“Many of us hold on to only those memories designed to protect us from being hurt again, memories that support our defenses, memories that the evolutionary biologists claim are part of our inborn ‘negative bias.’ Could any memories be missing?” ~ Mark Wolynn, from his book It Didn’t Start With You

If you really take the time to think about it, what things do you really remember most from your childhood, especially if you suffered from any sort of trauma? I define trauma here as an unique individual, deeply distressing or disturbing experience where either a real or perceived threat or danger exists and one’s ability to integrate that experience is overwhelmed. In other words, something happened that was unexpected that was potentially dangerous (or was dangerous) and you didn’t know how to handle it and no one showed you how to handle it.

We have all met people that will quickly tell you their trauma event:

• My grandmother died when I was 3
• My dog went to live on a farm after my sister was born
• My father was abusive
• My uncle shared my room
• My mom worked all the time
• After I was born I was put in an incubator
• I was bullied for my lisp in Kindergarten
• I was molested as a child

This list could go on and on. The thing is most of the time we either know how to handle it or someone helps us handle it. If this doesn’t happen, then we keep that negative memory as a means of protection. We want to remember this so we aren’t hurt again. We also keep it front and center by repeating it to ourselves (self talk) or we regularly remind our family and friends of the story. We keep it alive in an effort to keep ourselves alive.

Working on Healing

There are lots of ways to work on identifying, understanding, integrating and healing that trauma and I would be happy to help guide you if that is something you desire. But the point of this blog post is to understand that these are not the only memories we keep.

We keep all of them but the ones that are “ok” we fully integrate and filed away in a “filing drawer” in our brain (or body). These fragmented memories are running amuck and begging for attention. A quick and simple way to get some temporary relief from these uncontrollable thoughts is to go into that file drawer and pull out some positive memories.

Was there ever a day that your mom wasn’t working?

Before your dog went to the farm, do you remember playing with him?

Can you remember your grandmothers favorite thing to bake? Can you smell it?

Did your dad ever buy you ice cream or pitch a baseball to you?

You have to consciously ask yourself questions in order for it to go looking for the answer. Keep asking. Chances are there was something positive for every negative, you just have to find it.

This won’t heal or stop the pain from trauma (deeper work is required for that) but this is a way to get a break from all that noise in your head.

My Positive Memory

The picture I selected here reminds me of my mom. Often we tease my mom about not being able to draw, but she did have one thing up her sleeve that she taught me, my brother and sister and her grandchildren how to draw. I had forgotten about that bunny until I was driving home one day a few weeks ago and saw these hay bales stacked and painted to advertise BunnyLand at our local orchard. This bunny looks EXACTLY like the one my mom would draw for us.

Seeing this my mind found that memory and I smiled the whole way home reminded of that memory.