To shed some light on the hidden places of your memories you don’t have to travel far. They might be at the doorsteps of your home.
I wish that we could revisit places of our emotional memories, of our minds and souls as much as we visit other continents during our lives.
It could have been importantly helpful to our memories of who were we in our past and who we are now.
Hidden places of your memories might be at the doorsteps of your home.
How to remember what is painful?
No one likes remembering or facing the ghosts of our past. The heavy burden of the suppressed memories would never make it easier, on contrary, it would become a more heavy load to carry.
It’s important to shift our focus from remembering as this is not about carrying this burden, rather than living with our past in the present.
The one who can be honest with the past in the present can contribute to the future, to the future with forgiveness and forgiving.
What happens if you don’t want to forgive?
Forgiving yourself and forgiving others builds a space for peace and harmony in our lives.
On the global scale, it would be daring to dream of the future without wars, to avoid tyranny and despotism, and to enable peaceful living together under the conditions of freedom.
So we need to remember events on our landmarked map of past pain, sorrow, sadness, defeats, fears, and anxieties.
What to do if the burden is too heavy?
To remember – yes. Without carrying it on your back. Is it possible?
Our ancestors came up with several methods of transforming our perception of the past life events, re-writing them, re-shaping the memories of them, transforming what to hold on to. Often they did through body experience.
Why trust the body-mind modalities?
State of trance, deep relaxation, guided meditation, symbolic rituals, ritual dances – this is what they designed to make this transformation happening. Our ancestors were smart. What worked 2,000 years ago works today too.
Our ancestors were smart.
Some of them we can find in alternative therapy, unconventional psychology and coaching methods, self-healing or emotional healing techniques, or ancient healing techniques, where meditation, yoga, chanting and retreats in nature, silent retreats, rituals of forgiving based on the dialogue of the generations [1], pilgrimages to the sacred places (aka sabbaticals so to speak in the modern language use) 😊 are the most common ones.
What do they have in common?
One common in all methods is the celebration of transforming the past and its memories.
Ritual dances, songs of celebrations, chanting for wisdom and epiphany gained, food shared in community, burning objects that are symbols for the past – this we could also give a try and thus, give space to more peace in our lives about past.
Celebrating is not about a grand feast or throwing a gigantic party. It’s more about acknowledgment, about marking the land map of your past.
Celebrating is like marking the map of your transformed memories.
What are the examples of celebration others do?
I keep seeing my clients celebrating by taking time off, taking the trip they kept postponing, buying flowers for themselves or those whom they were/ wish connected to, giving a hug or two (well, before mask-wearing-in-the-public-times), buying a gift, and sending it, often anonymously, to surprise someone, scheduling a solitude time for themselves and many many other ideas.
Forest walks are however the top 1 from the hit parade of these celebrations though – this is what I observed. At least for the Switzerland-based clients. (Maybe our nature is simply inviting it? Maybe not. If you have something you can add to explain that – I’m very much curious about it. 😊)
Is this a miracle or so?
Having worked for years in transforming psychogenic pain [2] I see lots of people who can stand tall meeting their past, with situations, circumstances, and people, with respect and even love where anger and hatred were in place before.
If this is not a miracle what is it then?
It is so important to face these heavy-burden moments to those or to what you’re still connected to.
Often, so often these are the most memorable insights of your life.
What is all the talk about then?
I have a favor to ask.
Could we make peace with the past that we are keeping in the most remote corners of our memories?
Whom you can forgive?
Or whom you could ask for forgiveness?
Whom forgive? Whom to ask for forgiveness?
One of the most precious gifts is the gift of forgiving. This is as much as the responsibility of giving this gift and also accepting it. We can all create and keep up our peace, inner peace.
Making peace with the past?
Respect, mutual respect – this is the most difficult one.
Standing still and distancing yourself – this is what makes me feel worried:
Arrogance, disrespect, distance. ..
The memories could connect us, not widen the gap.
It’s time to catch up. It’s about time.
This is where we give space and time to the people who were courageous enough to take unpopular roles, to challenge us, and teach important and painful lessons of life.
What life would be without the pain of learning and stretching our old us?
What can you do today?
Together with you, I ‘d like to express gratitude to the people who enabled these valuable and precious learnings for us. To those who facilitated our growth beyond.
Let’s make together with the best we can have in our hands.
That’s why today I’m writing here.
Let’s remember our today, torn by the multiple yesterdays.
Let’s hold to the present that is built on the past.
The past is living as the history that we accept about our past and ourselves.
Some of us didn’t do it for long.
To forgive? Ask for forgiveness? Peace with the past?
With 🌦️ ☀️summer rain greetings from the Zurich lakeshore
Yours, Alexandra
[1] Hawaiian ancient practice of reconciliation and forgiveness based on the generations dialogue practice, popularized in the last century by activists of self-healing movement
[2] Psychogenic pain is body pain caused by feelings that persists for more than 6 months. The connection between body and mind is well accepted. Yet the relation between chronic pain and emotions is still controversial among physicians, philosophers, and psychologists.
The widely accepted view in physical medicine is dated back to the seventeenth century and accepts mind and body interactions as unscientific. Yet recent scientific work challenges this view, for example, studies on meditation.
12 of 100 people experience in their lives medically unexplained pain. Some statistics claim this is 27% percent. This pain can disappear or more often persist.
If it stays longer than 6 months and there’s no medical explanation and medical treatment is not successful – it is qualified as psychogenic pain.
Examples are back pain, allergies, panic attacks, menstrual pain, headaches and migraines, asthma, phobias, digestive issues, etc.
I could sum up – where science falls short – this type of pain is psychogenic pain or psychogenic condition.