Archive for May, 2009
How to Decode an Early Recollection to find the Message for How to Live Life.
The reason we have the memories that we remember is because they provide us with a message. As discussed in How to talk about the past, memories are blue prints for how to do life.
In order to figure out the message you need to know how to decode the memory.
Here is an Early Recollection:
“THE STRAP”
I remember the strap that my father had. It was an ugly looking Tractor belt – wide and long. When one of the four of us “got the strap”, all four of us cried! That was our revenge! One afternoon when our parents were not home, my older sister and I decided to get rid of the strap once and for all. We got a spade, and some other digging tools from the garage, and dug a “BIG” hole at the very back of our large vegetable garden. We buried the strap! It was never seen again!
Many, many years later, we did tell our parents what happened to the strap. Fortunately by then we could all have a good laugh.
Were the siblings participants or observers?
In this memory the two eldest were participants. They weren’t just observing what was going on.
Were the siblings active or passive?
The two eldest were active. They took action to deal with the problem.
The others were active when they all cried together. Otherwise, they were either passive or not involved.
What was the quality of the relationship between the siblings?
They stuck together.
The two eldest took charge. They worked together as a team and acted for the good of all. Together, they figured out what to do, when to do it, what they needed to do it, and then they carried it out.
What was the outcome – positive, negative or neutral?
What they did worked. There were no bad consequences as a result of what they did.
The message this memory gives for how to live life:
When you have a problem in life that is affecting you and others, do something about it. Stick together. Find one other person [or more] to help you deal with it. Work together to find a solution that is good for all. Plan it, get the right tools and execute it. There likely will be no negative consequences.
What a positive recommendation for how to handle difficulties in life!
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea
How to Talk about the Past in a Way that Brings Family Together
When someone in your family tells you a memory, pay close attention. They are sharing their modus operandi for life with you. If there are unhealed traumas from the past, talking about painful memories can help your family member heal.
Memories are blue prints for how to do life.
Children have millions of experiences by the time they are around five to six years old but they only remember a few of them. Why do they remember only a few and why those particular ones? When children are born into this world they quickly have to figure out how to survive, emotionally and physically. It is the emotion surrounding an event that determines meaning. With their limited knowledge and experience of life they come to conclusions about self, others and life. Then they live their life according to the conclusions they’ve come to, whether those conclusions are conscious or unconscious. Memories after the age of 6 are important as well; they tend to confirm or disconfirm previous conclusions.
How to talk about memories.
1. Listen to the memories without interrupting. Your parent, spouse, child, sibling, cousin or other relative is telling you something important about themselves. Paying attention to them shows them you are interested in them and care about them.
2. Memories can be happy, neutral or unhappy/painful. Enjoy the happy ones, be curious about the neutral ones and be empathetic with the painful ones. Often, healing can occur through the expression of feelings alone. It is possible for a child and an adult to heal emotionally from talking to a caring person about an experience they had as a child or young adult.
3. Validate their experiences and the meaning they make of them. Do not argue about whether the events happened or not. Just because you don’t remember an event does not mean it did not happen. Or, if you remember the same event differently, it means you made different meaning out of it. Do not be concerned about the truth or facts of the memory. It may or may not be accurate. It is not about the facts; it is about the meaning the person made of their experience and the facts.
4. Do not assume you know what their memory means. Ask “What do you make of that?” Say, “Tell me more about that.” Invite your family member to say more by being curious about it.
5. Validate the feelings generated in the memory, positive and/or negative.
6. If you want to share memories of your own, wait until they are finished.
Note: Memories are not static. As a person ages and their circumstances change, their memories may change, or even be forgotten completely.
Reminiscing is healthy if family members are open to listening to each other.
The above holds true of people who are non-family members as well.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea
Don’t Kiss and Tell. One Way to Save your Relationship after an Affair.
In an article, May 2009, in MORE Magazine, called After the Affair, Wendy B. seeks complete honesty from her straying husband when she stumbles upon an email to his lover. Yet later, as they work toward putting their marriage back together, she regretted it. She says, “At the time I felt I had to know; now I wish I could block out some of those details.”
Breach of trust creates the most damage when an affair happens. When a couple is attempting to recover from the deception and lies that occurred, honesty seems to be front and center of their focus. In trying to regain trust the injured partner usually asks a million questions about the affair. The offending partner usually answers them honestly with the hope that they will regain trust.
It’s what partners do with the details that causes problems and can get in the way of reconciliation. Usually partners, male and female, dwell on the details creating scenarios with them in their heads over and over again. The hurt goes on and on. Sometimes the smallest details about the relationship and the sex can cause deep anguish. Wendy B. says. “Hearing about how she had stepped in to help him buy our family’s food bothered me almost as much as the thought of the two of them naked together.”
A loving thing to do is to be honest with your partner but not give specific details of interactions with a former lover. This will create different problems but ones that are less difficult to recover from. If reconciliation is not possible because of refusing to disclose details then it probably would not be possible if you did. As everyone knows, there are no guarantees.
If you are the one that strayed and you want a chance at reconciliation, do not disclose details because you love your partner and because you don’t want to hurt him or her anymore than you already have.
If you are the one that was betrayed, do not ask your partner to disclose details because you don’t want to be hurt any more than you already have been and because you want a chance to reconcile.
With care and concern,
Dr. Bea