Memory

Memory is tricky. I called my older sister years ago to tell her that I had her music books from grade school. She took piano lessons for four years, but had totally forgotten about it. I do not think it was until she saw her name written inside the books that she believed me.

Regressing clients to long lost memories is not necessarily to have them see things exactly as they happened, but rather as they are remembered. We forget so much more than we remember; yet our behaviors, beliefs and attitudes are based on all those forgotten moments.  Advertisers and politicians alike count on this human trait. We hold certain opinions and beliefs, but forget to remember where we first picked them up. Then there are memories that simply never let us go, like hearing my friend Laura changing the lyrics to a favorite holiday tune way back in 1984. I simply can’t hear “Walking in a winter wonderland,” without thinking of Laura changing wonderland to underwear. All of December I think of her about five times a day.

Last weekend my father visited and regaled my husband with stories of my growing up. I found it amazing that most of what he recalled were actually fragments pieced together to form a semblance of a story. Parts of it sounded right, but parts were way off.

When we first discover the frailty of memory, we come to distrust it. How can we trust a past life memory to be true if we cannot trust our memory of last week? We can’t, so it is not worth even trying. What we can trust is what our memories say to us. My father’s memories say that he knows the kind of father he should be. Hearing Winter Underwear and remembering Laura makes me smile and reminds me to be playful. Our memories inform us, perhaps not of truth, which is too subjective anyway, but of belief. I believe I should be playful and have a good sense of humor.

Do not worry that you have a memory wrong, or that someone else is telling some sort of lie. Rather, accept the gift of memory and your own unique life experiences as ways to learn, to observe our creative manifestations and to pass on to others our wisdom.