Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we will be talking about rewriting your memories. This is a very deep and beautiful topic. And I hope you'll enjoy. So rewriting your memories. This actually came up today in a class. We were doing the Karma class and it started coming up and last night we had a class on memory also. And the discussion is gonna be a little bit deeper than maybe you've thought about before. So what are our memories? Memories are when something happens or I have a thought or an experience, and it's matched with a feeling, with a strong feeling. It could be a positive or what we would call a negative feeling or a painful feeling. And many of us have had experiences where we have. Had pain, and when that experience happens, every detail of that situation is etched in my memory. I remember what it smelled like. I remember what it looked like. I remember what the walls looked like. I remember what time of day it was. I remember what I was wearing, everything about it I remember. That's also true with happy things. Like maybe if I had a very happy wedding and I really loved it and it made a really deep impact, I probably can remember every single detail about that experience. Today I'm gonna talk about rewriting your memories, and this has been very helpful. I'm actually doing this right now with two people because. I'm gonna be seeing them tomorrow, and I really am at the point where I would like to stop remembering them in a certain way. Think about somebody in your life that maybe you remember in a certain way every time you see them. Maybe at work or something, or maybe a family member where there's an old hurt or something where you see them and the feelings come, even though you're saying hi, and you know everything's okay, there's feelings going on inside. Let's say, I'll give another example. Let's say you. Had a situation. It works both ways. Whether you feel like somebody did something to you or you did something to somebody else, or you did something wrong. Let's say you did something wrong. You made a mistake, what we call a mistake. Something happened and you did something in the past that you're very unhappy about, that you feel really bad about. So this is guilt, right? So the guilt is coming. What can I do about that? Well, we're gonna bring in the laws of karma here a little bit because have you ever noticed where sometimes I feel like I did something so bad and I feel really bad about it, and then I go to that person and the person doesn't even remember what I'm talking about. Has that ever happened to you? You feel so bad about it? I'm suffering. I can't sleep, I can't think. All I can think about is the bad thing that I did, and I have to go apologize. I'm like bubbling over with regret and with guilt. So I have to go over to the person and say, I'm so sorry I did this, and the person said, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even remember what you did or what you said. How do I feel in that moment? Don't I feel a little, I told myself I feel a little foolish, so I wanna break down that situation a little bit because what's happening is that I feel bad about something that I did, and I am having some feelings about it. I don't know what they're feeling about it. I'm making up that I hurt their feelings or that I did something to them. I actually, in reality, do not know how they responded or if they even responded. All I know is that I feel bad, so I am suffering inside, and then maybe I'll go and talk to somebody or maybe I'll go try to apologize to the person. When I do that, I'm bringing it up for them again. So when we're talking about rewriting our memories, we're talking about dealing with it. Maybe without having to bring it up to others. That's not to say that you never bring it up to others or that you never apologize or never discuss things. I'm sure there are circumstances where that's appropriate. I feel that what I'm gonna talk about now is the best for things that have been sitting in our memory for long periods of time and are affecting how we remember people, how we act towards people, how we see people. Maybe it's causing feelings of mistrust or feelings of, suspecting things like that. So what can I do well in meditation? So let's say we do, we'll do, I'll do two scenarios. One scenario where I feel like I was hurt by someone else, and then I'll do a scenario where I remember hurting someone else. What we would say, I did something wrong. I was selfish, or I was mean, or something like that. Insensitive. So let's do the one where I'm hurt first. So somebody said something to me and I feel really upset about it, and ever since then, I can't look at them in the face. I feel really bad and I don't feel comfortable around them. So what I can do. Now, by the way, one little qualifier. This is not about people that are abusing me. If there's actual abuse going on that has to be dealt with. I'm talking about all these subtle things that we remember, things that we hold onto, things that are hurting us inside, and how we can work on them. So, that person said that to me and I never forgot it. And ever since then I've been thinking this is how she thinks about me. This is how she remembers me. I'm nervous about seeing her. I don't trust her and all this. So what I can do is I can go into my meditative state. I'm quiet and calm, and go into meditation and bring up the scene. Because remember when it's fully charged with emotion, you can remember it very well. So I'm gonna remember the scene. Now for me, when I look at, when I feel upset, the way I like to frame it is that I didn't get my needs met. There was some legitimate thing that I wanted or needed at that time that I didn't get. The person said this and I wanted them to say this, or the person did this and I wanted them to do this, because that would've made me feel better. But they didn't. So I felt bad. So now I'm taking them off the hook, but I still have to deal with my feelings. So for me, what I need is to get those needs met. So in meditation, what I do is I replay the scene and have them doing the thing that I wanted them to do. So I'm literally rewriting history in my mind, and I can tell you I'm thinking of one particular person here. It is amazing how little people think about us, and I'm not saying this to make us feel bad. I'm saying it because it gives us room to take care of these things internally for ourselves. I don't have to feel bad forever, and I don't have to blame them forever. I can get my need met and move on. One time somebody in my life, I, they did something, let's say, and it caused for me, I was very hurt, felt very hurt for a long time I. And later on I brought it up in in a conversation. I had worked on it, I had worked on the healing and worked on rewriting the memory, and then I had brought it up. It was part of a conversation and I brought it up and the person said, oh yeah, that was a long time ago. They don't have any emotional connection to that thing that I was suffering from for 20 years, let's say. Sometimes we hear about this and they talk about forgiveness, and for me it never, it never resonated for me about forgiveness because I never got in touch with what I really wanted or needed. When I got in touch with what I really wanted or needed, then I was able to go in there and change it. By the way, when I went, this other person that I'm thinking of that said something to me and I was hurt. I went back and made them say exactly what I wanted. She put her arm around me. She said this. She said that it totally made me feel good and happy and loved and welcome and belong and everything. In real life. That person has no idea that I did that, but inside my memory and my feelings about that person have totally shifted. My vibrations toward that person. Have totally neutralized. Think about it for a minute. Would it be good to be able to neutralize my memory about someone or neutralize my feelings about someone? How about at work or people that I have had fights with or something. Do I still carry residual things inside myself from those experiences? It always shocked me how little people remember it when I spend so much energy. So that's an important point. The other thing is, okay, so that was the one where somebody did something to me. So now let's do the other example where I did something to somebody else. So let's say I was very mean or selfish, or I acted in a way that is completely unacceptable to me. And I can't seem to get, it's like a gripping guilt is inside me and I can't seem to get over it. I'll tell you in those moments, it's very hard not to go talk to somebody or go to the person and you know, beg for forgiveness or apology. But the only reason that I would do that, this is my experience, the only reason that I would do that is because I feel uncomfortable. This is the laws of karma. Now I'm responsible for my feelings. So can I take care of my feelings? Well, let me find out what I actually wanted and needed, and why did I act that way? Was I afraid? Why did I act mean? Why did I act selfish? Why did I act that way? Was I upset about something else that happened and didn't talk about it? Was I maybe, am I in a relationship that I don't wanna be in? Am I doing things that I really don't want to? There could be a lot of reasons that could build up those kind of feelings and maybe act out in ways that we don't want to. I think it's very one dimensional to look at ourselves just from our external behavior and judge ourselves that way. There's a lot more going on there. I would assert that whatever we do, there's a reason for it. And if people feel well taken care of, they don't act selfish and they don't act mean. And they don't act afraid and they don't lash out and other people. So it's my job to figure out what it is that I need inside. In this situation, when somebody has to go, when I have to go back in my memory and heal something that I did, I really need to understand why I did it and also trust that the other person is okay. And this is maybe the last point, I'll say just like before when you know you wanna apologize to somebody and then they say, oh, I don't even remember what you were talking about. Fine. You also have to remember that others are living their lives too. So if I snap at somebody or whatever, why do I feel like they should be destroyed from that? Maybe they're not destroyed. Maybe they love me and they were not okay with it, but they were like, okay, you know, they tolerated it okay. But I am suffering. I feel like the main point of this is that if I get my needs met. If I resolve these things in my own mind, then it's much more likely that they won't repeat. I won't necessarily be hurt when somebody says something to me next time. I won't lash out and I won't be angry, and I won't be afraid, and I won't be selfish next time if I'm taking care of myself. So this ongoing. Taking care of my own feelings, even in the past, even if somebody has died, even if somebody has moved on, I can still send them good wishes. I can still resolve those memories in my mind. I can still creatively replay them so that I fulfill the way I think I should have been in that moment. I know that it's painful, like, oh, I can't believe I did that, and it's really can be very, very painful. I am here to say that in meditation you can get in touch with your inner world. You can heal, you can creatively rewrite the history inside yourself so that that history now, the positive history now is what's informing our perceptions rather than the painful ones. Don't the painful ones just keep on coming back. This is why people say if you don't deal with the issues in your relationship, you're gonna attract the same type of relationship. What does that mean? That means the hurt inside and the feelings inside have not been taken care of. I don't want to do it again. So that's the thing. And then this thing about apologizing. I just feel like wouldn't it be better to get it resolved that it doesn't happen again? It's not that, like I said, not that you should never apologize, but I just feel like there's some deeper work available, so I'll leave it there. I, I hope all of that made sense. I didn't use specific examples, but I hope each one of you can come up with an example of when you remembered somebody hurting you or you remember hurting somebody else or bringing hurt from a situation forward. And maybe take on, try once. Try one and sit quietly. Even just now, let's take one minute now just at the end, sit quietly and just reflect. Is there one situation that comes to mind when we think about rewriting our memories? What memory comes to mind? Can I just think what is it that I needed in that moment? What was going on for me in that moment? Whether it was my behavior or whether it was something that I thought I needed and the person didn't give it to me, what did I need? Did I need to feel belonging? Did I need to be accepted? Did I need to feel safe? Was I not taking care of myself for a long time, and this was kind of a blow up. Give yourself some time this week and figure out what it is that was going on and then see if you can rewrite it. We all have these things and we don't have to keep others connected to us in a negative way. We can transform it and then be connected with everyone in a positive way. So I will leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
