Our memories can be modified. We remember some things better than they were and some things worse. Our internal lenses, our beliefs, emotions, values, shift our memories just like they shift our external perceptions. We have lenses for our memories.
In reading about memories recently, it had not occurred to me that our memories look different based on what lens we look through. Given that, our memories are flexible and dynamic, just like our perception of the present. Remember the little girl, Riley, in the Pixar Movie “Inside Out”? Toward the end of the movie her base memories change depending on whether she looks at them with Sadness, Joy, or Fear.
It was helpful to have this demonstrated to me this week watching a video on social media. A grocery employee was asked on camera if he had ever seen the run on groceries so bad. He was rolling out the next pallet of toilet paper and his unruffled response, “Y2K was this bad,” jarred the lenses from my memories. I really needed that jolt. Thank you to whoever that was and thank you for keeping us fed and supplied!
So, if our memories work just like our present perception, and our lenses of emotions, values, and beliefs have an impact on how we remember specific things, why do you care? Maybe it is worth developing the skills of observing your lenses and practicing shifting what you see in your memories!
What past events were worse than you remember them? What past events were better than your memory? If we base most of our definition of ourselves on past experiences then our skewed lenses have a BIG impact on how we define our present!
Pay attention to how you view both your present and past! – www.rhoadscoaching.com
Finding meaning and purpose in daily life