Wisdom
The Round Year
People picture their memory as a large body of water in which they’re immersed, one which challenges their sense of control, as they struggle to swim against its currents, or allows them the enjoyment of floating, relaxed, on its calm surface when the influx is pleasant.
Frequently, its driving currents drag the unfortunate mind into a whirlpool it can’t control, and drown it in weakening and defeating feelings.
Reality despises a vacuum, and that empty mind you’re willing to keeping still is going to get filled eventually, usually with thoughts you don’t enjoy.
The thoughts you are compelled to host against your will diminish and control you.
Fighting them only gives them more power, and trigger the consciousness stream to which they belong to call up more of the same quality. They will use your mind as their power source, draining you to grow stronger, and leave you cored out and structurally damaged inside.
It is easier to replace unwanted thoughts than to eliminate them.
Think of this as replacing an object that sits on a pressure plate connected to an alarm with its equivalent weight, thus bypassing the trigger.
The process requires some planning, because you need to have replacements lined up before the toxic mental streak descends upon your mind like a Harpie. While you’re in its throws, you won’t be able to conjure anything else on the spot, much like a drowning man has no other option than taking the next breath before another wave pulls him under. Things are just a little better if there’s a raft to hold on to nearby.
I call this planning process the building of a memory library, and it’s something that needs to be done during quiet and happy times, when remembering wonderful things comes easy.
Anything that qualifies as a happy moment belongs in it.
The collection is private, not open to opinions and commentary, and best kept to oneself.
The moments you pick to populate this library should be constantly refreshed, to keep them in your active memory, and painted in such exquisite detail that bringing them to the forefront of your thought becomes effortless.
Better yet, they should be connected to the unconscious workings of your mind, to record their smell, sense their ambient temperature, minor ancillary details associated with them, the sounds in the background.
Having multiple points of access, especially of the kind not accessible to the rational mind, where all the caustic blather lives, is especially useful.
Those mental objects should feel as real as the physical things and circumstances which surround you right now.
No happy memories? No problem. Make some up. The mind doesn’t distinguish between an actual memory and an artificial one. Clean up your memory banks to feel less encumbered.
Despite unconscious body language, like gazing left instead of right, depending on remembering or imagining something, your mental processes are the same for both of them.
It’s bad enough when circumstances like serious illness, hardship or grief don’t allow you a single breath out of the pain, why suffer through the pointless daily sludge of irritating thoughts as well?
There is only so much stuff you can remember, especially in recurrent fashion. Take control of what that stuff is, and cover up as much territory as you can with it, instead of leaving it open to whatever random thought stream comes along.
Externally imposed, innocuous, chit-chat driven memory attacks, are relentless and insidious, and overwhelmingly negative, but even for those unavoidable situations there will be enough material in your memory library to refashion the meaning of what was said and reduce its toxic load.
In conclusion, what are the points worth remembering?
- Actively navigate your memory instead of being caught by its rip currents.
- The thoughts your mind hosts against its will weaken and diminish you. Fighting them gives them more power, and they drain that power out of you, making you more vulnerable to their attacks in the future.
- Keep replacement memories on standby for immediate availability during a defeating mental attack.
- Those thoughts should be selected ahead of time and reinforced until they rise to the surface automatically.
- Make the memory library components painstakingly detailed, sensory connected and fresh, and give them several access points, independent of the rational processing if possible.
- They should be vivid enough to overpower what they’re replacing.
- Don’t restrict yourself to real memories, create what you wish.
- The mind can’t tell the difference between processing an actual memory and an artificially constructed one.
- There is only so much stuff you can remember at once. Fill up that space with content of your choosing and there won’t be much room left for random negative thoughts.
- Use your memory library to refashion the meaning of toxic allusions and dental drill chit-chat.
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