Staying in the Present with Difficult Memories
Permanecer en el Presente con Recuerdos Difíciles
A question about working with overwhelming or traumatic memories, and whether revisiting them means reliving the past.
Staying in the Present with Difficult Memories
A question about working with overwhelming or traumatic memories, and whether revisiting them means reliving the past.
I really appreciated that sharing. It resonates with something I experience: when I'm feeling overwhelmed with traumatizing material, the experience is almost like reliving it, as if I've gone back in time. But when you talk about grounding and focusing more on the sensations of the present, it sounds like you're suggesting not to relive the experience as if you were back in time, but to let those stories play out in the mind while staying present.
Stories, yes, but also sensations, emotions, and feelings. They are happening now. You are not in the past. You are not reliving it. That is not actually possible.
The content is real; the "reliving" is not
But it is invaluable to be able to be fully open, to let all of that content come, without going so far into the story that it becomes the reality and you believe you are reliving it. Because it is not happening again. You are not, say, eight years old. There are memories, sensations, feelings, and emotions arising, and they are real now. The memories are real. The sensations, the feelings, the emotions are real now. But you are an adult, sitting on a couch, and it is 2023. There is no such thing as reliving in the sense that it is happening again. What happens again is that the memories come, and the sensations and feelings that are familiar to that memory come, but they are happening now.
Grounding creates safety
That recognition is going to create a certain grounding, and with it a better sense of safety for you to be able to work with what is coming up. As I have recommended, this kind of work is best done with the guidance of a professional. But always bring it into this moment and hold it in this moment, because what you are perceiving now, what you are hearing now, what you are sensing now, is very different from the thoughts and images of memory.
The cinema of memory
We have a remarkable capacity to forget that distinction. This is why we love cinema. We have this incredible ability to simply forget we are watching a movie, even though we never truly, completely forget. Yet we step so far out of our actual surroundings that the film becomes the reality, and that is precisely what we love about it. But there is that distinction. It is the same with everything that comes up from the past. It is coming up now.