Nowadays we can hardly open a magazine or a newspaper or
watch television without being told something about how to
get healthy. Eat less, exercise more, sleep more, drink
less and don't smoke. All very to the point, but is that
all there is to it?
Everybody knows that a healthy body is associated with
having a healthy mind; nevertheless we read little about
what we can do to improve things in that direction. If we
are unhappy we eat more, or drink more, or buy another
packet of cigarettes, or another bottle of alcohol. Our
sleep is interrupted and tomorrow we have no energy to
exercise or the will to do it. Then we get stressed out and
our world falls apart.
So what's the answer? Psychologists tell us that the
majority of problems in our lives develop because we have a
bad relationship with our past. In everyday terms this
means it is our reaction to what happened to us, sometimes
many years ago, that causes our problems now. That may be
difficult to believe, but it is true; to understand how
this works might help us to improve our lives now – and
hence our health!
Imagine the mind as a computer on which are stored
memories: smells, sounds, sights, events, conversations and
people. Some are happy memories, some are sad – and some
could even be labelled as viruses and better swept off the
mind's hard disc completely. Getting rid of memory viruses
is not quite as easy as getting rid of computer ones,
though it can be done. And here I hope to show you how.
Like a real computer, our mind has links which have an
uncanny knack of being able to transport us from, say, a
faintly smelled perfume in a restaurant to a quiet country
cottage garden we visited when we were scarcely five years
old. Or maybe it is the sight of the back of somebody's
head on a bus which brings back to our mind our first love
affai.
For those who are not addicted to computers, a different
way of visualising the mind may be to imagine it as a
store-cupboard, its many shelves overflowing with a
colourful array of packets and boxes.
Some of the boxes contain pleasurable items, reminders and
memories which every time we take the box down from the
shelf will enhance our current and future happiness. Others
store what can only be described as goods which have well
passed their use-by date. These are memories from our past
which have the ability to contaminate everything that
happens to us both now and in the future.
These boxes can be compared to bags of oatmeal or flour
which have been left too long in an unsuitable environment
and are now unfit for use. Imagine a bag of flour infested
by weevils, multiplying by the second, which will soon
invade anything which comes into contact with them.
The only way to rid the cupboard of its unwelcome
inhabitants is to give it a good clean out, taking care to
open every packet and box, and ensuring that only those
which have a good and useful life are kept. We must throw
out all those which are past their use-by date – as well as
those which merely find themselves in the wrong cupboard or
on the wrong shelf. Some may have been hidden behind other
boxes and ignored completely until they start moving of
their own accord like a box full of maggots. We need to
search these out and deal with them - exactly in the same
way as we would get rid of viruses and worms on our
computer.
The contents of infected memory boxes are events which at
the time they occurred made us unhappy or downright
miserable. Maybe they left us feeling inferior, neglected,
unloved, abandoned, powerless or stupid – whatever the
emotion at the time. Then as the hours, days, weeks,
months, years passed, the bad feelings (like the weevils)
multiplied and grew stronger.
The reason is that from time to time we have taken out
these memories, re-lived them, enlarged upon them,
fantasized about them in such a way that they have become
more concentrated and have bound together one on top of
another so that they have been transformed into one
seething bitterness
. Perhaps we were abandoned as a child so that when we open
that memory box something inside it does not allow us to
get close to anyone in case they too abandon us in their
turn.
Perhaps we were bullied at school and our self-confidence
was put to flight. Nowadays that memory can cause us to
imagine slights and threats where none exist, or to see
challenges around every corner. Other memory boxes might
carry a later sell-by date. We were governed by inflexible
authority in our youth, our lover left us for our best
friend, our boss promoted somebody over our head, or maybe
our children didn't show us the respect we thought we
deserved. And so on…
Like weevils the bitterness spreads into every corner of
our current life, it is picked at like an irritating sore,
so it turns into hatred and a need to blame somebody else
for our unhappiness.
Most of us know that bitterness and hatred are corrosive
emotions; emotions which can eat into our well-being in the
same way that an acid eats into metal. Yet we still give
them house-room; allow them to determine how we live our
lives. Why?
'But I can't help it, it wasn't my fault' I can hear many
of you whose shelves contain out-of-date weevil packed
boxes saying. 'It was them, they wronged me.'
That might well be true. But I would stress that it is
YOUR REACTION TO WHAT HAPPENED that is now causing you pain
– maybe 10,20,30,40 years later. YOUR PAST IS NOW MAKING
DECISIONS FOR YOU: you have given it that power.
Most of us would work very hard indeed to get rid of
weevils in our store cupboards or viruses on our computer.
So why not work hard to get rid of those in our minds
preventing us from living more happily and healthily in the
future. Maybe it is merely that we have no idea where to
start, or how to do it. In part 2 of this article you will
find seven steps to help you on your way. Good
luck.(continues in Part 2)
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© Mollie Kay Smith
http://www.etribes.com/molliesmith
http://www.molliekaysmith.com
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