget what happened, but at least the memories don’t trigger anger or anxiety or cause me pain and suffering anymore. That’s because I allow them to exist.
I recognize the behavior from those who choose the way of denial and avoidance when dealing with their past. They are easily triggered; defensive, anxious. I’ve witnessed people shut down conversation at the mention of a seemingly innocent subject because it triggered a memory or feeling they’ve gotten so used to ignoring. A lack of acceptance is at work.
Keep in mind that when I write of acceptance in this context, I don’ t mean we should resign ourselves to what happened to us or that we are helpless. By acceptance, I mean allowing something to exist, like a building, and accepting that these memories are part of who we are and our lives. Zindel Segal, Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders, wrote that denying a negative mindset is taking place can be riskier for mental health than allowing negative emotions to exist.
In accepting negative emotions, allowing them to exist, we can begin to increase our self-awareness. Instead of lashing out after being triggered and not understanding why because we block out our memories, we can understand what’s happening (cognitive therapy). We can learn to understand our responses to certain triggers because we can identify them. Like Segal says in the article linked below, “Ah, fear is here.” Rather than experience impatience and irritability when at a red light next to the building that triggers me, I understand what’s at work – fear and discomfort. So instead of getting upset, I tell myself, “You are safe.”
What’s my alternative? Drive miles out of my way to avoid what boils down to bricks and concrete? Drive past white knuckling the steering wheel? Neither are viable options to me. If you’re avoiding something or someone and find yourself holding your breath or wanting to disappear into the wall, ask yourself: What’s really at work here? What is it I don’t want to exist?
Perhaps it’s shame and you could go the rest of your life without seeing someone who triggers it deep within your core. Try giving yourself much needed self-care, love, and forgiveness. Your shame is not written across your forehead, even though I know it may often feel like that. Allow it to exist, and the person who makes you feel that way, and be mindful of your feelings and what you need, even if it’s leaving the space. The point is to be aware and good to yourself, not deny what is happening and behave in a way that will further add to your shame.
Three Ways Acceptance Helps You Work with Difficult Emotions
Whether good or bad, remembering is healthy. Allow for opportunities to reflect and see how you’ve grown, how relationships have changed, how less or more important things that were worthy of preserving at the time have become. Get comfortable with the past. Allow it to exist.
See for yourself how healthy remembering can be. Enter my raffle for a chance to win a 5-year journal of your own.
From June 3 – 9 you can enter to win the five year memory book so you, too, can capture a line or two a day for five years and reflect back on your experiences.
Please share this post (or one of your favorites) right now for a quick and easy three entries in the raffle. Just don’t forget to enter your name and e-mail address at the link above so I know you did it.
Thank you and good luck!
