Interpretations, Memories, and Meeting the Family Again
Interpretaciones, Recuerdos y el Reencuentro con la Familia
A student reflects on how thoughts and memories are interpretations rather than reality, then brings up the prospect of seeing her parents in China after fifteen years, and the difficult memories that have begun to surface.
Interpretations, Memories, and Meeting the Family Again
A student reflects on how thoughts and memories are interpretations rather than reality, then brings up the prospect of seeing her parents in China after fifteen years, and the difficult memories that have begun to surface.
Every moment, when I think of an idea of what the moment is, it was just an idea. The lively moment cannot be fixed as an idea.
No, an idea is always an idea. It's an idea about something, but it's not the thing itself.
We can taste whatever food we eat, and that experience is not an idea.
Right. It's like looking at a painting and describing it. The description is not the painting. But this moment includes the ideas too. The taste of this moment is the sensations, the colors of perception, the sounds, the emotions, the ideas, the thoughts, the memories. All of it is this moment.
The problem is that we have ideas about this moment and then we believe the ideas are the reality, while the perceptions become this thing in the background, far away. Reality becomes my beliefs and interpretations of what's happening. All of that needs to be seen as my interpretations. All of my thoughts, beliefs, and memories are thoughts about what's happening. Very few are facts; they're almost all interpretations. And then there is what's actually happening, which I cannot put into words because it's mysterious. I cannot know it correctly through thought. Can I describe a painting you've never seen, and have you imagine it accurately from my words? It's just not possible, no matter how many words I use.
Yes, it's a mystery. We don't even need to go there, just to admit that we don't know.
All that needs to be seen is what I'm saying. It's pretty simple. There is what's happening, which includes thoughts. All of what thoughts are informing me of is just interpretations about what's happening. None of them are reality, and very few are even facts.
The center point as interpretation
What we think is happening is always from this center point, the perspective of a center point.
The perspective of the center point is itself a thought, an interpretation of the experience. It's like looking at a Van Gogh painting and saying, "There's a center point in that painting, that star or that house." That's an interpretation.
It feels like it, but it's not actually it. It's an illusion.
I prefer to say "interpretation," because the illusion happens when I believe that what I'm interpreting is a fact of reality. Then I am in illusion.
I was just saying that all these thoughts seem to come from the same point. Because of this felt center, thought is perceived as having some meaning.
The challenge there is that you're saying the thoughts are coming from a center point. How is this? It's an interpretation, and then it becomes a belief. If you look at your experience, thoughts are not coming from a center point. They're not even appearing in any particular place.
Yes, it is very random. For example, there is a possibility I might see my parents again, and thoughts about the past in relation to my parents keep coming up.
That's just an interpretation based on a memory. And a memory is a thought. Then I have an interpretation about a thought. So it's an interpretation on an interpretation on an interpretation. There are kinds of thoughts we call memories, and kinds of thoughts we call future, which is imagination of the future. Then there are my interpretations and narratives around the memories, and my interpretations and narratives around the future. When I have those interpretations, I have emotions like fear and regret.
As they arise, I just feel whatever sensation comes. They don't really have strong emotional charge these days. I can easily see they're just memories coming up, and they're never the problem.
First of all, memories are thoughts, and you probably have enough evidence in your experience to realize they're very untrustworthy. Our memory is quite off with regard to how accurately we remember the past. What happens is we have memories, and then we have thoughts about the memories, interpretations and narratives, and those narratives become what we classify as memories. So a lot of what we call memories are actually narratives and imagination about our past. Very little of it is factually true.
The same thing happens with the future: everything we imagine about the future is just imagination, every narrative about what will happen is just prediction. When we believe our interpretations of the past and the future to be true, that's when we have emotions. What you're describing is that the more you start to not believe the interpretation, you can still have the thoughts, but you have less of the emotion.
Emotions, when they happen, are basically a reaction in our body-mind, in our brain, to beliefs. For example, when we believe that we did something really wrong that we should not have done, depending on how we construct that belief, we will have the feeling of guilt.
Memories of violence, and what to do with them
I can clearly see, and I truly believe what you're saying, that these memories are not true. But why do I still believe in them? For example, there's a thought that keeps coming up: my dad beat me when I was little, with a cane. I just can't seem to clearly let it go as just a poor memory. He was always shouting at me. He shouted at everyone, he had a very bad temper, but I grew up in his bad temper, and he was always angry at me. Now these memories keep coming up. For over fifteen years I haven't seen them, and there's a possibility I might have to see them again.
When you say "see them," you mean the thoughts of seeing your parents are appearing?
Yes, the thought that I might have to go and see them after fifteen years. They live in China and I've been living in the UK. The last time I saw them was in 2011. For a long time I never had this problem, but now these memories of the past come up. I truly understand they're just memories, with no relation to this moment. They don't have emotional charge, but I do feel like I still believe in them.
Well, there's a lot there. It's a big deal if you're going to see your parents after fifteen years, and all of this is coming up. It's very natural. Any of it that's challenging, and I would expect it to be challenging, because it's a very big life experience to have not seen your parents for fifteen years and now to contemplate the real possibility of going. Understand that it's very natural for this to be a challenging and intense experience.
That said, it's also natural to have memories come up, parts of our psyche the mind has not contemplated, or even remembered. There are mechanisms through which thoughts, memories, and feelings can be hidden or not present. This is what we can talk about as shadow work, emotional work.
The memories of the violence you're describing are memories. You cannot know how accurate and true the memory is. But you also couldn't just say it's all false, as if it didn't happen. That's another belief, another interpretation. To have a memory and say "that didn't happen, it's not real" is itself a belief on top of the memory, which is worse, more denying. The more accurate and true way to relate to those thoughts and memories is: these are the memories that I have. I don't know exactly how true and accurate they are, but these are the memories I have.
What usually happens is we have a lot of interpretations on top: "this that I remember happening should not have happened," and "because it happened, something is wrong, I am damaged." This is where I won't say too much, because I'd be putting ideas in your head. What matters is what you actually experience around it. The contemplation of seeing your parents will bring up these narratives, worries, fears, and pain, and that's a really good opportunity to see the thought-nature, the relative nature of the interpretations.
But it's also sensitive and wise to be aware that what you remember might have happened, and that is painful, and there probably will be pain experienced as you see your family. And to know that you can always walk away. You might be surprised; something might heal in the relationship and shift. Or you might be surprised by tension, pain, even violence again, and you can just walk away.
The mother's belief, and what is right for you
My mom has been pushing this point that because he's my dad, he's never wrong.
That's your mother's belief.
Yes. At the time I didn't have a clear understanding of what's right and what's wrong. This waking-up process helped me understand that. I don't understand my mom's belief, though to some extent I understand my parents. Something my mom told me on the phone about six months ago: she told me my dad visited prostitutes many years ago when I was away, not in China. They had an arrangement that my dad paid a lot of money to my mom to keep the family looking like a family and not expose any of this.
I'm capturing the sense of what you're describing. You're describing a whole narrative and circumstance of your parents and their past. You're saying you don't understand them. There's clearly a lot of difficulty in the past, in your family, and in your parents' relationship. And you're seeing more now the sense of what's right and wrong. That's important. Violence in that way is not okay, it's not acceptable. It matters that you're clear in yourself about what's not acceptable for you, and in this visit, that you stay true to your truth: what is okay for you and not okay, what is right and wrong.
You're describing a very big life event after all those years, with the history you have and the history of your parents. It's clearly difficult. So expect it to be really challenging, and that's going to be okay. Anticipate that this part of the painting is going to be challenging, and you're going to be working on a challenging part of it. And you can always walk away. There is no obligation.
Before I realized what I am, I was just accepting whatever people are, with no boundaries. My mom said he's my dad, and it doesn't matter what he does. My mom is still accepting what my dad did, things that are out of any boundary, like visiting prostitutes.
But that's your mother's life and your mother's choices. It might be the right choice for her, but not for you. Your mother might have made right choices or wrong choices regarding her life with her husband, your father. What matters is what you want and what's right and not right for you.
Do you feel that in my system I still believe something unacceptable, that setting boundaries from it is itself a belief?
No, I'm saying it's very appropriate for you, as I mentioned, to walk away at any point. That's my simple, high-level way of saying what you could call setting a boundary. What I say around boundaries is: just do what you want. If you really do what you want, you can call it a boundary.
Boundaries, in a sense, are coping mechanisms for when we can't really do what we want, when we're a bit stuck. If I'm in a situation where I cannot really be fully free to do what I want because I have a limitation in myself, then I have coping mechanisms, which are important and valuable, and I recommend them. They're called boundaries. But once I'm able to set boundaries, there's a better way: just do what you really want. Of course, knowing what you really want is itself a whole problem, discovering that and being fully free and authentic.
When I refer metaphorically to "walking away," it doesn't need to be walking away. It could be a "no." It's a free response to what's happening. I recommend all of that. It's very healthy to set boundaries if you need to, or to do what you feel is right for you. And then you'll likely see, "here I overreacted, here I was in pain," and you'll learn from that. That's the growing-up process, which never ends.
So this happening is just to help me see my true nature?
Your true nature already is.
Yes, I cannot not be myself.
In a way, yes, you cannot not be yourself. Your true nature already is. What can happen is that you can ignore it or not. What we propose here is that there are ways in which you can be more and more free to be yourself. That's what I'm describing as the process of growing up, which is never-ending. There's no arriving anywhere, no place where you finally are fully yourself.
But what can happen, in what I talk about as waking up, is that it can be recognized that right now, at any moment, nothing is missing. There's nowhere you need to get to. There is a peace, an okayness, a beauty, a love, and a freedom in what is, in this moment. And this is true in whatever circumstance: here, or when you are sitting in front of your dad and your mom. It's the same. Nothing's missing. Nothing's wrong. There is peace. There is freedom. But that doesn't mean you stay sitting there if you don't want to.
I'm also worried that my mom might react badly if she sees me, because she doesn't tell other people what my dad did. She agreed to keep it secret.
You take care of yourself. You don't take care of your thoughts. You're having thoughts, very understandably, about your mother and how she's going to react. But your mother is your mother. Her life is her life, her choices are her choices. You only take care of yourself, in the sense of doing what to you is most loving, wise, and caring. If that upsets and triggers your family, it's for them to deal with.
I feel inspired by this moment.
You're walking into a very challenging circumstance. I want to be clear: when I say take care of yourself and do what is most wise and loving, one has to be open to the possibility that we don't do that. One can close down, react, do something that is not loving.
Reaction as part of the moment
So reacting is also this moment.
It's going to happen. When it happens, we work with it. For example, if I react and get offended and say something mean, I can notice, "wait, that was a reaction, I said something mean." I can say to that person, "I'm sorry I reacted, I said something mean, I didn't mean to hurt you." That's how we work with what's happening, which could include "I reacted and I came from a place of fear and pain and judgment." But it could also be, "you are judging me, you are not treating me well, I'm not okay with this."
This interaction comes with reacting.
It comes with everything. The deepest challenges of the growing-up process come in our relationship with our parents and our closest relationships, especially romantic ones. That's where the deepest challenges come.
Especially with my mom. I was close to my mom, and I was confronting toward my dad, because I didn't agree with how he was acting. I don't really have much definition of myself now, because I don't have strong belief in the character.
If that's true, then you can respond more freely at any moment with whatever feels right. If you have less and less definition of who you are and of what's right and wrong as definitions, then you can see and feel at any moment what feels right. You can be more responding than acting from definitions, beliefs, narratives, conditions.
It's more about how you feel in the moment rather than what you're thinking.
Exactly. Looking at everything, the whole painting, what feels right at the moment.
I'm feeling okay, really okay. I don't have much intense emotion, apart from realizing that it is okay to have challenges. I didn't even think of it as a challenging thing.
Just expect that you might have intense emotions when you see them. It would be very surprising if you didn't, I'll put it that way.
We'll see when they come. I'm okay at the moment.
Thank you for sharing.