Rewrite Your Past

Memory is notoriously unreliable.

It’s a fair bet that most of the memories we have are confused, jumbled, or otherwise incorrect. Certainly not accurate enough to hold up in court – this is, after all, why policemen write down everything at the scene of a crime.

The funny thing is, these are the memories that we torture ourselves with. Regret over things done or not done. Disappointment at other people & ourselves. Perceived failures & missed opportunities.

Even when we’re not actively beating ourselves up, those memories are still there in the background, providing (unpleasant) flavour.

If our memories are likely to be wrong (to some degree) anyway, why not at least make them pleasantly wrong? Who’s to say they have to be an accurate reflection of the past? Surely what happens in your head is 100% your business?

Of course, changing your memory of your phone number isn’t the cleverest thing in the world, but there are plenty of other juicy candidates. How about

  • all those situations where you’ve been socially confident, the life of the party
  • the successful presentations you’ve given
  • how popular you were at school
  • all those payraises
  • the deeply loving & supportive relationships
  • the peaceful breakups
  • how effortless it’s been for you to meet new people
  • those moments with your parents where you truly understood how much they loved you
  • that long history of high figure sales
  • the times you’ve stunned those around you with your brilliance & insight

You get the idea! Make your (remembered) life as beautiful, poetic & magical as you like!

joyful_thought.jpg pic by alicepopkorn

It’s your brain – own it!

So how to do this? Well, it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than finding a quiet spot, remembering back to specific life situations you’ve had, and imagining them going however-you-want. Keep imagining them until the old memory fades away & the new replaces it (this is very well researched phenomena). If you feel like part of you is struggling with this, you can always tap while you do it, but that’s totally up to you.

Your life is nothing but the sum of your memories. Why not start a new life, right now?

Just start with whatever pops in your head. Recreate your memories, making them as awesome as you possibly can. As Orwell famously said “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Well you control the present.

As within, so without.

& here’s a little anecdote to whet your appetite. I had a particular situation with a certain person a few years back, where perhaps they didn’t give me the recognition or appreciation I would have liked. In the few years since then, they’ve never really mentioned this, let alone made any kind of big deal about it. Just not in their nature.

So hey, I did the above. Imagined them really understanding how much effort I’d put in to help them.. and showing me. I imagined myself feeling deeply appreciated. Loved. Thanked. It was awesome! *laugh*

Didn’t take long. The whole thing? Maybe 5 minutes.

The only difference I could outwardly detect was that I felt more loving towards them. That aside, I promptly forgot about it.

Next day, I’m surfing the web, & what do I find? A couple of paragraphs in a very public location, from them, acknowledging & stating exactly what I’d imagined. Giving me that thanks, that appreciation. Exactly how I (now) remember it going.

Coincidence? Maybe. You decide.

December 19, 2008 – 05:55 | By | Posted in fun, healing, life | Comments
  • daxmichaels
    ALSO THIS IS NOT LYING!
    What is the truth and what is a lie all depends on your point of reference!
    I.e. I had a grammar school teacher who claimed that the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions of lives! His reality was based on a supposed outcome had the bombs not been dropped that the war would have continued and more American lives would have been lost (as well as Japanese). However, the true reality was an image of Burning men women and babies whose only fault was that they were Japanese.
  • Exactly.

    "What is Truth" is one of the big philosophical questions of all time.

    And on a simple, practical level, what we repeatedly tell ourselves gradually becomes reality anyway. Want to be awesome? Tell yourself (& act as if) that you already are, and voila! You will be.
  • daxmichaels
    And if the memories of your past schools, etc are just to damn depressing, why not say you went somewhere else to school! It is better than thinking of the waste your (real) high school was! You can be whatever you want to be; so why not be who and what you really want to be!!!
    Why not rewrite your past? It is no one's business but your own!
    Pretend its Carnival in Rio 24-7-365.
  • Si! This is worth reading, but it's your most recent post, and it's from mid-December. If I'm going to subscribe to your RSS I'll want more action than that!
  • *laugh* just as well I'm doing it for love, not money then, eh?

    Plenty of older posts to wade through. Lots of good stuff there too.
  • Hmmm....a clear case of attracting the outcomes that are mirrors of your inner thoughts? Good for you!! Thanks for the inspiration!
  • Bells
    I find this whole concept really strange
    Isn't this in essence, lying? Which is emotionally destructive?
    Why not accept past mistakes/failings and love yourself regardless?
    Perhaps you were a nerd in school, or socially rejected at a party but why let that bare any significant weight on the choices you make TODAY?
    What if you tap or recreate memories to forget the fact that you are in a huge amount of crippling debt? Wouldnt you benefit from remembering this and being proactive about it in the present?
    Why rewrite the past? When confronted with someone who was there and remembers it accurately won't you be awkwardly lying about how things went down?

    The reason that person posted those things about you is because they have maturely accepted them as being accurate and due to perhaps the process of realizing mistakes in past relationships and making a conscious effort to be grateful for the positive and learn from the negative, not because you rewrote how things went down.

    I am not saying this to attack you im truly curious as to how you ultimately think this is healthy or of benefit
  • That sure is a whole lot of questions :)

    Heard of that saying "You are your own worst critic"? Well, altering your memories is one way to stop from beating yourself up so much. There are others - & as you point out, self-acceptance is a good one (although not always easy).

    Since nobody remembers anything perfectly (although most people think they do, hence court record discrepancies), this is just a gentle way of pushing things in a more positive direction.

    If you have debt, that's a physical, external, current issue - not a memory.

    Rewriting your memories is a personal choice, of course. You're uncomfortable with the idea, & that's totally fine. I'm not the boss of you - you are!

    I should note there's no way you could know for sure why anyone wrote anything (unless it's you, which it's not).. but we're all allowed our own theories. I like mine :)
  • Bells
    Thanks for answering various questions honestly and postively.

    I am simply questioning these things because I believe that on your site is about more than just what you are doing, it encourages others to do the same, I am asking if you see it as being similar to simply lying about what has happened, and I pictured a situation arising where someone bases a large portion of their happiness or inner comfort around changing the past, which would be shattered when confronted with the overall reality of it.

    To me it doesn't seem emotionally healthy, but as you said, we're all allowed our own theories and you like yours.

    Thanks for taking the time to respond.
  • Hey you're very welcome. Thinking about it a little deeper, I suspect it all comes down to your personal definition of 'reality', viz.

    in other words, answers to questions such as: "Is there 'one true' reality?" (ie, a sole consensual truth), "Do we create our own realities?", "Are we each living in our own universe?", "Do any of us actually exist?", "How is our reality defined/created?", "How much control do we have over our existence(s)?", and so on..

    Deep stuff :)
  • elbaugher
    Well said! Great post! I totally agree with it all. It is as you say it is. If it's NOT as you say it is, then you're confused about just what you're really saying :)

    Namaste!
    EL
  • Jack M
    Interesting... I was about to add an item to your list that I've been doing with my tourists (I'm a tourguide) when it rains - always take your holiday photos without umbrellas, no matter how hard it's raining. You'll get really wet for about 3 minutes, but for the rest of your life you'll remember the day without remembering the weather. The umbrellas in the photo just emphasises a bad day, which it actually wasn't (other than the weather, I mean). By controlling the present, I let my customers control their future memories of the past.

    The example you gave where the result you imagined suddenly became documented truth - has that happened before? Do you think you will try to repeat it again, in a more controlled environment? I'd love to hear more.

    I was a bit nervous (until I read the result) about the idea of lying to yourself about other people's perceptions of yourself. That could seriously get you into trouble with personal relationships, surely?


    - Jack
  • This is life! There's no controllable environment!! :)

    LOVE, just LOVE your idea with the tourists. Wow, that's so great.

    It's well documented that if you go into a situation believing that everybody loves you (thinks positively of you, etc), things are more likely to go positively. Perhaps it's as simple as autonomic self-suggestion - more relaxed posture, body language resulting in similar reactions from others - perhaps it's a deeper level event occurrence (one harder to track with current scientific understanding).

    Of course, if you 'lie' to yourself about other's perceptions, then you'll treat them better - & thus they'll respond more positively, completing the circle, and making the lie truth. Regardless of the specifics, mostly this stuff just circles in our own brains - so why not make our memories more positive - ditch those mental umbrellas, stop torturing ourselves quite as much, and have happier lives as a result?

    [I'm assuming that these past-adjustments are in the positive, of course. If you want to make your past more miserable, heh, you're on your own]
  • Wow. I never would've thought of doing this, but it makes a lot of sense & seems like it could be very powerful -- especially in finding a way to release bitterness and other emotions people tend to hold onto. I'm going to bookmark this post & try to use this technique sometime soon. Thanks! -Jim
  • Sure thing Jim. That's the thing with neural patterning - it's all just repetition. Think ANY thought enough, and it's going to become entrenched in your brain. Might as well make those patterns positive ones :)
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