Where would be without memories? Very confused I imagine! How are memories formed and recalled and how can they help us as we navigate life?

Whether or not something is helpful, depends on what we are trying to do or what we are trying to be. This will depend on our world view. My world view is one which believes our purpose as individuals is to grow. It is to grow in our capacity to both love ourselves and others. Self-love is a precursor to loving others. Self-love requires us to accept ourselves and to have compassion for those parts of ourselves that are yet to grow. Both require understanding, which itself requires self-awareness.

This might sound obvious and simplistic, and I am reminded of a quote penned on my study whiteboard. It is taken from an interview Oprah Winfrey recalls where a mother spoke of final words her dying son whispered her ear:

“It is all so simple. It’s so simple! We allow life to get so complicated when it is really very simple.”

With this as our context, let’s look at what memory is and why they are important.

What is memory

Lisa Feldman Barret is a scientist who has studied the brain for over 30 years (This is her in the picture accompanying this blog). She explains what memory is by first explaining that our brain is using knowledge from the past to predict our immediate future, which becomes our present. It is not just constructing our experience. It is guiding our actions.

Our brains make sense of different patterns as particular emotions. This sense-making prepares our actions. She gives the example of a near miss with another car where she sees a car approaching, experiences sweaty armpits and has an unpleasant feeling. Her brain is constructing this “set of features”. Feldman Barret states:

“People who study emotion, call it emotion. People who study memory, call it memory. People who study perception, call it perception. But it’s all of those things. And what it is for you is whatever feature is in the focus of your attention.”

We will call it memory, because that is what we are focusing on here. But when capturing our story, we will look to the emotions and perceptions that make something more or less meaningful in our lives. Feldman Barret says that scientifically and philosophically, we are always cultivating our past as a means of predicting who we will be in the future.

Language and memories

When we capture our story, we are interested in more than just images. We want to capture why we found an event meaningful and what that event meant to us. The language we use to describe an event, will impact on how we remember it.

Elizabeth Loftus is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and has been described by some to be the most influential female psychologist of the twentieth century. She too has spent her career exploring how memories are made and how they can change over time.

Loftus is said to have changed the way we think about memories. In a recent interview for the New Yorker, she explains that rather than viewing memories as existing in some sort of mental library as literal representations of past events, she believes that “they take on a living, shifting reality. They are not fixed and immutable, they are not a place way back there that is preserved in stone, but a living thing that changes shape, expands, shrinks, and expands again, like an amoeba-like creature”.

Loftus believes that the language we use to describe an event will change the way we remember it. Interestingly, she also provides the example of a car crash. When she studied the recordings of car crash victims, and then asked people to estimate the speed of the cars when they “smashed”, they remembered the cars going faster than when she used the word “hit”. When asked whether an event could be remembered in a different way to how it occurred she was of the view that how you label something can distort their memory of that event. If this is the case, then surely it works both ways. We can use this to create a positive effect where we label events in a positive way to create a different perception. But as you will see below, there is more to this than simply the language we use.

Learning how to use our emotions

To understand this next part of the story, it is important to recognise that we “see with our brain, not with our eyes”. Feldman Barret says we experience sweaty armpits with our brain because our bodies do not have sensors for wetness or sweaty armpits. The brain is constructing these features. This same idea applies to any features. The colours we see. The feelings we feel.

She explains that learning how to use knowledge about events to construct features is a skill. And like any skill, it’s a skill you can build. Building this skill will ensure our brains have lots of options to choose from. This added or “learnt flexibility in the meanings we attach” is what will allow our children to be resilient.

There are times when it’s better to have our actions guided by physical sensation, while at other times it’s better to have actions guided by making sense of sensations as something you’ve constructed meaning of. For example, the emotion of anger. What are some tools we could have in this “sense-making tool kit of our brain”?

A positive mindset toolkit

Two “tools” often advocated by those who teach mindset skills are the practice of:

1. Gratitude and
2. Awe

Both make it easier for us to “reframe” a situation. Instead of being frustrated with having to zoom during repeated lockdowns, she marvels at the fact that we can sit in our homes and talk to others who are on other side of the globe as if they were in our room! That is awe and gratitude.

I regularly practice gratitude. Following a course I studied last year through MindValley, I write down three things I am grateful for just before going to sleep. The first is something I am grateful that happened to me that day, the second is something work-related that happened to me that day and finally the third is something about myself that I am grateful for.

These must be practiced over time. Eventually they become more automatic and eventually we find ourselves becoming more loving of ourselves, with more acceptance and compassion. More importantly, we will find ourselves more understanding of others. Rather than wasting energy on unhelpful thoughts and resistance, we have a surplus of energy to direct onto those goals and aspirations that give us energy. And so the loop continues and expands!

Hopefully this has explained the more fully our logo and its tag line – passing moments – precious memories – and most importantly, a positive mindset. By taking as little as one hour each year to reflect on your child’s achievements, big or small, as well as noting what they enjoy and are good at, you will foster an attitude of progress, self-development and growth. This mindset can’t help but make them more resilient and courageous in their endeavours.