“Remembrance
of things past is not necessarily the remembrance
of things as they were.”
Marcel Proust
One of the
most interesting recent areas of research into the brain might help you to
change your life. Most of us worry about forgetting as we get older, but some memories
persist whatever we do. Forgetting becomes more important (and harder) than
remembering as the years go by. Have you ever thought ‘if only I could change
my past everything would be different now’? Well it turns out that you might be
right…you could change your life by altering your memories. Change your emotional
stories and your life could be better.
We define
ourselves through our memories. Our present and future selves depend on our
past and our recollections trigger emotions that can be helpful or not. For
most of us this has consequences as we get older: an upbeat, positive state of
mind grounded in positive memories leads to a happier and more satisfied life.
On the other hand, anxiety, lack of confidence and a negative outlook can all
prevent us from being happy and achieving our dreams. For some, bad emotional
memories can contribute to far worse conditions such as depression, anxiety
disorders and even post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). Over a lifetime,
these stories become more and more entrenched in our unconscious version of
ourselves and can lead to a negative spiral of feelings about life in general. As
a mentor, I come across this regularly in people over 50. By mid-life, our
memories are us. Changing the brain
with pharmaceuticals is passive, but for most of us there is a way to change
our own brains without pills.
This is neuro-engineering and is based on some challenging
and interesting factors about our memories.
Typically
research has focused on pharmaceutical solutions to depression, anxiety, PTSD
and chronic physical pain. Danielle Schiller is one of a number of specialists are
dedicated to discovering ways for the brain to adapt and recover using
non-pharmaceutical means. This is called neuro-engineering and is based on some
challenging and interesting factors about our memories. This paper is about the
emotional rather than the physical memory, but for those with chronic pain, there
is also research into using the brain to manage pain. It is well described in the book ‘The Brain’s Way of Healing’ by Norman
Doidge.
Our memories are never right they are always subjective.
There are
three things about memory that we need to know before we can change the way
unconscious feelings from the past de-rail our present and future lives.
1.
What we remember is never ‘right’.
However, past
events that we perceived as threatening or unhappy can become locked in our
memories. Those ‘stories’ can plague us for the rest of our lives even if they
serve no purpose any more. Over time, a bias towards negative emotions can
change our personalities. Our brain is ‘plastic’ that is, it adapts constantly;
we are what we regularly do, think and feel. If the bad moment was near death
from an accident, then that recall would be useful. However, if it was a
bullying teacher or overbearing parent who made us miserable, they may have
imprinted us with a lifelong emotional response that
gets triggered whenever we encounter a similar situation.
According to
Schiller, if we can change the emotional impact of a memory by intervening at
the right time, we can permanently change our present and future emotional
states. We can rewrite the story every time we revisit it and reconsolidate it
in our memory. The facts remain the same, but the feelings should be
reconstructed. She says: ‘When you
affect emotional memory, you don’t affect the content. You still remember perfectly, you just don’t have the emotional memory”.
Our memories are a story with
emotions attached that we have woven around events in our lives. This is why
different family members have markedly different memories about past events and
one reason why ‘eye witness’ accounts of
how accidents happen are so unreliable. Both the events and the emotions are
chosen by our brain. Most brains are
unable to remember everything, so what we remember about an event depends
on our focus at the time – our brain is selective.
Emotional
memory has an important survival role in generating instant responses when
danger is detected. This and other negative emotions are not only useful for
survival but also help us make better future decisions.
In
my case, I have a neurotic fear of travelling fast on the road because when I
was a teenager I rolled a car while driving far too fast and nearly killed
myself. In the slow motion of the split second when it happened, I remember
having enough time to make a deal that if I
lived, I would never speed again. I survived and may have been saved many times
since then too! This is a useful fear to have.
On the other hand, when I was about
age 7 I cut a pattern in my school uniform during sewing class at school and
the teacher made me stand on my chair for the rest of the class. That wasn’t punishment enough so she then
took me around to every other class, standing me on a chair and telling them
how stupid I was. I was a shy child and deeply embarrassed by this. This
incident became a story that controlled my feelings for many years. It was hard
to be confident when that fear of ridicule had become part of my self-image.
No doubt the
teachers’ memory of that event was different and she may have forgotten it
almost immediately. It was a way of setting an example to the others. For me
facts about the event were far less important than the attached feelings. Our
memories are never right they are always subjective.
We remember and build on our last version of our stories.
2.
Each time we recall, our brain changes the story.
Our brain adapts the memory to fit with more
recent events and knowledge as well as future aspirations. The old becomes
incorporated into the new to form a complete story of your life and who you
are. Memory isn’t so much a filing cabinet as an evolving story. My story about
the sewing class has now changed with the benefit of hindsight and
interpretation. I can describe the teacher as cruel, but at the time, I thought
I was wrong because I saw her as a grown-up in charge. I felt stupid and
embarrassed. Continuing to build on that negative memory could have lead to a
vicious spiral through reinforcing bad feelings every time I recalled the event.
I grew up hating teachers and feeling embarrassed in front of groups until I
revisited the memory a few times! We
remember and build on our last version of our stories. Good ones become better,
bad ones worse – unless we intervene.
We can rewrite the story every time we revisit it.
3.
We can intervene and construct or reconstruct
memories.
Her research
is showing that we can intervene at the right time after a traumatic event so
there is a way to record a painful memory differently. Parents can help their
less developed children to do this. For
those who didn’t have an opportunity to consolidate an experience this way in
the first place, we can also change memories every time we recall them. Each time the memory consolidation process
takes place in our brain, we have a small window of opportunity to change it before
our brain reconsolidates it. This is ground breaking, and we can all take
advantage of it
When the spiral has deepened to a clinical state it‘s
important to get treatment with a professional
For most of us without
serious clinical conditions, the ability to change our stories allows us to start
an upward cycle in our lives:
·
Be
happier
·
Have
more confidence
·
Find
more ‘luck’
·
Be
more likeable to others
·
Prevent
depression
·
Create
a more exciting future
Clinical
depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD need to be treated by specialists. When
the spiral has deepened to a clinical state it‘s important to get treatment
with a professional cognitive psychologist who is up to date with this
research. For those of us who simply
want to be more confident, happier and more successful, we can simply start to
identify and recreate our otherwise limiting stories from the past.
Writing and
talking through our stories seems to have more power than simply thinking about
them. Wiring Warriors use a four step approach:
1.
Identify a significant moment in time
that has influenced your present
2.
Write a one page account of that
event…tell the story
3.
Sit with another person who can be
objective and talk about alternative ways to recall the memory. Find another
person’s perspective, a more positive view of the story or the way in which the
event has created learning or other, better circumstances today.
4.
Rewrite the story in a more objective
and positive way. Separate the learning
from the entrenched emotions; change your state of mind.
We should use negative emotions to
improve – to become better.
For rewiring yourself today…should
we be banning the negative?
When you
experience a negative emotional event in daily life, remember that timing is
critical. Always consciously revisit a memory within a few hours. Try to create
a constructive memory with a positive ‘angle’, even if you don’t feel that way!
How you imprint those thoughts and feelings into your brain will dictate your
future memories and your future self. That doesn’t mean that you should become
a happy fool who turns everything into an upbeat experience! Feeling negative emotions
such as sadness, disappointment, fear and grief is healthy, it’s good for
learning and important for putting life into perspective. It is the ability to
move on from the bad feeling that matters. Simply revisiting a negative story
over and over again is not useful and can be damaging. The idea is to use
negative emotions to improve – to become better. Taking a positive and
practical approach helps us learn from and accept the experience so it doesn’t grind us down as we age.
I had a
shock a few weeks ago when I looked back at my diary for 2007. Before my third
brain operation I had written of the fear I felt in anticipation of the
excruciating pain that I knew was coming, the possibility I would die and the
despair of never escaping hospital and being normal again. Today I have
completely forgotten that reality ten years ago and remember only the people whose
supportive words helped me cope - and the fact that I survived. My subsequent
diary entries indicate the pain was indeed even worse than before, but somehow
I avoided drowning in that sea of blackness by accepting it, looking towards
the future and feeling grateful for my
progress.
I now look
back on that year as one of learning and future possibility. If I had memorised
the trauma negatively, I would be carrying a huge burden of emotion today. Also
note that it was others who helped me to reframe the experience at the time –
my husband, mother, my Neurosurgeon and a nurse who kept me company the night
before my surgery. I concluded that there is always a place for positive
support but sometimes too much sympathy can be harmful…but that’s another
story.
How to have a go
Writing new
stories about your life may not come naturally for you, so we can help. The
first Wiring Warrior workshop in February 2018 will be ‘Re-write your Life’. Lindsey
Dawson is an author who has facilitated many ‘hands-on’ life story workshops.
Join us if you would like to have a practical
experience with some support from her and myself! We shall be offering other support and information after this event. Check it out on www.wiringwarrior.com
Links to papers, articles
and videos
If you are
interested in reading more or hearing Danielle Schiller talk – here are some
good links:
‘Can neuroscience help us rewrite our most traumatic memories’?
By Greg
Millar ‘Surprising new research about the act of remembering may help people
with post-traumatic stress disorder’.
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