“When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Why Letting Go of The Past Is So Hard
Once you begin to observe your mind and learn to become less identified with it, one of the main things that will startle you, is that you will become aware of all the unnecessary mental garbage we all carry inside us. This can be quite frightening.
These are unconscious tendencies and thought patterns that until now where silently operating below your conscious awareness. They dictate your day to day experience. These internal dialogues that we have carried for years have become deeply ingrained into our minds and bodies.
They actually alter our physiology and have become burned impressions in the neural pathways of our brains. They are known as engrams in the medical field. An engram is a physical alteration thought to occur in the living neural tissue in response to stimuli, posited as an explanation for memory.
In eastern traditions this is known as samskara and is responsible for ones karma. Healing memories is healing and clearing your karma.
These mental stories we carry become our identity, we mother them, we love them, even if they cause suffering. We may not be aware of it, but at a deep level we receive pleasure from many of our internal dramas. They become our most intimate addictions.
We don’t want to lose them because then we loose a part of us (what we believe to be us), and we don’t have anything new to replace it with. If we lose them we don’t know how to deal with the emptiness.
Healing Memories
We need to go through a physical and mental cleanse, to loosen up and break free from these mental impressions. Once they become loose there is the possibility of dropping them.
The best is learning to be with your silence, with your emptiness. It’s like wiping the slate clean, hitting the restart button, and relaxing into just “being”. It is a beautiful feeling when you don’t have the urge to go or do something else. Whatever you are doing at the moment is complete in of itself.
Three Step Process To Loosening and Healing Your Mental Scars
- 1st Physical level (Cathartic meditation techniques): This could be any intense physical excercise like yoga, but I prefer to do cathartic meditation. This is what the Indian mystic Bagwan Shree Rashneesh, better known as Osho became famous for. He developed what he called “Dynamic” meditation techniques, which incorporate an initial intense cathartic process. This process was intended to throw out all mental and bodily tensions which are a direct hindrance to falling into meditation. The people of Buddha’s time lived much simpler lives and did not carry all the unnecessary junk that modern man now carries. Cathartic meditation techniques will help cleanse the muscle memory. I am working on a simple meditation guide with many of the techniques that I have tried. If you would like to be notified when it’s done, sign up here:
- 2nd Mental Level: Talk it out, everyday like a ritual. This will help you cleanse your brains memories. Talk about it like you are an impartial observer, just narrating the movie that is your life. Just seeing and describing it without judging whether it’s good or bad. If you can do this you have already changed your relationship to the memory. The act of observing has changed the observed. You have put some space between you and it. If you begin to judge it, this means you have become identified with the memory and will only make your relationship to it stronger.
- Laugh and Cry: This is reasonless crying and reasonless laughing. The effects are amazing, you will feel as if your consciousness is being cleansed. This helps loosen up your forgotten memories, your deep rooted conditioning.
Doing all three daily as a ritual for a month, will have an immense impact on your system. You will feel your system become loose and light. I know everyone has busy schedules but the more time your are able to devote to these practices, the more beneficial results you will gain.
- Morning: 1 hour heavy physical catharsis. This could be dynamic mediation, yoga, running, any type of heavy physical exercise.
- Noon: For 1 hours do nothing but talk about your past. Go as far back as you can.
- Evening: Crying or laughing for 1 hour for no reason. At first this might seem hard, artificial, and forced. Quickly you will get a knack for it and once the laughter begins it will take you with it. It’s quite a beautiful exercise. Now you will relax into bedtime feeling light from the laughter or relieved from the crying, or a mixture of both.
The cumulative effect of these practices is that you will feel fresh, alive, like a new being, with the energy to start a new life.
Some of the benefits you may receive from healing your past:
- Release from addictions.
- Release and relief from many of the traumas you have accumulated since birth.
- Healing emotional wounds.
- Phobias
- Tiredness: Physical, mental, and emotional blockages.
- Physical diseases: Many happened only from psychological disorders caused by the mental engrams in your system.
This cleansing process is like wiping the slate clean which allows you to create the mind you want.
We live in crazy hectic times, so it’s of the up-most importance that we regularly cleanse ourselves. I hope that my short article assists you on your journey to inner and outer fulfillment.
If you have any personal insights you would like to add, please join the conversation below and leave your comments.
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About consciousness three things matter–
1It happens to somebody not to everybody,if it happens.
2It happens at any stage of your life not at a particular stage of your life.
3If it happens, it happens incidently not accidently.
Thanks for contributing to my site Vinod :)…your right it’s a very long and arduous journey to being an awake conscious being…unfortunately many people will not make it…it’s the only journey worth making though..
Meditation is a great way to cleanse ourselves. This is why I mediate 30 minutes a day. I eases my mind. Creates peace. Creates brilliant ideas. Ad does more than i can ever ask for. Meditation is the way to go. WHOOOOOOWHOOO! ( hands in the air)
for sure :)…it’s the key of key’s :)..but it is essential we get our mental house in order before we really discover what meditation is :)…take care bro…peace
I personally find it hard to forget all bad memories I’ve experienced before. Sometimes, these experiences affect the way I handle my life and even how I appreciate the beauty of life. I need to do something about it before I find everything to be at worst.
Thank you for stopping by :)..I have come to find that it’s not about forgetting…if it’s in your past…it happened..that’s a fact..there’s nothing you can do to forget it…you can suppress it but that will only cause you much suffering…like i said in the post you need to change your relationship to it..you need to become unidentified with..learn to see it for what it is…it is no longer relevant to your life in the here and now…if your able to see this clearly acceptance will naturally be a by product…take care..wish you the best on your journey.
I have been wanting to cleanse myself for years, and I am finally at a time in my life where I see myself making room to do so, and making it my focus and purpose. I am wondering if this can work in a partnership? Obviously we would both need to be willing to put forth the time and energy to heal, but do you know any way that we can work to be unbothered by each others pasts? It is a heavy weight to bare when from time to time negative thoughts enter for one of us regarding the others history.
DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE. I ONLY SAY, KEEP WRITING. YOUR WORK WORKS.
thanks for your support Ravinder :)….hope your well…wish you the best…keep shining my friend :)….
Wonderful post! I’d love to try these techniques. The laughter part seems hard though.
In India, laughing meditation was pioneered by Dr. Madan Kataria.
Thanks once again. Keep up the good work!