Dear Sandy1:

Reads to me that moving back to your hometown and to your parents’ home triggered memories from the past. Not what I call “dry memories” but emotional memories, memories held in the brain with the glue of emotion.

Maybe before you had dry memories. Having moved back to your parents’ home unleashed that glue and the memories became alive, emotional, as if it all happened yesterday.

“Now Stuck in the Past”- what happened to the recent past, the one you left behind away from your childhood home and hometown?

anita

Dear Sandy1:

You are very welcome.

The dry/ wet memories, I don’t think I read those terms, I may have come up with them myself, which would explain why you didn’t hear these terms before. We may have a memory for years, a dry memory, or a gray memory and then.. suddenly we remember it in colors, in a new depth of emotion that wasn’t there before.

You wrote in your original post that during high school your relationships with your parents was poor. How is it now and how do you feel being in their presence?

anita

Dear Sandy1:

You moved back to your parents’ home after many years of living away. The emotional experience you had when you lived at home as a child, 26 years ago, returned with intensity. That experience was that of loneliness, of a desire for love amidst the lack of it.

In 8th grade what you did in your loveless home, was looking for love with a boyfriend. Twenty six  years later, recently, you did the very same thing: looking for love with a boyfriend, the same boyfriend: “I spent the rest of the night stalking him on Instagram (hadn’t even thought of him really since 9th grade)”

You even had the same thoughts 26 years later: “about what I could’ve done… during our relationship.. that might’ve prevented the breakup… I’m obsessing over my journals and the details of what happened during the relationship to figure out if he ever liked me.”

In your recent note to me you wrote: “I feel comfortable in their (your parents’) presence, but still have reservations for speaking my mind and even really being myself.. Daily I think about moving so that I can get my freedom back and feel free to be myself again instead of feelings so inhibited”

Just like it felt then, the child that you were, inhibited, not free to be you.

The interesting thing is, we carry our childhood experience through our adulthood everywhere we go. Unless we heal and resolve what needs to be healed and resolved, we keep living the same past in many ways, often not aware that we are.

When you went back home, your childhood experience was brought to your felt-awareness with intensity. Now you know, don’t you, that your childhood experience of living without love, was always with you.

Notice: you wrote that you feel comfortable in the presence of your parents. We do get comfortable with what is familiar to us, with what we adjusted to best we can.

I hope to read more from you.

anita

Hi Anita,

I’m just now seeing your response. It’s profound and so accurate – from longing for love in a space lacking it to carrying around old emotional baggage.

I’ve done a lot of contemplating in the past month, mostly because these feelings have stuck with me. And I realized that they continue to stick with me because I’m holding onto them, because I’m still longing for love from my space of loneliness. I wouldn’t know that I was lonely, but I know that holding on to feelings from so long ago and for so long points to that conclusion. I started to think about people I know who were stuck in the past, and I realized that they did that at times in their life that weren’t full of life or happiness. Looking back signals a lack of something in the present or a refusal to see and face the present. I guess my boredom and loneliness has turned me back.

Although I’m now conscious of what this all means, I am glad that I have taken the opportunity to look back and analyze who I was and who I am now, and the patterns of living that I have carried a long way. I now have better insight and tools to look at the situation again and see it for what it is, and maybe try to heal what was hurt so long ago. Despite all of this, I still come to a point where I wish that I had had those tools, or a positive mentor back then. I almost mourn for my teenage self who needed some help with learning how to deal with life in a positive way.

All in all, I’m grateful for the experience and very grateful for your helpful insight. I still feel pangs of regret and longing that seem uncontrollable (at night I tell myself to let it all go!), but it’s probably just because I’m indulging in the memories.

The brain and the body are so fascinating.

Thank you again!

* Dear Achyheart:

Thank you. I looked up your previous threads Oct 2014- March 2015 and read all that you shared there. You wrote in your recent post here: “I started to think about people I  know who were stuck in the past, and I realized that they did that at times in their life that weren’t full of life or happiness”-

Two things I found out: one, it is not that we are stuck in the past, but the past is stuck in us, imprinted in those many thousands of neuropathways in our brains and reactivated throughout our lives.

The second thing I found out more recently is that youthful love-of-life, that “full of life” experience you mentioned, the desire to explore, to create, that is inborn in us. This youthful, exploring, creative motivation, that desire, is very resilient. It survives a whole lot of childhood injuries, hurts and fear. Problem is, as we go on living, we get tired, weakened by the painful reactivation of a painful past. We get dull.

Following are quotes I gathered from your previous shares. I am not going to comment on them without your invitation that I do so. The reason I am including them here is so that in case you do want me to comment on them and maybe communicate with me about them, then I have the record of these quotes here.

anita

Oct 14  I really have nothing to live for other than my parents. My relationship of 9 years ended last year… Everything I’ve done to follow my dreams and pursue the things I love in the past year have failed miserably… To the point where I’ve given up and don’t really have any drive or motivation to try anymore…all I want is a partner and family. Not something I can work harder to attain, like a career or interests. I’m 38 and I have nothing to live for. Life seems meaningless and tiring. I’m not depressed…I’m trying to figure out what I’m living for. I’m not necessarily searching for happiness. I think I’m needing the connection and fulfillment of partnership and taking care of others which seems so out of reach.

Feb 15: I just moved to a new city/state. .. I’ve encountered hurdles to following my dream and becoming an oriental medicine practitioner for the past eight years. I’ve overcome health issues related to my studies, schools closing and changing schools several times. The time and money I’ve invested won’t let me quit. It’s also the only thing I want to do in life… There’s even petty fellow students who gossip and tattle and are cut-throat and try to throw you under the bus. I don’t know how to deal with being mistreated and yelled at by teachers. At this point, I’m so frustrated I almost said back to them, “you should treat me with more kindness, my overpriced tuition is paying your salary!”

I guess my biggest concern is that I’m losing touch of who I am. I’m normally a caring, kind person who tries to look on the bright side of things. But my ego is bruised and it’s wanting to lash out. I’m getting defensive and losing touch with why I’m here, as well. I want to be a kind healer. I just don’t know what this environment is doing to my heart and soul.

I’ve prayed for help and guidance, but things keep getting harder. Usually, when down and out, and praying for support, I’ll be directed to something that helps me to copy, spiritually and regain my composure. This doesn’t seem to be happening. I feel like my life has progressively gotten more difficult to bear over the past 2 years and I’m getting to a place where I don’t even know why I’m here. I grow and find my peace within the turmoil, but ultimately, there’s such a huge hole in my being and I feel like I have no purpose. I don’t want to wish my life away, but I just don’t know how much more I can take before I turn into someone awful…

I hung out with a couple of people tonight – the only social outlet I have since I’m in a new town without a car. Although they’re nice people, I feel so worn and frustrated after I hang out with them. They’re awful listeners and their energies are kind of all over the place. I don’t feel like we’re on the same wavelengths, which is how I feel with almost everyone at my new school. I’ve lived all over the world and feel that I’ve been able to get along with people from all walks of life, so I’m very confused about the circumstances. People are spacey, frantic, inconsiderate, all around weird…After this semester, I’m going back to my hometown. Nothing is worth the struggle and alienation I feel. Especially since it’s costing me so much to live here…

March 15 I spend all my time studying and analyzing things. I do meditate, do yoga and take walks, but my life feels like it’s so rigid and uninspired…I feel a strong urge to make something – music, art, whatever, but I don’t know where to start…I’m very detail oriented, sometimes on the border of OCD, so I think this would really help me. Also, I’m kind of ADD and pick up lots of projects at once but have a hard time seeing them through to completion.