Why do we keep repeating the same emotional patterns? Why do certain situations — an argument, a financial stress, a moment of intimacy — pull us back into feelings that seem to belong to another era of our lives? The answer lies in what you might call the memory warehouse: a deep internal archive of recorded events that shapes how you experience everything happening right now.
The Difference Between Your Brain and Your Mind
It is important to recognize the difference between the brain and the mind. The brain is an electrical wiring mechanism that records events, places, people and things in our lives. This recording mechanism is nothing more than a network of wires and recorders. The intelligence that centers it is what decides what to record and what not to record. That is the mind. The mind centers the brain, but the brain itself does not know what it is doing. It just records what is in the centering intelligence.
The reason this distinction is important: we can weigh our brain, but we cannot weigh our mind. The mind is not limited to time or space. The mind centers our thinking. Thinking is electricity. Thinking is energy.
The Memory Warehouse
As we have lived this life, we have used the desire within our soul to record events, places and circumstances. The desire within our soul — and the things we record — has become a byproduct of the events that have happened in our lives. Within each and every one of us is a desiring mechanism of how we would like our life to look, live and feel.
That desiring mechanism lives in a world where difficult events have taken place, and those events shaped the way we process the world by recording them into our brain. When our soul activates those recordings — whether they involve trauma, bad experiences, broken relationships, or loss — it travels around in this memory house and goes to the memories that are strongest. The strongest, unfortunately, are often the injury memories.
When we go to those injured memories through our soul’s desire to try and figure out what actions we should take, we do it out of fear — because we are going to bad memories. And when we live in a state of trauma, what happens is that our soul is not going in the direction we would like it to go. Our value systems and boundaries become difficult to maintain — not because we do not know them, but because we cannot quite manifest them when we are operating from an archive of fear.
We go to bad memories not by choice, but to defend ourselves from those events happening again. But by staying in that realm, we cannot allow anything else in.
Living in Memory vs. Living in Now
When we try to defend ourselves from bad events happening again, we stay in that realm. Our ability to deal and process those memories is limited because the bad events altered the way that we feel and the way that we look at the world. We walk with many injuries, and we carry this warehouse of recorded injuries everywhere we go.
The warehouse has no knowledge of what it is. What is recorded in the brain has no awareness of what it recorded — it is just stored on hard wiring. So we must learn to recognize the difference between thinking and knowing. Between reacting and acting. Between living in cause and living in effect. And as we start to distinguish what those things are inside of us, we realize: our mind is there. Our soul is our identity.
What blocks us from fulfilling our desires is this warehouse of recorded memories that we keep referring to. If we did not refer to our past, we would have a way of life that allows us to live harmoniously.
Our battle becomes one of living in the day that we are in — not referring to yesterdays or yesterday’s feelings — and developing an awareness of when we drift back into memory. When you activate old memories, you feel those feelings again. When you feel those feelings again, you panic, and in panic mode you say things you should not say, feel things you would rather not feel, and think in areas you do not want to think in — but you cannot stop yourself.
A System That Keeps You Objective
What gives you objectivity? You have to have a system to anchor yourself to in order to stay objective. A philosophy. A way of life. Something that keeps you from living in memory and gives you that objectivity. This is why spiritual principles, daily practices, and community matter so much. They are not just good ideas — they are the anchor that keeps you living in today rather than being driven by yesterday’s recordings.
- The brain records experiences passively; the mind — your centering intelligence — is what gives those recordings meaning and power
- The strongest memories in the warehouse are often the injury memories, and our soul gravitates toward them when seeking direction
- We return to bad memories not by choice but to defend against them — which paradoxically keeps us locked inside them
- Every emotional reaction that seems out of proportion to the present moment is likely a memory replay, not a real-time event
- The goal is to stop living in memory and start living in the day you are actually in — which requires awareness of when you drift
- A consistent way of life — spiritual principles, community, daily practice — is the anchor that keeps you objective and present
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