B-Sort Relationship Advice Blog

Remembering the Past in More Detail

An example of over remembering the past in more detail comes from my own experience. In my thirties I did some major work on myself in therapy. One day, during a session, I recalled a memory from my early childhood. I don’t remember what we had been talking about at the time, I just remember my experience.

The Memory: I was three years old. I remember that because we still lived in the house on the farm. We moved from that house before I turned four. My mother, brother and I were standing in front of the wood stove popping popcorn. We were all crying.

That was all there was to the memory. It was not a new memory. Any time I had thought about it I was puzzled. I could not make sense out of it. Why were we crying? We were making popcorn. Popcorn was a special treat in those days. This was not like making popcorn today. Back then, my mother would scrape the small black kernels off the cob, put them into the frying pan and they would noisily POP into fluffy white yummy pieces of popcorn. It was magical, especially to a three year old. So why were we all crying?

By the end of this session nothing more had come from my recalling this memory. I left the therapist’s office and went about my day. But I could not stop thinking about it. I knew - I just knew - that there was something very important in this memory. For the rest of the day I was in my own little bubble.

That evening I made dinner as usual, put the kids to bed as usual and then went to bed at 8:00 pm, earlier than usual. I just wanted to be by myself so I could continue to think about this memory. I lay there in the dark, visualizing the scene over and over. Later my husband came to bed and I pretended to be asleep. I just did not want to be interrupted. I continued to lie there for hours thinking. Finally! At 4:00 am I got the answer.

I had always thought that we were all crying about the same thing. But as the memory became clearer I realized that my brother and I were crying because our mother had just strapped us. I don’t remember what for. (This was the late 40s and spankings were considered part of good parenting. People often quoted the Bible: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”) My mother was crying because she felt badly about what she had done to us. She was making the popcorn to make up to us for what she’d done.

Then the memory all made sense to me. I always thought when my mother strapped us kids that she wanted to do it. What I got from the memory was that she had ‘lost it’ and she could not help herself. I may have been only three but I was there.

I felt a flood of forgiveness for her. I felt relief. I felt a release. I fell into a sound peaceful sleep.

This changed my relationship with my mother in a positive way. I was different with her and she responded to my change with change of her own.

The change in the present did not stop there. Before I had this revelation I was the type of person who was warm and affectionate with family and friends but not with acquaintances or strangers. I did not like people I did not know well to touch me and I did not touch them. In the next days after I experienced this huge shift I found myself spontaneously reaching out and touching others. Also, I found myself liking it when people were physically warm with me. I didn’t think about it; it just happened. I’m not sure why this change occurred, but I liked it. The change has lasted to this day.

It is not always possible to remember more about a past event but it can sometimes happen when people reminisce about the past. In therapy people often do remember more about a past event, especially if they deliberately focus on the past. It also happens that new memories of other events come to mind that shed more light on the original memory.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay

Reframing

Reframing is taking an same event (or circumstance) and giving it a new and different meaning. That is, looking at old stuff in a new way.

I worked with a man in his 30’s who had come for help with work issues. During the work it became clear that he did not feel good about himself. He recalled a vivid memory of an event that happened when he was 19. He was sitting in a diner with friends enjoying a hamburger and fries when his distressed father came into the restaurant and told him that one of his younger sisters had been hit by a bus and killed. He said he did not feel bad when he heard the news. All he thought about was how good the fries and ketchup tasted.

Soon after he felt very guilty about thinking about the taste of food when something so tragic had happened. He concluded that he must not care about his sister. He judged himself harshly - that he was a bad brother and a bad person. I told him that if that were true, he would not be bothered about his reaction to this event and probably would not even have remembered it. But this statement had no impact on him.

Then reframed the situation and circumstances. I told him I saw it in a different way. How I saw it was that he was shocked by the terrible news and went numb. Then he focused on the taste of the fries because the moment before he heard the terrible news, life was very good. A part of him went into denial and just wanted life to be as it had been just moments before he heard the news. He focused on the taste because he did not want the news to be true.

The client resonated with my reframing of the circumstances. Immediately, he felt tremendous relief. The meaning I gave for his behavior matched his experience. (If it had not matched his experience he would not have had this response.)

He could now let go of the guilt he’d felt for years. His old conclusion dissolved because it was now obvious to him how deeply he cared about his sister. He came to a new conclusion that made him feel good about himself, increasing his self-esteem. The increase in his self-esteem translated into the work issues that he had originally come to counseling for.

Taking the same event from the past and looking at it with new eyes is another way to change the present.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay

Getting More Information About the Past

Many people say, “There is no use talking about the past, you can’t change it.” I think it is their idea of how they and other people recover from an event or events that were traumatic. Perhaps it is the only way they know how to deal with difficult painful events and circumstances.

It’s true. You cannot change events that happened in the past. But what you can change by talking about the past is how you think and feel in the present. When you think and feel differerently in the present then the future has new possibilities.

There are many ways that talking about the past helps change the present. One way is to get new information about the past.

An example of this happens in the movie “The Mermaid Chair”. A woman who’s beloved father died when she was 9 goes back to care for her troubled mother. At the time of his death, she was told that her father had died when his boat exploded out at sea. She was not told that,in fact, her father had been terminally ill with a debilitating disease and that he killed himself. Her mother and several other people colluded with each other to assist in his suicide and make it look like an accident. The reason for their secrecy was that the father did not want to live and yet did not want his daughter to think that he abandoned her. (I’m not saying it’s a good movie but the plot makes for a good example). What the young girl had concluded was that she was to blame for his death because, against her mother’s wishes she had given her father a pipe. He would smoke his pipe when he went out on the boat with her. She created a fantasy about how the sparks from his pipe had caused the explosion. Over time, her fantasy became her truth. Because she had disobeyed her mother she never told anyone that she thought his death was her fault.

While she was helping her troubled mother she found the pipe in her mother’s belongings. With this new evidence she realized that she had not been responsible for his death. Her mother and the others told her the truth about his death. All those years she had carried the burden of his death on her shoulders unnecessarily. Finding out the real truth from the past changed how she felt about herself in the present and would influence how she lived in the future.

Thus getting new information by talking about the past can change the present. This can be healing.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay

Guilt is a tremendous waste of energy. It does no one any good.

Guilt is all about feeling bad. Using guilt, you can make yourself feel bad, make someone else feel bad, manipulate yourself into doing something that you don’t want to say or do, manipulate others into saying or doing things they don’t want to say or do. Using guilt, if you let them, others will manipulate you into doing something that you don’t want or need to say or do.

Guilt is grounded in standards and values. Standards and values are expressed with words such as - must, have to, ought to, obligated to, vowed to, should, responsible for, etc. The most used word is ’should’.

I should work harder. I mustn’t talk so much. I should lose 10 pounds. I have to exercise more. I ought to drink less. I should go to church more often.

You can ’should’ on yourself and you can ’should’ on others. It’s a guaranteed way to make yourself and others feel bad.

Wants and needs are expressed with words that describe what we want or don’t want, what we need or don’t need, our preferences, passions, interests, tastes, etc.

I want to work with people. I need to feel wanted. I love music. I am fascinated with antique cars. I need some exercise. I need quiet to focus. I love holding my grandson. I hate licorice. I don’t want to travel any more. I don’t need as much sleep as I used to. I’m crazy about tennis.

When we feel guilt, either of our own making or from what others say or do to us, it is often because our (or someone else’s) standards and values are opposed to our wants and needs.

E.g. I should visit my friend in the hospital more often.

You may not like hospitals so you avoid visiting your friend. You are also busy in your life and have difficulty finding the time to go. You value your friend and have a standard of how friends interact so you make yourself feel guilty for not acting accordingly. Or, you use the guilt to make yourself visit your friend. People often do or say things, not because they want or need to but in order to stop or avoid feeling guilty.

Sometime guilt is employed to avoid confrontation or to control your own impulses. Perhaps you’re mad at someone but you feel it is risky or unsafe to be angry with that person so you turn the anger back on yourself. Only you experience the anger as guilt. “I should not be angry. I’m a bad person. There must be something wrong with me.” There is less danger of confrontation; there’s less danger of losing control of your own impulses. And, you feel bad.

Guilt is energy. When you feel guilty, turn that energy into productive action:

If you are religious or spiritual shift the energy of guilt into prayer. Prayer is the action of sending energy to God. You can pray for God to help you. You can pray for God to help others.

For example, When you feel guilty about not visiting your friend in the hospital shift from feeling guilty into praying for your friend.

Prayer is something you can do for your friend, no matter where you are or what you are doing. Praying for your friend will help you feel good about yourself. Guilt is passive, it does not do your friend any good. Prayer is active and may help your friend. There have been scientific studies that show that prayer is effective. Guilt is negative energy going round and round inside your head and body. Prayer is positive energy going outward into the universe.

This does not mean that you wont visit your friend. When you feel better about yourself you are more likely to visit, or contact in some other way (phone, email, card, flowers), because you want to, not because you should.

If you are not religious then consider how the universe is made up of energy. The sun is energy. Gravity is a force. Wind is energy. X-Rays give off energy. The human body emanates heat.

When you feel guilty turn the energy of guilt into positive vibes and send them out into the universe or send them to yourself. Sending positive vibes makes you feel good about yourself and about others.

This is using your energy productively, effectively and wisely. When people feel good about themselves, they are more likely to live by the standards and values that they hold. They don’t need guilt to make them do it.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay