It stinks! What does?
Let me bring an image to your mind or rather a smell to your nose. The smell of rotting garbage. You have been too lazy to clear the garbage bin – so stuff keeps getting added and the older stuff gets pushed to the bottom – out of sight. But soon, it begins to rot and stink and you can’t hide it any more.
Yuck, you say? But that’s exactly what we do with some of our memories.
It Stinks!
Yes, things happened to us that we don’t remember- or more correctly, we don’t want to remember. Why would we not want to remember? Because it’s just too painful and we feel it’s better forgotten. So we push it back out of out of sight or so we think!
The more painful the memory the deeper we want to push it back. But just as the we can’t keep garbage pressed down for a long time, so too we can’t keep these repressed memories forever. No, they begin to impact on our behavior. We begin acting based on a script written way back in our past.
I spent a while the other day trying to recall things that I had ‘forgotten’ – they were not pretty and I was resisting thinking about them. But I do realize that there were things in my past that was making me behave a certain way today. In other words there was some garbage that I hadn’t cleared and it was starting to stink. Now that I’ve realized this, I need to re-write the script. It’s not as easy as I make it sound,but I’m working on it.
Are there some memories in your past too that you’re trying to forget? Do you find some of your reactions to certain situations or people unreasonable? Is it time to clear out the ‘garbage’ in your mind?
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yes, I am trying to forget a few things. I know, it stinks, but not sure how we can clean the garbage/ something that is done in past which no one can erase. Only way I see is either I might have learned a lesson or forgiven someone or in the middle without forgiving and not taking revenge.
Very well said Cornnie. Some of the memories, which we don’t like would always stashed way back into our memory that we tend to forget them
Oh yes, much as i try to forget those stinky memories they come back again and again. I beginning to relax at such moments, trying to eliminate them slowly yest steadily
Oh yes! There are many memories I refrain from digging up. And, each time the person in those memories comes to mind because of some or other incident, I shake my head vigorously and get it out of my mind. I need my peace in the present, not pain from the past. The past is past, and I want to forget about it. Sometimes, I do, at other times, it ruins my peace of mind.
The past does tend to haunt us sometimes, like a broken record on repetitive mode, even when we thought we had buried those memories.
I usually believe in forgiving and moving on if it is a person involved, yet sometimes the persons behaviour pains me, as even though I have made peace with the past they haven’t.
Meanwhile some past behavioural patterns do tend to surface back in our lives I think. I’ve recently had such an experience thinking I had transformed. But I guess change is the only constant and some patterns do tend to surface back. The only way I believe to deal with them is to not allow them to get the better of us and power through life like a true blue warrior!
My two pence!
There have been situations in which I have responded/reacted in a wierd and unreasonable manner, which I remain aware of in that moment and yet cannot stop myself from acting in that manner. On deeply unraveling I realise this was how I was treated in the past (not by the same person) and I did not feel comfortable at all. Then why did I do the same to the other person? No answer.
I have unsettling memories which as much I suppress or turn my back to or ignore or divert my mind from, they tend to raise their ugly heads once every few years. Is there really a way to clear out this garbage?
Clearing out the garbage in our minds is perhaps one of the most important things we need to do consistently. That garbage becomes our shadow and an unexamined shadow controls us in more ways than one!
‘Unexamined’ is a key word. We have to do the work of examining our thoughts and motives, if we want to make any progress in life!
It’s a tough thing to do. But you are right, instead of stuffing it away, we should face it and deal with it. I should start working on my “stinkies”. Good post.
Looking to joining the MondayMusings again shortly.
What a perfect analogy! It is important to bring out those memories instead of letting them rot.