Remembering vs Reliving
1/31/10: We have all lived through things we wished we had not experienced, some of us more than others. Coping with these memories, images, or feelings can be quite difficult. Something I notice when people talk about their painful past experiences is that many seem to be transported back to the time period it happened in. This is referred to as "reliving", and it is understandable why we put so much effort into avoiding this material if our only way to work with it is to experience it all over again.
I hold reliving in contrast to "remembering", which is when we can look at the past material from our current position, rather than be transported back in time. When we are able to do this, we are more likely to be able to recall old feelings without becoming trapped in the past. The steps I try to help people follow to move into remembering are:
1. Center yourself in the present: this means orienting yourself to you current age, place, and time. For example, "I am 37 years old, sitting in my living room in January 2010". This can help if you close your eyes and really feel being here now. Take some time with this.
2. Look backward at events that have passed: this means maintaining your current position in the present, in a safe place, looking back at what happened, and remembering what you felt and experienced then.
3. Making sense of it now: this is a crucial step, and it is putting the experience into context of everything that has happened since. What does it feel like looking back on it now. For example, being able to say "I lived through that, it got me off track for awhile, but I have become a stronger person since."
Most people doing this experience a change of reference that brings different thoughts and feelings about the old material that they had before, and it allows them to engage what happened in new and productive ways, and even forgive themselves or the others involved. This works best for situations that are not ongoing or are in the more distant past, but can be useful anytime you may find yourself trapped in painful old memories.
I also want to add that if some of this old painful stuff seems to just come up and take you into reliving before you can even choose, I would suggest pausing, and then orienting yourself to the present, just like in step 1. When successful, this allows you to maintain a different level of control over how you examine things.
Additionally, for serious traumatic experiences, there is often a lot of other work that needs to happen before this will work for you, which can occur in therapy.
I hold reliving in contrast to "remembering", which is when we can look at the past material from our current position, rather than be transported back in time. When we are able to do this, we are more likely to be able to recall old feelings without becoming trapped in the past. The steps I try to help people follow to move into remembering are:
1. Center yourself in the present: this means orienting yourself to you current age, place, and time. For example, "I am 37 years old, sitting in my living room in January 2010". This can help if you close your eyes and really feel being here now. Take some time with this.
2. Look backward at events that have passed: this means maintaining your current position in the present, in a safe place, looking back at what happened, and remembering what you felt and experienced then.
3. Making sense of it now: this is a crucial step, and it is putting the experience into context of everything that has happened since. What does it feel like looking back on it now. For example, being able to say "I lived through that, it got me off track for awhile, but I have become a stronger person since."
Most people doing this experience a change of reference that brings different thoughts and feelings about the old material that they had before, and it allows them to engage what happened in new and productive ways, and even forgive themselves or the others involved. This works best for situations that are not ongoing or are in the more distant past, but can be useful anytime you may find yourself trapped in painful old memories.
I also want to add that if some of this old painful stuff seems to just come up and take you into reliving before you can even choose, I would suggest pausing, and then orienting yourself to the present, just like in step 1. When successful, this allows you to maintain a different level of control over how you examine things.
Additionally, for serious traumatic experiences, there is often a lot of other work that needs to happen before this will work for you, which can occur in therapy.
