We Are Memories
Our bodies are the sum of all the back-and-forth connections and distant relationships that synchronically comprise the invisible web of our multigenerational and autobiographical memories. Starting from the earliest days of our lives, we can’t help but take good care of roles impacting us through space and time. From the simplicity of our early years and into the midst of daily adult experiences, Memory is the basis of our conditional behaviors. How we carry ourselves in the world is intricately connected to how we manage and relate to our bodies of memory.
To Forget or to Remember?
As humans, we are bound to bounce between facts and imagination, “Ratio” and emotion, ourselves and others—the two extremes constantly interacting through forces of nature, of which we are both objects and subjects, focus and topic.
We associate personal agency with greater control and self-realization— powerful tactics in search of stability. Whereas a certain degree of control and stability are necessary for physical maturation, stability is a double whammy.
Upon planning our futures and evaluating our pasts, we are limited by the very nature of memories that have conditioned us to become who we are. With age, we find ourselves in a bias. We want to reach a goal, but don't know what this goal is. Being vaguely aware of our ignorance, we are drawn to search in the chests of the past. In yet later years, this automatic tendency to focus on the past is experienced together and simultaneously with an awareness that the past is disorienting. We no longer know whether we want to continue reusing our memories (what are memories in any case?) or forget all about them. We try to do both, and no one seems to be able to help us discern what to focus on first.
My role here is to help you observe what happens when you become present in your body, no matter life circumstances. In every instance of reminding you not to let go of the listening — a very nonintuitive process for most of us — we co-create a sort of flagpole, an episodic memory, and yet a further reminder that nourishes your understanding of what this observation is all about. It is up to the two of us to figure out the specifics of our interaction so that you can remember to experience what happens within and around you as an opportunity to relax and observe. The process is different for every person. Being on the journey of discovering this process for yourself is rewarding and life-affirming in the most profound sense.
The type of awareness and memory we want to access (not everyone calls it memory) is sometimes developed faster and steadier in a relational (you and me) context and draws heavily on our motivation to lead a harmonious life. Such motivation is mundanely accessed in our daily life experiences, and the less we experience these experiences as trivial and uninteresting, the more energy we acquire to see through the veil of our habitual selves.
The process of self-observation is a good enough reason for cognitive-emotional sharpening: Our aliveness, health, focus, motivation, joy, and acceptance all come together in a dance of interrelatedness.
Remembering With Another
Whether from lifelong collaborative learning experiences or occasional playful encounters in our childhood, we are all familiar with the delight of experiencing life with another person.
I'm here to offer you techniques that enhance the natural and powerful inclination to remember the best of ourselves with the help of another person (as an alternative and a sub-species of the same practice, you can focus on memorizing a new language or a poem). Instead of reinforcing automatic aspects of yourself (as in rumination), these techniques encourage collaboration of subconscious memory mechanisms (as in dreaming) and their reemergence from scratch. Rather than reinvesting in habitual thoughts and emotional reactions, you become aware of your mind as a mechanism rather than a data file.
Memories Point to What is Important in the Moment
The most important outcome of our “touchy” exploration of the psyche is a sense of connection to subtle factors governing one’s life and well-being. Once the ability to notice what happens in our bodily awareness is sharpened, feelings can be experienced and appreciated more deeply and profoundly. This is hardly surprising since our need to feel deeper speaks to what is essential for us and our nervous systems. Subconscious memory mechanisms are our gurus. We pay attention to them so that we can learn, not so that they can stay with us.