the benefit of remembering

“We forget things we try to remember. We remember things we’d rather forget. The most frightening thing about memory is that it leaves no choice. It has mastered an incomprehensible art of forgetting. It erases, it smudges, it fills in blank spaces with details that don’t exist. But however we remember it—or choose to remember it—the past is the foundation that holds our lives in place. Without its support, we’d have nothing for guidance.” –Brigid Gorry-Hines

This morning I was thinking about how easy it is to get so caught up with the now, with the struggles and pressures and distractions of now, that we lose all perspective. We forget how it feels and what it means to be any other way.

When we have a cold, we forget what it feels like to be well, and when we’re well, we forget what it feels like to be dragged down by a cold, congested and miserable with a raw nose and sore throat, sucking cough drops and chugging DayQuil. When we’re exhausted, we forget what it feels like to have energy, and when we’re energized we don’t particularly think about what it feels like to be dropping and sick with exhaustion. When we’re not angry, we don’t think about being angry, and when we’re not lonely, we don’t think about being lonely, and when we’re not grieving, we don’t think about grieving. And when we’re sad and discouraged, we don’t spend much time remembering how it feels in mind or body to be thrilled and uplifted. We just feel sad.

In some ways, this amnesia is blissfully beneficial and helps us move through moments as they arise. It means we aren’t caught up in loops and emotions of the past—we felt them, they happened, now we can move on to what we’re feeling now. But in other ways, it doesn’t serve us to forget. In other ways, forgetting means we tell a different story and lose the perspective that remembering can give us.

To me, this is the same as the difference between forgiving and forgetting. We can forgive other people as the need and desire and opportunity to forgive arises. But that doesn’t mean we forget what the person did that required forgiveness. It doesn’t mean we should dismiss how what they did affected us. By the same token, it often benefits us just as much to remember and honor how we felt at a given moment, even if we don’t continue to live in that emotion any longer.

I often think in passing of how miserable and trapped and desperate I felt with my last partner—and also how gorgeously light and free and joyful I felt when that toxic relationship ended. I like to remember this when something inspires it; I like to remind myself of both the horror and the glory, because I know what I lived through and why it matters so much to make different choices now and in the future. I don’t relive it, I don’t re-feel the emotions, but I reach a calm, exultant, and grateful plane where I stand firm in what I survived, and the new reality that misery ultimately produced.

Within my new partnership, I sometimes reflect on the different things I felt as a single person. The sense of complete freedom and independence, balanced by a sense of loneliness and yearning. Now I no longer feel the loneliness or yearning as my partner is my life companion and constant friend, nor do I feel the same freedom or independence as I’ve tied my life to his. In both cases, I had and have a clear understanding of the choices that led me to this place, and I sit with that until I begin to experience deep, centering gratitude for what the moment offers me, knowing that it’s rich in lessons and opportunities for growth. Without a partner, I was able to learn to fully partner myself—and I continue to do so even with a partner. With a partner, I continue to learn to assert myself and prioritize my needs and boundaries. Neither is better, both experiences offer me much to learn from, especially when balanced with the other.

It’s helpful to remember that the loneliest I’ve ever been, I was in a monogamous relationship. First with my ex-husband, during his drug addiction (codependency is incredibly lonely and isolating) and after our physical separation. Then with my ex-boyfriend, a toxic and abusive narcissist, who was always physically surrounding and stifling me, but never emotionally present or accessible. After that relationship ended, I spent a lot of time taking stock of where I was and where I’d been. I remembered every emotion I’d felt in both relationships. The rage I felt at my husband when he duped and abandoned me. The feelings of utter helplessness and confusion when my boyfriend dismissed, betrayed and manipulated me. The anger and remorse I felt at myself for allowing all of it to happen.

Without those memories, without the hours I spent recording how I felt in my journal and rereading it and pulling it apart, I couldn’t have found my way to centered alignment. Balance would have been impossible, not merely challenging, without a deep understanding of my own passage and growth.

The morning after I met my new partner, I woke up hung over and full of shame for what I might have said the night before. I was only mildly drunk, but buzzed enough to feel the pain of both my social anxiety and the alcohol. After I struggled with feeling miserable for a while, I stumbled into the bathroom and, while there, suddenly reminded myself that two years before, on that same day, I’d been with my ex-boyfriend, and been utterly anxious and unhappy and exhausted with the strain of that relationship. I remembered every holiday with him (it was MLK Day), and I felt my spirit lifting immediately in response to the memories. I didn’t have to feel everything again to remember how awful it felt, nor to understand how far I’d come. Though nothing had changed—I was still nauseous and mildly embarrassed at something I’d said the night before (which my partner didn’t even remember), I felt completely different about everything. I could step into my day with a light, positive perspective.

I remember enjoyable times as well, of course, both when I’ve been in relationships and single. Those times and the emotions they inspired also bring me greater understanding. I don’t think of them when I’m unhappy to remind me of how happy I could be. But I do think of them, and they do remind me of how glad and satisfied I’m capable of being, even in difficult or inauthentic circumstances. Just as I don’t re-feel the sadness or anger or loneliness, I don’t re-feel the gladness or joy, but I think of what caused that emotion, and I know that the sources of joy, gratitude, laughter, love, excitement, anticipation, fellowship, compassion, pride, fulfillment and peace are all just as available to me now as they were in the past, if not more so.

This is the benefit of remembering, with clarity and intention. We don’t glorify the past or the present, but we understand that we have the power to make choices in our circumstances, whatever they are, to tap into what fills us and lights us up, and reject what brings us down and makes us miserable. We know that the lonely times don’t equal loneliness forever, and the successes don’t keep us on a high forever. We know that feeling intense grief, or intense love, or intense anxiety, or loneliness or fear or excitement, is only a place to start, with everything possible beyond what those experiences offer us.

We don’t have a cold forever. Now and then when we’re feeling great and probably not even noticing how healthy we are, it might benefit us to remember how awful it is to be sick, feel grateful that we’re not, and take some extra Vitamin C.

 

the reframing of “why”

The “why” questions we ask ourselves are often rooted in victimhood and ego, centered in our insecurities and fears. Mine certainly are. These aren’t “whys” we’re asking because we want answers, even though we might say them out loud. I’ve said (and heard) things like: “why did this happen to me again?? why am I so unlucky?” or “why doesn’t she/he love me? why don’t they like me?” or “why am I always wrong? what’s the matter with me?” Honest answers to these kinds of questions could help us gain insight on ourselves, assuming we had a wise, accepting space to discover them. But I’ve learned that there are more valuable, powerful, positive “why” questions we can ask that arise from the conscious, sincere desire to uncover a truth. The answers aren’t always obvious, but I believe the process of answering can lead us to greater self-awareness and to making healthy, authentic choices.

I learned to reframe my “why” questions last year. I began with “why do I want —?”—a simple and revealing question, though the answer can be complex. I wrote down: Why do I want to be in a relationship?, took a deep, centering breath, and then allowed myself to work through all the various angles and baggage until I found the answer that was most authentic to my life right now. The true reasons I want to—eventually—be in a relationship have nothing to do with ticking clocks or societal pressure or even the occasional bout of loneliness or longing (which I’ve learned are far easier and kinder to feel outside of a relationship than inside one). Once I was able to let go of those side issues, I could see the full, true answer, and knowing it has empowered me to feel good about where I am right now and confident in the choices I’m making.

I’ve found that often this is just a matter of turning a statement around, making “I want a better job,” or “I want to do more with my life” into a question. Why do I want a better job? Why do I feel I’m not doing enough with my life, and why do I feel the need to do more? These aren’t easy questions to ask ourselves, but I believe that the practice of defining exactly what’s motivating us to want something can be really effective, giving us a clarity of purpose that could easily be lost in focusing on the lack of what we want. We might find we don’t actually want that particular thing right now, it’s just become a part of our automatic narrative to think we do.

Even more difficult “why” questions are the sort a therapist might ask—Why do you believe —? Why do you feel that way about —? Big, important questions, questions we may need to have answered. My problem is that I tend to freeze up in therapy. Having even a trusted, licensed listener expecting me to struggle with verbal responses to this stuff makes me on edge and fuzzy. I believe it’s extremely valuable to be asked such things, but I find that the answers come with much more honesty and fluidity when I ask them of myself. The trick is being able to ease or drag out the truth—at least the truth as we know it.

Defining these answers for ourselves isn’t necessarily the whole truth forever and ever amen, but it’s a really good place to start, a place to challenge our automated patterns and outdated beliefs. It requires honest reflection, with an open mind, knowing that we aren’t perfect and may have to face some disturbing or uncomfortable things about who we are and the choices we’ve made. But again, that’s just a place to start.

I also find that it helps me prod myself into writing in my journal if I pose a question to answer, rather than try to force out “deep thoughts” on my brief lunch hour or while dinner is cooking. One question alone could lead to pages of insight written over weeks or months, perhaps opening into a dozen more questions, if we give ourselves the opportunity to fully answer. The beautiful thing is that nobody is going to read this document, this scrawled page in a notebook. Grammar and spelling and linear thinking aren’t required. It’s a way for us to have conversations with ourselves, and what better way to start a conversation than with a meaty, introspective question?

This past year, through a required work exercise using a surveyed list of adjectives, I discovered that several people close to me don’t perceive me as I perceive myself. I saw myself as much kinder and warmer and more giving than they did—one respondent believed I was self-centered and ruthless. These are people I see every day, people I consider to be good friends, who genuinely like me. It was startling and upsetting, and at first I was in hot, angry denial about the results. The survey wasn’t terribly scientific, so I could enjoy that rationalization for a day or two. But then I started to open up to the possibility that maybe I was kinder on the inside, in my own perceptions, than I was on the outside. I spent some time thinking about why that might be, what behaviors or actions might be resulting in that disconnect. It led me down some very unexpected paths, and allowed me to discover deeply hidden truths about the story I’ve been telling myself my whole life. Rather than ignore what happened, or decide that it meant I was unworthy and wrong (believe me, I had moments), I went inside the why. Why was there such a disconnect in the survey results, however trivial the exercise? Why did I feel such a strong need to see myself as sweet and giving, when clearly that wasn’t necessarily the whole truth of my personality?

I remind myself often, when faced with something complicated or challenging, to look a little deeper at the quandary or situation. Why am I resisting this? Why do I feel so strongly about this? Why am I reacting this way? And no matter how tricky the answers can be, they always teach me something constructive and empowering. When applied with large doses of self-acceptance, endless compassion and as much detachment as possible, asking ourselves “why” can be a powerful tool for growth.