Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello and welcome to The Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host and today we will be talking about the memory trap. So it's an interesting topic. It's going to be kind of a little philosophical and a little practical. So hopefully it will be very interesting. But before we get started, please consider like sharing and subscribing. As you know, this helps YouTube get our content out to more and more people. And please consider sharing with your friends and family so they can benefit as well. So the memory trap, and maybe some of you have never heard of this before, as you know, in the rest of our episodes, a lot of times we begin with a definition. So let's define what memory is. What is memory? Memory is when something is, happens physically. So I'm in my body and I'm having an experience and something about the experience or all of the experience is recorded. in my consciousness. It's recorded. So let's say I learn how to sail a boat. I learn how to do the knots and I learn all about sailing and so forth. Everything that I've learned with that activity and the learning and the information, whatever I've done, I've recorded in my consciousness, in my memory that hopefully that would be available if ever needed. In a boat. So that's like a practical example. Other things that happen if we have a very emotional experience that helps it to be recorded. So whether it's a very happy experience, a very beautiful experience, a very awe inspiring experience, a very painful experience, a very scary experience, any emotional charge will. Make it be recorded more easily, let's say. And I'm also going to say right up front that negative things get recorded very easily. Easier than the rest, actually, I have to say. So that's what. Memory is now I mentioned this a little bit, but there's three kinds I would say of memory. There's positive memories that like the happiness and so forth. There's neutral memories, which are like memories on how to do things. And then there's the negative memories that have painful consequences. experience attached to them. I wrote down here, do we need memory to live? Okay, so I'm going to answer the question and I'm going to make a distinction. Do we need memory to live? The answer is no, you have people with amnesia that are alive. You have people with dementia that are alive. You have people with. Different kinds of cognitive problems that are alive. You don't need memory for your heart to beat or for your lungs to work or for your body functions to work. So you could technically be alive without memory or without a full memory, or you could argue you need something, but. In order to function, we definitely need memory, right? So memory is an important part of our life here as human beings. We have to know who our mother is and our father is. We have to be able to recognize things. We have to be able to maybe use language, memorize all these things that have to do with living and functioning have to As human beings in the world. So yes, we do need our memory, but what is the memory trap? So first of all, all memories give us an experience. They don't all have to be emotional, but they give us an experience like, or a feeling of knowledge, a feeling of understanding. Like I was saying, if I learn how to do a skill, that, that memory is going to give me that feeling. Like I know that. So you get a feeling like I know how to do it. The other ones are emotional, happy, sad. Painful, fearful, whatever, all of that is recorded and it gives us an experience. So I wrote down here, what is the memory trap? The memory trap is when we use our memories In a moment, and it produces a negative outcome. So maybe I'm using a memory inappropriately. Like it's not necessary. In other words, I'm thinking that all people who talk a certain way are, I'm making this up, like all people who talk a certain way are stupid. So that's the memory or the idea that I have in my head. And when somebody talks to me in that way, I'm automatically going to. Make decisions and respond to them from that memory or from that idea. So I wrote a couple of things down. It's either not appropriate, not cooperative. So let's say the person is asking for help and I'm operating on some other memory or some other idea. And in the moment, I'm not cooperative. I'm not helpful in the moment because I'm focused on what that person said to me last week, let's say, not based on the reality of the moment. So this is interesting one. Did you ever have an experience where somebody, let's say you go into work and somebody doesn't say hello. Like I say hello and somebody doesn't say hello. And then all of a sudden I think they don't like me. Like I'm already coming up with these ideas. Where did these ideas come from? Well, somewhere along the line, I. put in my memory this idea that everybody should say hello and that if they don't say hello that somehow it's rude or maybe they don't like me or something like that. But is that reality? There's another word we use for that in spirituality. It's called Maya, M A Y A. For those of you who have been practicing spirituality, you may have heard that word before. Maya means illusion. So if I'm operating from some memory, some idea that I have in my mind and I'm operating from it like it is real. It is true. And then I maybe am thinking bad about the person or so forth. I'm bringing in a negative energy into the environment, aren't I? The next one is PTSD, the post traumatic stress disorder. That is when you have such an emotional, shocking, or painful experience that it's not just the mind that's affected, it's the body that's affected. It's so deeply recorded that the person may not even be aware. That they're operating from that memory. Those are very deep rooted memories. I would say anxiety kind of goes under that too, that idea, and depression also. That it's such a deep rooted kind of experience that the person isn't even aware. All the time, why they feel the way they feel, but something is affecting them. Some memory, something from the past is actually influencing how I am in the moment. And then I put, this affects the decisions in a negative way and that would stop progress and stop opportunities. So we definitely don't want to be stopped by anything, but I really don't think we're aware of how our memory works. First of all, and second of all, how much I'm being influenced by all the things that I've recorded along the way. So I have an example, we do a free Online meditation class, and we had this one person who started coming and whenever this person shared on the class, he would be sharing like, I don't know if this is for me. I really need something in person. I haven't been able to find anything. I don't know if I can meditate, but, but the person kept coming back so. This person kept coming back every week and I would keep saying, it's good that you keep coming back, keep coming back. In other words, the idea is that if you keep practicing something new, hopefully some of those old ideas might, something might break through. Like maybe, I don't know, maybe the person would feel like, oh, well maybe this is working or maybe I can try to meditate a little bit more. Turns out that the person just kept coming back and saying the same thing over and over and over again. And then the person stopped coming. So this is an example. I'm going to say. It could be an example of someone who keeps on, playing the tape in their head of what they think about themselves, what they think about their effort, what they think about what they need. So that, that talk is so loud and so powerful and feels so real that no matter what came in front of the person, it wasn't recognized as good. To the person so this is an example of and i'm not even saying that the class was right for the person it's a potential example it might just be that the person was telling the truth and this wasn't for him That's fine, too But i'm saying from this point of view and in this discussion, it might be possible that He was kind of stuck in his way of thinking about himself about what he needed and about what could help him So think about that for a minute is there some place in your life where maybe you have a memory of something that happened and you've made up some sentences in your mind about it, like this doesn't work for me. I really can't do that. I really don't like that. I'll give another example. This is a simple example, but I went golfing once and I was so bad at it that I decided that forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. I am not going to play golf. So that's kind of silly, right? But think about it. Have you ever done that before? Have you ever had something happen and then you made up your mind that you were never going to do that again? I mean, sometimes that's appropriate, right? Maybe it was so bad, but, but I mean, I really cut myself off from that. And it doesn't mean that I have to go play golf, but do you see how that memory of that feeling. Of maybe humiliation, or I didn't want to feel like I couldn't do something. Another example of this from myself is like going bowling. I know people go bowling and they throw gutter balls and they laugh and they have a great time. And I could never have a great time there because for me, I'm not doing well. So you see how, like, I feel in my memory, it's like, I see myself as I'm doing well in something and why would I want to do something that I don't do well in? So in one hand, that's not a sin or anything bad, but can you see how that might limit life for me a little bit maybe people around me want me to go play and have fun or maybe maybe they want me to Go and maybe I'm showing up as a little bit stuffy or maybe not able to be relaxed or something I don't necessarily want to be like that, right? But can you see how having these? Responses in our mind that we stick in our memory. We keep on referring back to that and it affects my decisions. It affects my attitude towards things. In the moment other people what do they get to see? They get to see me saying how much I don't like this or how much I don't like that Who wants to hear that right? Then who's the problem not that it's a problem. But do I want to be negative? It's difficult for other people to deal with me when i'm negative, think about it for a minute if i'm in a family and whether it's true or not if i'm talking about Maybe something that's going on with me and i'm maybe a lot of times discussing the problem and so forth Because it's on my mind. So in my memory and in my mind, it's a deep recording and it keeps playing and playing and playing and I'm, and it hurts. So I'm talking about it and talking about it. What's happening out here? People have to deal with me, right? I have two other examples. One other example is I had a, uh, one of the, you do on the videos, one of the videos of this podcast. Somebody wrote something like, I hope you're guided by truth. And it was something like about God and this is the only way and whatever. And it's fine. That's the way the person feels. That's fine. I didn't feel like that comment had anything to do with what I was saying or doing. So potentially when we feel so strongly about something and we have something so etched in our memory that we're talking about it, it could be like, If somebody says something and we say that thing, it might not even be appropriate. It might not even be a real response to what the person is saying. So the memory trap means that. I am basically living in my head maybe too much. I'm living in my head to the point where I'm not able to respond authentically and appropriately to what's happening in the moment. So when we look at this, what is the most important thing to take from this idea? This podcast is here to help us to be able to see our behavior in a new way. Maybe I never thought. That my feelings about something was affecting others at all. Like maybe I'm just expressing myself or maybe I'm telling the truth or maybe I'm saying how I feel and nothing about that is wrong. But we want to start to think about. What kind of energy we are putting out there into the world? Do I want to be negative? No. Do I want to be uncooperative or, have a negative impact on the situation? No, I don't. So when I look at this and I look at this in terms of the memory trap, I can see that I can start looking at. the different things that I have recorded in my memory and that are influencing me. So how do I help myself get out of the memory trap? Well, meditation. And I wrote down here, to take a look at episode 40 also, because episode 40 was Rewriting your past and what that is, is how to use meditation to go back and change some of those memories. Like you're only doing it in your own head, you're not hurting anybody. And it's not like you're denying the facts or anything like that. It's just you're trying, I'm trying to relieve myself of the pain. I had a lot of painful memories. Maybe a handful of very painful ones that I could definitely see was impacting me now. So I went back and rewrote them. I made the person say exactly what I wanted. I made, I got my needs met. I'm only doing it in my own mind, but can you see how I'm going back and I'm rewriting the memory in my consciousness? So the memory is no longer sending off this pain signal and the pain signal is affecting how I see things now, how I'm being now. So I'd recommend going back and taking a look at that episode. So how does meditation and spiritual study help avoid the memory trap? Well, I kind of just said it, one of the first things that happens in spirituality when you start meditating is you start being able to observe your mind, observe your thoughts and you'll start to pick up some of these thoughts and feelings that you have in a situation. Maybe you weren't aware of it. I know I wasn't. I thought it was normal. I thought it was normal to talk about negative things all the time. I truly did. I thought that was normal. It wasn't even showing up for me as. Something that needed to be fixed. So how we deal with the memory trap is how I'm starting to be responsible for my own memory, responsible for what gets recorded in my mind, start to be responsible for the feelings and the thoughts and the ideas that I generated. all over all this time that's affecting me now. And I'm here to say that even just being able to observe and notice these things starts to change it right away. I often share that when I started this Raja yoga meditation practice, it only took about two weeks, that I had a major result. And that was that anger was totally gone. I noticed that I wasn't getting angry anymore. That doesn't mean that I wasn't like, Irritable or frustrated or impatient. Those are anger's little brothers and sisters, but anger, real anger was totally gone after two weeks. How did that happen? I was starting to watch my mind. I was starting to see where things were coming from. I was starting to take responsibility for my own consciousness. The trap means. That I'm living in my mind and it's affecting me in a negative way. It's affecting my decisions. It's affecting my perception. And usually it's in a negative way, right? If it was positive, we wouldn't be trying to look at it or change it. So I'll leave it there, but I would say, Definitely to see if you want to consider starting raw yoga meditation practice. It's a very simple practice. You can look down in the description below. There's free online class, there's the website, but we definitely recommend meditation practice as part of a daily self care practice. You learn how to observe your mind and it's like a whole new world of stuff. At first it may not be too pleasant. Because I'm noticing how I'm maybe sabotaging my own happiness. Maybe I'm noticing how selfish I've been behaving or how negative I am or how angry I'm being or how, insensitive or selfish I'm being. But it's okay because The first step of getting better is to see it, right? And I want to be responsible for myself. Memory in and of itself is not good or bad. It happens as part of our natural life here as human beings. But I want to be responsible for those functions of consciousness. If I'm responsible for them, I can work on not recording the negative, only recording positive and so forth, and making sure that whatever happens every day, all day, that I'm in charge of my own memory and that what I'm trying to do is be spontaneous and loving and appropriate in every situation. So I'll leave it there. Remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And so until next time, take care. Um, uh,
