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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
 Posted - 03/09/2013 : 12:42:38
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Consider this when you remember the past.
Human brains are designed to remember negative, threatening events and the more negative emotional content an event has the stronger the memory and the easier it is to recall. Conversely positive events and emotions have no value to the protective mechanism in the brain and are recorded with less or little neuronal activity...this makes them hard to recall.
As an example: if you find $5.00 on the sidewalk you probably forget about it tomorrow. If you get cheated out of $5.00 by a friend you will remember it for a long time.
So as we look over the landscape of our lives we tend to see the valleys not the peaks.
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 12:47:45
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| Very interesting A1S, is there any way of reversing this, so we recall the positives better and forget the negatives? |
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pspa123
672 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 13:15:05
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(sings)
Youve got to ac-cen-tuate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Dont mess with mister in between. |
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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 14:15:56
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Yes read my previous post on repression vs supression
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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andy64tms
USA
589 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 17:56:04
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Hi All1Spirit,
The other day I was trying to recall childhood pleasant events that happened with my past family with my wife. I tried and tried knowing that my childhood was not all that bad, there must have been happiness. I felt mean with myself and ungrateful, as when I came across a situation of pleasure it was smothered with negative gloom. I had a very English upbringing of “children should be seen and not heard”. Of course been sent off to boarding school at the age of 11might have something to do with it!
Later in my teens when I became a tolerable person to my parents, alcohol played a huge part in family, we got roaring drunk together, these were good times, and at least my brain thought they were good as the alcohol producing endorphins gave me a huge buzz of pleasure and comfort. Perhaps my years of alcohol are blocking me from thinking back farther; maybe those memory cells were literally obliterated?
Since I retired and joined this forum I have become more accepting and open about my dark imbibing past. It’s a long time ago. It’s who I was and another testimony that I can change my thoughts. So I am ac-cen-tuating the positive peaks and e-lim-i-nating the negative valleys. After all it’s a TMS jungle out there. Thks pspa123.
I’ve recently admitted to being a smoker, alcoholic, what next a womanizer?
Thanks for reading
Andy
Past TMS Experience in 2000, with success.
Stopped Wiki Edu Program in lieu of own journalling
Charlie Horse on neck for 20 years, is almost gone.
Books:
Healing Back Pain
Unlearn your Pain
The Great Pain Deception |
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alix
USA
434 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 19:22:21
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yes , we are wired for the negative:
2+3 = 5
4+7 = 10
3+3 = 6
7+1 = 8
What do you say? One of them is incorrect, right?
You did not say that 3 of them are correct.
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pspa123
672 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 19:28:40
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| Three old ladies are eating lunch in the Catskills. (the actual joke refers to their ethnicity but don't want to offend anyone) The waiter comes over and asks, "Was anything OK"? |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 19:32:52
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quote:
Originally posted by andy64tms
Since I retired and joined this forum I have become more accepting and open about my dark imbibing past.
Andy,
It is not your past which makes you suffer, it's your thoughts about the past and your interpretation surrounding past events which make you suffer. When we look at the past we tend to re-write history and our version or perception of what happened is mostly a complete distortion of reality. The work of Dr David K. Reynolds, and especially his excellent 1984 book "A handbook for constructive living" is a very good reference. I recently finished reading it. His collection of letters from people who have been damaged by psychotherapy is fascinating reading. In a nutshell, Constructive Living is a Western approach to mental health education based in large part on adaptations of two Japanese psychotherapies, Morita therapy and Naikan therapy. Constructive Living presents an educational method of approaching life realistically and thoughtfully. The action aspect of Constructive Living emphasizes accepting reality (including feelings), focusing on purposes, and doing what needs doing. The appreciation aspect of Constructive Living enables us to understand the present and past more clearly and to live in recognition of the support we receive from the world.
Dr. Reynolds' Five Principles for Constructive Living are as follows:
Feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will.
Feelings must be recognized and accepted as they are.
Every feeling, however unpleasant, has its uses.
Feelings fade in time unless they are restimulated.
Feelings can be directly influenced by behavior."
See: http://www.constructiveliving.org/
*************************
“Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the
three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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RageSootheRatio
Canada
430 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 22:53:24
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Yes, researchers talk about the "negativity bias" but there is also something called the "positivity offset." Barbara Fredrickson talks about this in her book, Positivity–Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity and Thrive." (while I have mixed feelings about this book, some parts I really like a lot.)
Here is one passage about the negativity bias/ positivity offset:
"One difference that research has thoroughly documented–and that I'll bet you can appreciate from your own experience–is that bad is stronger than good. Scientists call this 'negativity bias.' Yet, side by side with this difference in potency sits an equally drastic difference in frequency. Unless you're mentally ill, most moments in your are at least mildly good. Perhaps surprisingly, feeling bad is relatively rare. Scientists call this asymmetry 'positivity offset.'
I really like her ideas about "flourishing" and the "positivity ratio." (Her research has shown that people who are "flourishing" in their lives have a 3 to 1 ratio of positive feelings to negative ones.) I also really like her ideas about how to increase positivity in one's life, and the fact she cites research which shows that it has to be HEARTFELT positivity (just THINKING more positively isn't enough to really reduce stress, as researchers discovered when they actually measured cortisol levels.)
RSR |
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Dr James Alexander
Australia
127 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 05:39:32
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tennistom- 'is there any way of reversing this so we ... forget the negatives?' Yes, there are ways of doing this (although they will not eliminate the autobiographical memories- they can take the emotional sting out of the memory, which is generally the aspect which people dont like). See my recent posts under 'Dumping Sarno??' and 'Repression v's Suppression'.
The study in neuroscience of the brain plasticity phenomenon of reconsolidation clearly suggests ways of doing this. Some approaches to transformative psychotherapy (as opposed to counteracting psychotherapies- eg CBT) have either unwittingly replicated the required conditions for reconsolidation (eg. EMDR, Emotion Focused Therapy, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, Interpersonal Neurobiology) or have deliberately set out to do just this (eg. Coherence Therapy). Listen to the podcast interviews of Bruce Ecker on Shrink Rap Radio, and 2 earlier interviews on Wise Counsel for more information about reconsolidation and its use in psychotherapy.
James |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 07:20:52
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CARRYING THE PAST
In Ekhart Tolle`s -- A New Earth
The inability or rather unwillingness of the human mind to let go of
the past is beautifully illustrated in the story of two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido,
who were walking along a country road that had become extremely
muddy after heavy rains. Near a village, they came upon a young woman
who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep it would have
ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and
carried her to the other side.
The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were
approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn't restrain himself any longer.
“Why did you carry that girl across the road?” he asked. “We monks are not
supposed to do things like that.”
“I put the girl down hours ago,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying
her?”
Now imagine what life would be like for someone who lived like
Ekido all the time, unable or unwilling to let go internally of situations,
accumulating more and more “stuff' inside, and you get a sense of what life
is like for the majority of people on our planet. What a heavy burden of past
they carry around with them in their minds.
The past lives in you as memories, but memories in themselves are not
a problem. in fact, it is through memory that we learn from the past and from
past mistakes. It is only when memories, that is to say, thoughts about the
past, take you over completely that they turn into a burden, turn problematic,
and become part of your sense of self. Your personality, which is conditioned
by the past, then becomes your prison. Your memories are invested with a
sense of self, and your story becomes who you perceive yourself to be. This
“little me” is an illusion that obscures your true identity as timeless and
formless Presence.
Your story, however, consists not only of mental but also of emotional
memory – old emotion that is being revived continuously. As in the case of
the monk who carried the burden of his resentment for five hours by feeding
it with his thoughts, most people carry a large amount of unnecessary
baggage, both mental and emotional, throughout their lives. They limit
themselves through grievances, regret, hostility, guilt. Their emotional
thinking has become their self, and so they hang on to the old emotion
because it strengthens their identity.Because of the human tendency to perpetuate
old emotion, almost everyone carries in his or her energy filed an accumulation of old emotional
pain, which I call “the pain body.”
We can, however, stop adding to the pinbody that we already have.
We can learn to break the habit of accumulating and perpetuating old
emotion by flapping our wings, metaphorically speaking, and refrain from
mentally dwelling on the past, regardless of whether something happened
yesterday or thirty years ago. We can learn not to keep situations or events
alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine,
timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making.
Our very Presence then becomes our identity, rather than our thoughts and
emotions.
Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being
present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now,
what power does it have?
*************************
“Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the
three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living” -- Ekhart Tolle |
Edited by - shawnsmith on 03/10/2013 07:41:06 |
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andy64tms
USA
589 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 15:49:47
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Shawn,
Yes, it’s definitely my thoughts that bother me today. Remembrance of my past, the effects it had on me then and to this day is based on real live events not perceived or distorted. For me allowing them to be distorted would be a form of denial. As mentioned before I am an ex-smoker and recovered alcoholic, so I am expert about the “denial factor”.
I believe memories are in a continual recycle mode back and forth in and out of our awareness. As we try to decipher, understand and accept them, their meaning and effect will change and lessen in severity.
Do we exaggerate to make our points heard? Yes the English language actually encourages us to do this, I know you are a writer, but the “autobiographical memories” (Thks Dr. James), remain with us forever in clarity.
Someone once said “You can’t forget, only accept” a bad memory, I think it was Dr.Sarno. This is also very much in keeping with Tolle’s videos and writings.
I did not know we had a mechanism for remembering the negative bias, or positive offset by. People have actually studied this stuff!? Thanks All1Spirit and RSR.
My attempt at journaling about my past family actually turned out to be negative for me. I wrote pages and pages of nasty thought about my siblings, mother and father. In fact my bio is all negative, but I’ll let it stand in its truth. What I could not do as instructed by Dr.Schubiner (Unlearn your Pain) at that time was use empathy and train my writings into a positive experience by applying an understanding of their own demons. My deceased parent’s marriage was argumentative and unhappy to the end. Their legacy was three alcoholic squabbling children left with wrecked lives to deal with. I was lucky to emigrated 36 years ago. Such is the power of how we remember negative memories lingering for all this time!
I feel much happier now; I have direction and have absorbed Dr Sarno’s and SteveO’s books in depth. In fact my latest saying taken from your posting of Louise Hay’s video is: “I’m a normal person, a little bit messed up”.
As always great topic for a thread All1Spirit
Andy
Past TMS Experience in 2000, with success.
Stopped Wiki Edu Program in lieu of own journalling
Charlie Horse on neck for 20 years, is almost gone.
Books:
Healing Back Pain
Unlearn your Pain
The Great Pain Deception |
Edited by - andy64tms on 03/10/2013 16:34:37 |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 16:31:50
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quote:
Originally posted by andy64tms
My attempt at journaling about my past family actually turned out to be negative for me.
This has been the case for me also, so I simply stopped doing it because I know for a fact it was not all negative.
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Edited by - shawnsmith on 03/10/2013 16:41:23 |
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How We Remember
