“Oh, I Remember It Well”. Or Do I? Eroded Memories

 

 

Just because I think I can remember things well, it does not mean it was totally true.  Think of it.  You see, MY perspective and other’s perspectives will differ.  Maybe not in huge degrees, but, maybe slight deviations to an incident.  For one, I am aging and memory changes.  Two, other people’s recall will differ according to their perspective of an event.  Three, we change our attitude towards things and this may color the memory.  We have to NOT rely on our memory of something.  Our attitude towards certain events may change and thus that memory can change to fit that change in us. 

 

Our brain tries to link a memory to the senses that are included:  A smell, a taste, a feeling, a sound, peripheral surroundings.  They say a dream, that is a message, and contains a truth for us, is one that is complete sensory.  Memories are influenced by forgetting, parts being dumped as unnecessary residual to that memory.  Those professionals that do hypnosis to retrieve memory can influence that memory.  I had an incredible experience with the professional that worked with me to train me to work with Multiple Personality clients I had.  I had some later in life flashes , or almost memories, of some trauma.  The flash backs came stronger and stronger.  I knew what the trauma was, but I had not had full body memory of it.  She put me under light hypnosis to retrieve the rest of the information.  All I knew was that some lace curtains in a rental we rented had stoked the flash backs.  She was able to help me by helping me see that baby and gathering her up to comfort her.  That baby had no words to express the trauma.  I was able to gather her up and rock her.  When she brought me out of the hypnosis, she had urged me to remember the incident and be able to ut words to it.  It was the most comforting, awesome, experience.  Knowing what had actually happened...including the WHO, gave me answers I had been questioning about why I reacted to certain things that had not made sense before.  It was as if a mountain had been taken off my shoulders/soul.  But I have heard of false memories being implanted.  I know my memory of this incident was real because all the sense returned and there was visual evidence for the reason of the flashbacks.  The curtains in a moonlit bedroom.  It led me to deo deeper and deeper self-analysis and healing and change in me.  Some memories are incomplete.  Some are not as vivid as time passes.

But I can also tell you, that I saw an airplane crash and there was blood on the highway.  I can tell you that, many times, I had to hide from an enemy, and ones I knew, and loved, and trusted, always brought them to where I was.  Complete memories with sound, smell, feeling, whole body memories.  Neither were true.  The first came from a terrible reaction to some medication.  The enemy experiences came as whole-sensory nightmares. ( I might add, that the enemy nightmare memories did come to the forefront many times in my life as I was betrayed by those I loved and trusted.  A soul-lesson brought through dreams.)

 

Our memory of things are not exact and thinking they are sways you from your truths.  We do not want to disappoint people, we do not want to be negative, we start coloring relating an incident for these reasons, as well.  When we talk with others who were involved in an incident, they may color part of your memory afterward.  They may even have us question your memory.  While it is good to investigate, internally, a memory, and start to question all your memories, remember your truth. After listening to others about an incident, their versions may dilute yours.    In a group, talking about an incident can cause shared forgetting so that you all change each others memory.   

 

Even the act of personal remembering, we seem, to me, to open that memory up to editing because we are putting our Present moment and understanding into that memory.  It is said that, if we deny a memory, it begins to fade more and more.  We may still have that memory tucked in our place of remembering, but it is fragile.  And we may stop trusting our memories. 

 

Stay true to your own truths.  Make sure you have not been influenced so that your truth becomes watered down or have false elements to it.  If they are true to you, then back up your truths.  As we age, our memories seem to resurface more often.  I believe there are some memories NOT to share.  Some memories are so very precious that we do not want them tainted.   

 

©Carol Desjarlais 02.01.25

 

Life Is Transitory: What Have We Collected On This Part of the Journey?

 

 

See, I think Life is a Transitory Journey.  I think we are “on our way” to what is next.  The only baggage we came with, here to this life, is what we are meant to build on, to take with us to the next part of our soul’s journey.  We all have an expiration date.  We cannot escape that.  Our body is only a shell to contain those things beyond worldly goods.  We are collectors of spiritual aspects of our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual during this part of our soul’s journey.  What have I collected?

My body carries scars of this part of the journey.  Decisions I made, or were made for me, shows up as inscribed parts of my journey that took courage to recover from.  I have what I call “my crown and anchor” carved on my body and those scars mean something very worldly but the impact of those scars I carry in my mind, heart and soul.  Each scar changed me, took something huge to recover from.  But, any physical baggage we will carry with us, in that energy that leaves this shell, is what is the crux of why we here at all, as physical beings; why we went through physical things in this life; why we should concentrate on what we have done with this physical body to help make this journey worthwhile.  I have done good in many many ways.  Of course, I have let the world of my body control my worldly self. I surrender to my inefficiencies and have made life harder for others with my bodily decisions.  But I have used my hands, my feet, comfort, caress, coax and try to control self, or not.  I have many physical frailties.  I try hard to change my weaknesses and every night I ask for forgiveness for those frailties and ask for courage to change, every morning.  I do not deny that I spend a great much time trying to make up for my many frailties.    

My mind has collected many good thoughts and wisdom.  I have tried t extinguish negative thoughts (believe me, I have many things to extinguish).  I do a great deal of self-talk trying to make sure I do not mire down in negative thinking.  I refuse to lie in bed, in the dark, when my mind would love to dwell on negativity.  I get up and do something to change the pull into negative thinking.  I listen to podcasts that inspire.  I seek writings that inspire.  I spend time thinking on positive things.  Even this very blog is coming from a place that I am thinking about. 

My heart has collected such precious memories of emotional strengths...and, yes, sadnesses, too.  Insecurities that evolve from abandonment and a sense of postnatal rejection.   I can see that every poor decision of mine came from a place of fear.  I worked all last year, with the word FEAR.  It took courage to make decisions that could make someone not like me, not love me, reject me, abandon me.  I gathered up my timid courage and said what needed to be said, did what needed to be done, and with each time I dared to say or do my truth, I felt empowerment…tiny little bits of self-esteem grew as I tried to do what is right for I knew I would have to live with the consequences, abandonment or not.  What is in my heart, I will carry forth to the next part of my journey down here and over there, somewhere.

My spirit has great moments of spiritual knowledge.  From somewhere I cannot define other than saying it was soul, I knew things I was never taught.  I knew to do things and did them without thought or intention.  It could be called inspiration.  It could be called lots of words, but it came from somewhere within, not without, within.  I have seen things you cannot imagine, never mind that I could not. 

Christianity says that Creator created us in his image.  Are we meant to stand in for his presence?  That is huge.  Have I stood as a satisfactory replacement for Creator down here on earth?  See, we might have been focusing on worldly things rather than on the things we should be carrying with us into the next part of the journey.  That’s deep.  That is also a huge responsibility.    What have really done, of any good, in this world?  What am I carrying forward?  Of what “substance” am I?  I do believe there is a little bit of God/Goddesses in us.  Am I remembering to collect things that come of that?  I have work to do, for sure.  I have better stuff to collect on this part of my journey. 

©Carol Desjarlais 1.24.25

 

Lord, Give Us Strength

 

 

Change is so difficult.  Yes, we have hard it a million times, but this is striking me, now, personally, in a huge way.  I used to multitask, used to be able to have a whole string of lists and thoughts n my head all at once.  Not any more.  I am being, somehow, whittled down, pared down to the core, and I cannot seem to string thoughts any more.  Any bit of change seems dramatic and full of “what ifs” and uncertainties. 

In our 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s, we do not imagine what we are going to be needing to deal with in our 70s, 80s and 90s.  We never seem to give a thought to what kind of ‘courages’ we are going to need.  Yes, we have been warned about wrinkles, but we did not consider whole-body issues.  Physically; an unsteady gait, for instance; and aches in places we were not even aware of, and loss of fine motor controls and more loss of most important body organs:  intellectually; the real issue of “I can’t find where I put my_______” memory lapses:  Emotionally;  we lose our whole-body ability to adapt, to change, to accept surrender to all that our aging body demands; more people, in our life, die in their 60s and more in their 70s and we are rushing through our late 70s filled with negative wonder and loss of self-esteem and identity and, even, purpose:  Spiritually;  if we are, in deep reality, afraid of death because it has so many unknown, for sure, really, that, when it draws near the international lifespan age, we begin to want to KNOW, more assuredly, the what, when, where, how of it all because, suddenly, trite words and religiosity does not really comfort us.  In all of this, it takes courage to accept what is and find a way to deal with it.  Courage, I say, is what it takes as coming closer to it seems to accelerate and our ability to control the quadrants of our life extinguishes more and more every day.

We lose the ability to go out and window shop, never mind we are less able to go out for lunch with friends.  Either we or someone in our group cannot go because… because... they find it easier to just stay home.   We begin to become less mobile; we become less clear about even what danged day it is because every day begins to be the same; we cannot even have a normal conversation because our ‘normal’ (and everyone else’s) is all about our changes in being.  We spent way too much time thinking rather than doing.   

In our late 70s, it seems to me, that we are identified as “survivors” even as we walk in a more hunched over being, shuffling forward into more unknown every day.  That we have survived indicates that we have been resilient enough to go through life’s ever hard times and we, actually, need to be admired for such.  We are’ Recoverers’. 

Life, itself, is recovering from so many things in all four quadrants:  physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  We have navigated through our own personal ’dark nights of the soul’.  Life can offer up so many difficulties but so much joy.  We begin to define JOY in many ways.  One friends, on saying “good morning” instead says, “well, I woke up this morning, so I’m doing pretty good.”  We never thought that that would be a sense of joy. 

We never thought of how much we have to be more rigid in our patterns of iving so that, with short term memory starting to slip, we have to put things where we will find them.  The Bee Man has a table near him with all the things he might need throughout the day.  He asks me to keep his morning pills on the table where he eats breakfast.  We start to focus on keeping things ‘in their place’ and stricter routines. 

I need to keep some adventure in all of this.  I refuse to eat the same thing day after day or when going out for dinner.  I vary things I do during the day.  I begin to chat to strangers, to catch their eyes and smile, to listen to more people.  I do activities that nourish my brain and spirit with new and different activities.  I work on problem-solving because there can be a whole lot of necessity to solve problems that come up during a day. 

We stop competing with others and set up little competitions for ourselves.  We have to find a way to surrender to adaptability, to be as competent as we possibly can be.  We need to find ways to be of use to others.  We need to be seekers of adventures, no matter how small, in order to build our sense of self and identity and sense of esteem.  We re al here, right now, because we are supposed to be.  No matter the ‘frailing’ of our body, mind, heart and soul, we are exactly where we are meant to be.  We have made decisions and now we live with the consequences.  Finding joy in our ‘consequence; is huge.  It takes courage, dear hearts.  It takes courage! 

Let us, every morning, wake up, and take a big breath, give credit where credit is due, for being kept safe during the night, and focus on being our best and worth keeping us for this new day.

©Carol Desjarlais1.23.25