Santa Clara Meditation Letting Go – Why do you think we have to hold on to bad memories for a such a long time?
Why is it a bad thing to remember something for a long time?
I have had this and that in my life, but I remember bad things for longer than good things. The emotions that I felt in the past feel as vivid as what happened just before. When different thoughts come to mind when I’m alone, things that are shameful, unpleasant, or disgusting in my life are first to come to the surface of my consciousness. Many times, my thoughts made me feel bad, depressed, and my self-esteem declined. Then I thought of why only bad things happened in my life, and other people lived happily and freely. I seemed to be the only one who was frustrated about why I was living such a hard life. I was so tense that I couldn’t stretch my shoulders and always felt stressed.
So there was always a question in my mind. Why do memories I don’t want to come up vividly and often for a long time? When those memories came to my mind, I felt like I’m alone in prison tens of meters underground. A feeling of despair and anxiety rose feeling trapped without being able to get out. I wanted to forget everything. I asked myself, “can’t I erase this?” I thought if something like an eraser could erase my bad memories cleanly, my life would be so much easier and brighter.
I recently heard a scientific explanation of my question.
It was so understandable. The answer lies in the fundamental principle that the brain works on, survival orientation. It is said that the brain has evolved with the priority of ensuring the survival of the individual. To preserve information for survival, the brain leaves internal and external events in various forms of memory. Memory types include long-term memory, short-term memory, external memory, and implicit memory.
The process for the brain to remember is similar to the process of storage in computer memory. First, it accepts information such as body sensations, emotions, and thoughts in the form of temporary short-term memory. Short-term memory is a form of memory like the first phone number you hear until you press a button. Short-term memory is similar to typing letters on a computer monitor in a computer document program.
However, such short-term memory is preserved for a long time only when there is a process of converting it to a form of long-term memory that can be recalled one year or ten years later, just as a document is stored in the hard drive by pressing the ‘Save’ button in a document program. Involved at the time that the memory is stored is emotion. Of course, repetition is also involved.
The brain tries to preserve and remember more of the information it thinks is valuable for survival. The measure by which the information is valued is emotion. Emotions are like money that displays the values in the mental world. Information with strong emotions is considered valuable and essential information.
Such information is easily stored in long-term memory. The amygdala, located in the deepest part of the brain next to the hippocampus, where long-term memory is stored, is involved in strong, emotional responses such as fear. When you feel fear and helplessness in an overwhelming situation, the brain activates the amygdala when the so-called mental breakdown comes, and emotions rise and switch to survival mode. Then the situation is saved as long-term memory.
That’s why I remember bad things for a long time. This is how the brain judges what is beneficial to remember for survival. This is why trauma can have a strong emotional effect many years after it happened.
The long-term memory generated for survival is carried along with the emotions, which often exaggerate the negative event that occurred and comes up repeatedly from time to time. It can be a panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a factor that harms all kinds of mental health, and even killing oneself due to not being able to endure recurrent mental pain.
So, is there any fundamental way to get out of this pain? Couldn’t it be possible to fundamentally change the way negative things I experienced are replayed in my head?
I decided to try meditation to solve all these issues, doubts, and problems I had in my life. It turned out to be not A meditation but THE MEDITATION.
I want to share with you what I have learned from my meditation practice. When we come to the world, we are born with bodies from our parents. The human body takes in information from the outside world through the five senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, and smelling and stores it like a film in a storage organ called the brain, just as a camera takes pictures.
Seeing the world through these pictures we stored, we live interpreting and judging peoples and ourselves. So, all I know are only the pictures that accumulated through my life. That is why people live in a self-centered world, always thinking that they are right in their minds. There are good and bad things, doubts, trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and panic disorder. Not so much because of what is happening around us but because of the world of pictures we have stored in our minds.
Through meditation, you can throw these pictures away. If you let go of them, the negative thoughts that have been accumulated for a long time will disappear, and you can get real peace of mind. If you can be free from the thoughts that continuously come up, it is true freedom. If you can truly get rid of the noise that rings in your head repeatedly for no reason, you can remain tranquil and have peace in your head. This is true life and true happiness!!!
After discarding the false world that we are living in, we see that the reality is that we are wholly united with this infinite universe. How free and happy would it is!!! You can live as one with the world. You can achieve everything you want to accomplish because you don’t have so many negative minds holding you back.
If you want to be genuinely free from repetitive negative thoughts, please watch this attached video. I highly recommend taking a look. Thank you so much for reading 💛🧡🍀🌼
by Sophie Hwang / Former Project manager of developing S/W system
