It is hard to leave behind memories of bitter moments of past. They continue to hurt and disturb us. Even if we try hard, bitter memories keep drawing us back to our past. Though our life continues on the grounds of the present, we actually live with our past, whose memories keep gnawing at our minds. In this state of dilemma, we get filled with stress, guilt and sorrow, which affect our work-efficiency and spoil our present relationships.
Psychologists say that most people, instead of remembering golden and pleasant moments of the past, keep remembering the moments of pain and anguish. People have a strange natural attraction to past sorrows and cannot forget them easily. Mind identifies itself so much with the sorrowful moments of the past that it cannot leave them behind and keeps remembering them again and again. The goodwill of others towards us in the past is easily forgotten, while every malevolent act is very well remembered. By constantly reminding ourselves of sorrowful incidents we unknowingly disturb our present relationships also. Psychologist Dr Matthew Saxton says that we try to keep alive the bitterness and pain of our relationships in our minds. Instead of letting them die, we keep nourishing them. Psychologist Richard Davidson says that if a person remembers an incident continuously for a long time, this memory gets converted to Long Time Memory and gets engraved in the subconscious mind. Then, whenever a similar context arises, the unpleasant incident of the past begins to playback itself like a movie in our minds and we get forced to live with the terrible times once again.
According to Richard J. McNally all the memories of scary, terrorizing incidents get accumulated in the sensitive part of brain known as Amygdala. Whenever we touch these memories, all the actual incidents related to these memories get refreshed in our minds and begin to scare and terrorize us. According to Chris Brown, whenever we get reminded of painful and sorrowful incidents of our past, there is a spurt of bio-chemical activity within our body. Almost 1500 bio-chemical activities get activated in this period. Some of these activities have a very harmful effect on our mind-body system. Our mental processing gets strongly affected by them.
Continuous negative and depressing thinking increases the level of a chemical called gluco-corticoid inside the body and it activates Hippocampus which is the memory centre of the brain. This causes us to begin remembering personal incidents that took place several years back. Since the mind is filled with negativity, we do not recall all the good things that happened to us in the past. Instead, only disturbing and troubling memories get recalled. This gradually reduces the capability of the brain. Hippocampus begins to reduce in size due to constant pressure. The biggest damage that this causes to us is that the capability of our brain to collect new memories begins to diminish. This means it becomes difficult for us to remember the incidents that are happening in the present. Negative thinking and memories increase stress which increases the discharge of a hormone called Cortisol in the body. This reduces the immunity of the body, due to which the body becomes susceptible to infections like cough, cold and other contagious diseases. If this state continues for a long time, then the possibility of acquiring several types of cancers increases manifold. Situations that invoke fear and anxiety lead to reduction in the level of endorphin hormones in the body. This reduction significantly reduces our capacity to bear pain; so even small pain becomes unbearable. This increases susceptibility to arthritis and other serious diseases.
Psychologist Catherine says that all memories of the past do not become a cause for concern. The real problem arises when the memories become a burden on our mind, begin to disturb and disrupt our thinking, and begin to affect our personality. Actually, we ourselves are responsible for this state because we unnecessarily store a large number of useless facts, incidents and statements by others, and burden our mind. Such memories are invariably wrapped in negative emotions like failures, anger, animosity, remorse, guilt, dissatisfaction etc. This negative thinking after the passage of time, becoming an indivisible part of our personality, begins to drive and control us and our life becomes a terrible misery. Some time it even makes us hate ourselves.
To save ourselves, we must first avoid memories and thoughts that fill us with negativity. To protect ourselves from wrong habits and to rid ourselves of wrong company, we must employ our mind in some benevolent activities that suit our interest. We must make desirable changes in our life-style like determining the time for eating food and going to sleep. When daily routine becomes organized, mind becomes calm and stable, and unnecessary and stress generating thoughts do not get a chance to enter the mind. Along with organized lifestyle, it is necessary to regularly read life-transforming literature so that mind is filled with positivity all the time.
To avoid the bitterness of the past we must learn to live in the present. One who learns to properly organize his present, can correct his past and makes his future bright. Life is very precious and very beautiful; only the present moments can be used to embellish and nurture it. So we must try to spend all our energy to beautify the present moment. This alone is the secret of living a happy life.
When I write about “realizations,” I am describing a state in which a practitioner has wisdom of who she or he is, and has embodied that wisdom; it has become integrated into daily life, thoughts, and activities. We often view “awakening” as first step towards such realization. Awakening can occur in the blink of an eye, frequently through the direct, heart-opening (heart-breaking) transmission of grace from an awakened teacher.–Russell Targ
The distance between heaven and earth is no greater than one thought. -Mongolian proverb
Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2013 Nov-Dec
Credit : Freepik and storyset