THE MEMORY OF MIND

The quote from my image drew my attention while I was writing this blog. This is in fact true about the mind and the memories we value.  Memories fleet with time and we sometimes store the ones that matter the most.

Out of nowhere, my phone suffered a malfunction in February and I seriously needed a new phone. So, I took my phone’s SIM card and slotted it into my son's phone. His phone of course had its own SIM card, so his phone's memory and information were still on his phone.

Every time I swapped SIMs, the memory associated with his SIM remained on the phone, despite the intermittent swaps and to really have my phone’s full memory installed, I had to erase and reset the phone to make room for my phone’s information.

Have you ever thought maybe, just maybe our minds truly function with a capacity or a memory limit like cell phone SIMs? I mean from the moment we are born, the brain, just like the phone starts storing new memories. It is honestly like the camera feature that takes the pictures on your phone. It snaps a picture in a moment and stores it up. Some pictures never make it to storage and gets deleted on the scene, some will eventually get deleted due to memory space limit, while some remain forever in the cloud storage. Take it from a girl who loves her candid shots! I can picture all the females grinning in agreement. We are selective on the pictures to post on IG, and God help that friend that decides to post a group photo where we are not exactly popping... LOL.

In retrospect, what our eyes see, what our very senses feel, these are often stored in the memory bank. We store up memories, both good and bad. When we meet people, we are doing what I illustrated up there with the memory card intermittent swaps, constantly. You even store up memories of sexual experiences, hey!

Sometimes, it can be a bit conflicting when we aren’t properly erasing and resetting a particular memory before introducing another memory into our minds. It becomes harder to figure out which memory really matters as they start to look similar right?

I am not a psychiatrist but from my own life, I know I had failed quite a bit at properly resetting before introducing or building new ones. 

Many relationships wouldn’t suffer as much if the individuals paid said attention to this major aspect of life. And of course, who cares you say? We all have memories and we live with them, you say. They can be properly managed I say.

To enjoy anything new, especially relationships, you will need to “erase and reset.” It may sound a bit brute, but most of the time, we do not allow ourselves go through the process of “erase and reset” before plunging into another important relationship that inevitably forms new memories.

We instead carry all the memories- good, bad and ugly and try to slot another one while the current memory is probably still active.

And to be fair, no, we are not like cellphones because our memories aren’t completely like memory cards. We are not robots, thankfully so. However, I cannot help but have us pay attention to what happens to our minds.

We have control over organizing our memory. We do it with everything else. For instance, the memory is a muscle and it remembers anything you repeatedly tell it to do. You can repeatedly forgive a memory in your past, so that it does not keep spilling into a new found memory. You can take time out of your relationship to evaluate unwarranted collision.

I have had situations where even exes tell me, they constantly sought for me in their new relationships. If I must be honest, I have also sought for said exes in something new. 

It is completely unfair to the new person, but these are the questions that both parties must be willing to dig into before starting their new journey of memory lane.

Some struggle than others in releasing old memories with a past relationship and I strongly suggest you stay out of the trouble of heartbreaks.

My advise today will be:

For Relationships: 

• Ask yourself what ended your past relationship? This gives you perspective on how to either keep the door half open(for reconciliation) or shut it completely. 
• Please, do not rush into another relationship if you are not done erasing and resetting. Your present relationship will suffer and you will suffer the most. 
• Pray and seek counsel(this could be a therapist who’s spiritual). 
• Forgive yourself and move on! Most people get stuck here because they take on the responsibility of why the relationship didn’t work. Do not forget that it takes God, two and the entire universe to make a relationship successful.

For Grieving a loved one:

• Most people get stuck and some never move on from the memories made with their loved one. 
• The way to make peace with this is truly allowing yourself to think about what your loved one would want you to do. When I lost my dad, I relieved memories and wept so hard each time. It felt like I was never going to move on. One day, I had an epiphany, I heard him so loud yelling for me to move on and that he was fine. Since then, I stopped weeping bitter tears. I erased and reset and found new meaning to life. I picked up new memories and replaced that one.
• The only way it gets easier is relieving the good memories.

For Mistakes:

• I learned this past week that making peace and embracing my mistakes is the key to a healthy mind.
• Forgive yourself and stop relieving what you think you should have done. Instead, accept that your best was what you offered at the point of a said mistake.
• Being a perfectionist is truly a myth. No one is perfect.

For Abuse:

• Most people find coping mechanism for abuse, they blame themselves and sometimes bury the pain.
• The pain from abuse- physical, emotional and the rest are like wounds that should not be tucked away but rather spread open for fresh air to heal them. The pain will seep through every and anything new if unattended.
• Find a trusted experienced person who can help you work through the pain.
• Do not try to numb the feeling of healing. Healing is equally painful.

I would like to stop here today and hope that this helps someone take proper care and reset their memory cards.

Feel free to comment and ask me questions.

Until the next time you read from me, remain blessed!

Love,

Kemi Gwan.