Are You Being Managed by your Memories?

Just like our perceptions are flavored by our beliefs, programming and habits…..so are our memories. The way in which we insperience an experience is different for everyone. Whether a memory is pleasant or unpleasant, or fluctuates between the two, it still carries with it a flavor. It might leave a refreshing mint aftertaste or a pungent one, two, punch of a garlic, onion combo. Regardless of its pleasantries, that memory stamp, was also influenced by whatever narrative was playing in your mind when it was recorded. So memories are like the ultimate Rubik’s cube to navigate, they are subject to the glasses you were wearing then and the ones you are wearing now.

Memories tend to hold a whole lot of power. They have the ability to romanticize or wreak havoc, on a particular event or relationship. I can remember the same prom night as a wild, passionate, fun-fueled evening, or an out of control, too drunk, crying miserably in the street evening. I can remember my dad as wise, generous, and integrous, and two stories later, he is so clearly an insensitive, know it all, bully. 

Just like the rest of our lives, memories must be managed and if you assign management to your cousin, or to your twenty year old self, or to your anxiety, the memories will manage you. When I am being managed by my memories is when I am suffering. It’s when I make choices out of fear, it’s when I stifle my voice, it’s when I quiet my laugh, it’s when I don’t make the leap, it’s when I believe those who tell me the sky is the limit….oh hell no, I can’t hear you unless you are telling me there is NO limit.

When I decide to take the reigns is when I decide that I will no longer wait to be hired by some faceless manager to manage the business of my own life. Today is the day to create your own corporation, one of which contracts memory as a muscle to be used for the force of good. 

Muchas Gracias dear souls. I’m so appreciative of your time and attention. Memory is the 4th vrtti (fluctuation in the heart/mind space). In Sanskrit memory as a vrtti is referred to as: smrti. While the practice of yoga is ultimately having us, still or remove all of these vrtti’s, I find it helpful to simply be aware of when I am re-playing a memory and if it’s useful to my state of peace. May this inspire some thought, provoke some questions, and provide some clarity.

So much love and blessings,

Andrea Dawn