Memories, Past and Now

As I am working on writing about the things in my life, I find that in recounting the memories step by step, it continues to produce a strong physiological effect. As the intensity of my writing about the memories increase, to my amazement, so does my heart rate. I can feel my heart beginning to beat faster and then I can feel it in my neck thumping like a bunny running a race.

Well I am running a race, but I continue learning that I have nearly infinite opportunities to recognize that this race I am running is not like any other kind of race. For this race has already been won long before I arrived. This race is not a sprint, but a race of endurance and skill. It is a race filled with alternate paths that have never been traveled. Running this race is not about winning a medal as you do in the Olympics, though the prize is far greater for those who finish.

I am realizing that with every step I take, I finish for I continue to keep my eyes and my heart upon the love of my life who is with me, my Lord. With every step I take, He feels the burn and the ache of exhaustion at the very same time I do, and when I win, He wins! Each moment is a moment of completion. A step that has been made and now lies behind us. Yet, as long as we are training for this race of life, we may tread upon the very places again and again that we have once upon a time in what is called and labeled “Past.”

Every step that I have felt moving me backward as I give all I am to advance through everything that comes is simply another grand and precious opportunity for me to see and discover something new that I missed when I traveled this road before. Though things appear to be redundant and the same old same old been there, done that experience, nothing is the same because I recognize that I have never been the person that I am within this moment before!

Which brings me to what I intended to share when I started writing this. I was detailing things about my life when I was 11 years old and living in South Carolina with my dad and my aunt, and it was almost like I could see the words I was writing as if they were a movie playing like a scene upon a big movie screen on the inside of my heart.

Though these moments are labeled memories and past, as I replayed them to capture the greatest and most accurate detail as I possibly can, I found myself experiencing the physical feelings as if I were right there in that very situation all over again like it is was the very first time.

I am finding myself holding my breath and having to remind myself to breathe because I don’t even realize as I am writing that my body is somewhat on autopilot. The internal pain and reminders of the severity of traumas as well as the amazing joyful moments continue to send physical chemical releases into my body in this moment of time which makes the past actually become the present.

For it is in this moment of time where I am somewhere else in thought, but present physically sitting on my bed with my back leaning against the wall; thus I am in 2 places at the same time that I am consciously aware of right now.

I find myself so amazed at how easy it is to be 11 years old all over again as I remember-even though in my physical body I am 40 years old. I am in awe at the power of thought and memory. I am in awe at how without even realizing it, the moment I bring a thought from the past into the place where I am right now, that without even realizing it, my body is responding to everything I am thinking. I first noticed that my heart beat began to pump harder and with that, my shoulders began tightening and pushing upward to stiffen my neck.

I could feel myself getting so hot to the point that I can feel myself sweating and radiating heat like I am out in the sun, when I am not. My fingers began stiffening and it is taking a very conscious effort to stay typing even though I am beginning to feel drained emotionally. Instead of my fingers gliding over the keyboard in a very rhythmic effortless way, suddenly everything is choppy and I find I am making many spelling mistakes that I stop the flow in order to go back and correct.

The more I can feel my heart beating faster, the faster my fingers begin to try to type, and that wouldn’t normally present a problem, but in this circumstance, my fingers are speeding up trying to keep up with my thoughts that have begun to move faster as I write about events from my childhood.

In the middle of writing something very intense for me about my aunt spanking me when I was 11, my mom called and I found myself irritable and moody, wishing to myself that I didn’t have to talk to her right now because I am all emotional and processing everything that I have just been writing.

As I redirected my thoughts to be totally present to my mom’s every word in our short conversation, I began to physically feel everything beginning to fade. I purposely sat on the sofa and propped my feet up. Maybe that helped with the intensity of my heart rate. As I talked to her, I focused on speaking to her in a tone of voice that was not rude or moody even though I still felt both of those things.

As I stayed present and my intention was to simply focus on my mom and picturing in my mind what she was talking about, without any effort, the “movie” my mom was helping me to play effortlessly took the place of the one that had become a traumatic replay of something that happened 29 years ago and just like a train switches tracks along its route, the feelings I was having in my body began to relax and I found feelings of peace begin to flow through my body as if someone were holding a pitcher of peace and joy and bliss above my head and slowly pouring it from the top of my head until it flowed down throughout every part of my body inside and outside.

My breathing has become deeper, and I am feeling my shoulders and arms relaxing. Thinking about the conversation with my mom has turned from one that made me feel crabby to being able to choose to hold the most recent conversation with her at the forefront of my thoughts. It feels much better to think about the things that just occurred in both scenarios because I am able to see as I consciously choose what I will think of in a moment where I am feeling emotional and don’t even realize it, I have discovered that I do not have to feel crummy!

In the time it took for me to move from a thought that was making me physically uncomfortable, I was able to feel the immediate transition that brought me from crabby to experiencing peace faster than any medicine.

I continue to be amazed and intrigued to the point of fascination about the actual power we hold within ourselves. I never would have believed in a million years that I could go from something that made me feel like screaming at the nearest person to me to a state of peaceful bliss where I am smiling again and filled with hopefulness and excitement! It didn’t just happen though. And I didn’t expect that it was someone else’s job or duty to make me feel better or lighten my mood.

I have just witnessed for myself how intense painful experiences can change from broken hopelessness to thankfulness and inspiration at the will of thought. I continue to discover that no matter what I feel and no matter how uncomfortable it is to revisit things from my past, to go there and allow myself to feel and experience whatever comes up for me is necessary in order to diffuse the hold of the painful reminder of something that is easy to believe is over and done with and nothing can ever be done to change it.

Three days ago while I was talking with my therapist she told me that this process actually has a name! It is called Exposure Therapy.

Which means in order to get beyond a memory or situation that hurts you so badly or infuriates you to the point that you want to hurt them the way that they hurt you, you will need to revisit it. Again and again and again. The more you focus your thoughts onto something painful, the more you are shining the light of your heart onto it. The more you go there to replay it for yourself, the more it begins to lose its intensity and hold on you. It is like desensitization except I continue to learn that by doing this enough, it doesn’t just lessen the traumatic feelings and leave you numb.

Something magical happens! When I have chosen to go into the darkened places within my heart that I was certain I would never be able to get over, once I go there, it becomes easier and easier to continue going back. It is like being a treasure hunter and you have the opportunity to return to the place in time that people say is no longer possible to go, and by playing the movie scene of a memory, it opens the screen and that moment for you to find something that you missed before.

Initially I was flooded with confusion to discover that the story I told myself about the memory I had held onto so tightly all of my life didn’t exactly happen the way I remembered it. Most of the time what I saw or was able to unlock within the memory of what happened was very slight, but my heart knew I was there to find the truth. I was there to get answers so that I could let it let go of me. So the light of love within my heart showed me what I couldn’t see before because I didn’t want to.

The more I returned, the more I felt the pain and could barely take the agony of anger and betrayal, or abandonment and rejection. But each time I have been able to learn that I will see what I want to see. As long as I was trying to be right or prove that whatever the memory was is true, the more freedom eluded me.

Once I came to the place where I wanted to see where I was in the memory to know what my part is/was within such a painful event, that is when I began to see that there were many more pieces of the puzzle that I never even knew were there.

By going into those places within my heart, I am the one leading the journey. I am the one in control. I can choose to leap or go back to where I feel safe. I can choose what I want to see and I can know that I am safe right now and trust that the answers are waiting for me to come to where they are.

I continue to find that as I replay and return to a memory it is like taking it apart piece by piece. The puzzle that I see labeled a memory is already put together. By taking one piece at a time and looking at what lies before me and within my hand, I can begin to see that each piece that was used to finish that particular puzzle, can be reconstructed and put together again. Except as you take the puzzle apart piece by piece, each pieces that caused so much pain and bitterness deep in the unreachable places of your heart, has just been unplugged. It only has power if you decide to put it back in the exact place where you found it.

Once you see each piece for what it is, those that distorted each puzzle disappear. We have been given the amazing ability to create just as our amazing Creator, for when he made us, He made us in His image and likeness. When we don’t know that we have the ability to heal from our pain we continue to hold onto the very toxicity that has continued to shape life for us from the moment you were hurt. I spent most of my life avoiding the thought of the things that I have worked to destroy and torment me.

Yet, as I go there, as I think about the unthinkable the pain loses its gripping hold that has suffocated me slowly for the greater part of my life. With each breath that I am able to take, the distortion begins to fade and so does the agony. It is never exciting to do something that you know is going to hurt, but I continue to learn that it is not the same kind of pain that I have spent my life struggling through. Each time I see a little more of myself than I saw before. The very memories that I was terrified to think of, I avoided like the plague. I was certain that I already knew exactly what took place and I had spent my life being a glutton for punishment. I didn't want to be that anymore.

The truth remained that the very walls that I spent my life building within my heart to protect me from being hurt and rejected became the very prison that held me hostage. There was nobody else that had the power to set me free. I was the one who built it which meant that I was the only one who could tear it down. However, miracles were born as I determined to revisit places in my past that I always said I couldn't change because "you can't change the past." At least that's what everyone always says. These journeys from here to there, down memory lane and back again became the keys that open the gateways that were locked and rusted shut for so long. I always held the master key and it was up to me to find it, use it, and remember that I have been set free from the prison walls that I had constructed so deep within my heart. 

For the first time in all of my life, I see myself and I have found the courage to face myself and challenge everything I believe I remember. It is here that I continue to discover the power within “If I am the problem, I can also be the solution.” I have discovered that knowing the truth really does set me free. Free from me. Free from my expectations, reactions and negativity that has always colored my perspective, perceptions, and clouded my life with the judgment that only divides, separating me first from myself, and then from those that I have judged. 

I have learned how to see beyond what other people do or don't do by accepting the only person I have any ability to control is myself. When I finally saw how much I have spent my life trying to micromanage everything and everyone else because I had no idea how in the world to control myself, I was set free from a weight of epic proportion. I am certain that managing my own life, my choices, and my reactions is a full time commitment. But I have come to believe that I am worth it, and that continues to make absolutely anything possible!