A Storied Life

Some memories surface with more weight than others. This week’s reflection explores how to sit with them long enough to discover what they’re trying to say.

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A Storied Life

All week long, Lisa and I have been preparing our place to house and host four days of Thanksgiving festivities. Rather than attempt a fresh article in the midst of all the chaos, I went to the archives and pulled up one of my favorites. Like good Thanksgiving leftovers, I hope you enjoy it even more the second time around. It fits with the theme of the last several articles on the centrality of stories in our lives. Thanks for reading! – Tom  

This week, I want to examine a subtle but important question. How do you provide yourself with memory care when painful memories intrude into the quiet of your meditation, or into your everyday life? To explore that question, let me begin by sharing a mixed memory with you.    

The Big Foot Triathlon:  Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

An Olympic-sized triathlon wasn’t originally my idea. My wife has a habit of greeting round-numbered birthdays with athletic acts of bad-ass-ery. In December of 2018, when she announced her triathlon scheme, it seemed like a great idea to hitch my wagon to her engine. I figured I could use the training to scrape off some accumulated rust as well as a few mid-life pounds.  Next thing you know, my oldest daughter hooked onto this plan, which caused her track buddy, Anna, to climb on board as well. This, in turn, led to a traveling fan base that included my son, youngest daughter, future son-in-law, and several other friends. There were hand-painted signs, rented places to stay, and carb-loading pre-events. My one and only official triathlon had turned into a big deal!

Bike

When the actual week of the race rolled around, I’d been training for at least four months. To this day, riding a bike still pulls a Peter Pan crow out of me whenever I summit a hill. I wasn’t worried about the pedaling part of that race. 

Run

By 2019, running had become a plodding, meditative thing for me. Since I harbored no unrealistic expectations of triathlon glory, that didn’t worry me too much either. Running wasn’t my strength, but then again, it wasn’t my weakness either.  

Swim

The “.9” mile swim was the wild card. When it comes to stamina, I’m not a bad swimmer. Having said that, unlike pools, open water swims don’t come with visible lines painted on the bottom. That’s why I had to teach myself a method to correct my bad habit of swimming in open-water circles. Abraham Lincoln once said that “A lawyer who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client.” Turns out that the same can be said for somebody who hires himself as a swim coach.

My first mistake was the failure to train in the wetsuit I’d wear to prevent hypothermia. Standing on the lakeside mud, I observed how, when I tried to take a deep breath, that frog suit constricted my chest and belly. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hide that observation from my central nervous system. Noticing a potential threat, my amygdala figured it was time to get busy. I noticed my heart rate increased involuntarily even before exercising. This resulted in a noticeable worry, adding maybe two or three extra pounds of emotional ballast into my gut. When the starting shot sounded, I jumped into the spring-fed lake with a hundred or so other swimmers. Frigid water gushed into my rubber suit, stealing a share of my breath. Next came the literally breathtaking experience of jostling, pushing, and grabbing swimmers. Finally, my inefficient swim strokes, designed for keeping a steady eye on my whereabouts, sealed the deal. A bona-fide asthma event caught the attention of a paddleboard-riding official. As if he were a state trooper, he simply pointed to the shore.  “Come on, buddy!  You’re not safe.” 

A Resilience Habit to the Rescue

Decades ago, I was disappointed in my meditation instructor’s answer to my question, “What do you do with painful memories when they show up during a contemplative sit?” Despite his national status as an expert, his answer sounded a whole lot like he was advocating a form of emotional repression. That’s when I began to experiment with a way to approach unwanted or painful memories that works for meditation, and for life.  

What I learned to do was question the intrusive little movies that have a way of disrupting my quiet with the following sequence of questions:

1. “Is this memory weighty enough for me to explore it, or is it just a distraction?”  If the answer was “yes,”…
   

2. I would then pay attention to the somatic/feeling experience that accompanied the memory.
   

3. Sitting with the felt sense of the memory in my body, I would then ask, “When were some other times that I’ve felt this?”
   

4. Then I pay attention to each memory that percolates up from my unconscious that bears a similar somatic/emotional imprint.
   

5. I especially take note of the earliest or most powerful of the memories.
   

6.  Next, I learned to take notice of any patterns or themes that might emerge from this collection of memories, and see if I can articulate them to myself.
   

7. Finally, if I’m in meditation anyway, I might step back into one of the remembered events that feels particularly pregnant with meaning. If I elect to do that, I simply observe myself in that past experience, just noticing what I can with a great deal of loving presence for my earlier self. This final step can be quite moving, and often healing.

Paddling Back to Shore

The embedded habit of the above methodology came in handy in the midst of my athletic event-turned-medical moment. On my wheezy way back to shore, I found myself asking, “When have I felt this before?” Quicker than you could say, “This sucks!” I was transported back to an event where my fourteen-year-old self was humiliated, trying unsuccessfully to overcome his fear of heights. Twenty feet up a climbing pole, I froze as solid as a sloth in front of fifteen fellow Boy Scouts just after they finished mastering the very same challenge. Once reunited with terra-firma, I remember slinking away, avoiding all eye contact and conversation. I think I ended up napping in the tent. 

Informed by that memory, I completed my “swim of shame” determined that I wasn’t going to slink away this time! I recalled the rescue inhaler that I’d stowed away for my strongest portion of the race—the biking leg! I passed my children with their signs and sympathetic faces. I held my head high like a dad who was sharing a message with his kids about how to handle a setback. I set my face and my will toward my new goal of competing in my very own, custom-made, “Big Foot Biathlon!”  

A Memory Care Meditation You Can Try

Please Note: If you’ve experienced any kind of overwhelming trauma in your life, an imaginative exercise like this should be attempted only under the care of a trained psychotherapist. If you believe that you fit this profile, just skip this exercise and move to the “Dialogue” section that follows.     

In this article, I shared a memory-care methodology that has served me well during many a contemplative sit, as well as in my everyday life. To get a sense of how this process could work for you, surface a memory of your own. Then follow the seven-step process with a journal in your lap.  

Surface a memory that has a sense of weight and meaning for you that you would like to explore.

1. Notice the somatic/feeling experience that accompanies this memory. Locate it in your body, and just sit with it. See if you can put words to that inner experience.
   

2. When were some other experiences that carried this emotional/somatic feeling with them? Do your best not to turn this into an intellectual exercise. See if you can allow the chain of memories to percolate up from your unconscious the way fireworks emerge seemingly one blooming out of another.
   

3. As you free-associate these memories, just gently take note of them. Be patient. Don’t worry if some of the content doesn’t make sense to you. Just stay with it. At some point, jot down what shows up. 
   

4. See if you can notice a pattern or theme that emerges from the collection of these memories.
   

5. Take note of the earliest, or most powerful, of these recollections. 
   

6. Finally, you could choose to step back into one of the remembered events that feels particularly pregnant with meaning. If you make this choice, go back with your five senses, seeing, hearing, smelling what there is to experience back there. Pay attention to your internal senses as the scene unfolds. Notice everything with a non-judgmental lens. Fortify yourself with a great deal of loving presence for your earlier self. A guide might ask you at some point in this exercise, “What would you like to give your younger self in this scene?”

At the conclusion of this exercise, simply record in your journal what happened during this meditation. You might choose to share it with a spiritual director, counselor, or trusted friend. 

Dialogue and Discussion Questions:

Longtime SMC readers know that “the Dialogue” section of this article is set aside for a good conversation over a cup of coffee—with a friend, with a group, or just with yourself! As always, feel free to share your reaction or reflection in the “Comments” section below.

One of the things counselors do with painful memories is help their clients identify any notable exceptions to their problem-focused narrative. Even if seemingly small at first, any evidence of strength, skill, or care for others is highlighted and examined. If I came to counseling only describing the swim leg of my triathlon, a good counselor would keep asking questions to surface the rest of that story.

• Can you think of a story from your past that you used to think of as a story of failure, but in retrospect, you see resilience and strength shining through it?  

  
  

• Was there someone in that story whose presence lightened your load?

  
  

• Can you think of a time when you stepped into someone else’s painful experience and helped them lighten their load?

  
  

• Have you perfected any memory care techniques of your own (e.g., A favorite mantra, prayer, all-purpose saying)?

  
  

• Do you have any criteria by which you sort memories into the “No Longer Relevant” file?  

  
  

• How do you put them back into that file when they slip out?
  

• Rank, ordered one through five, the people who know more of your memories than anyone else. Which of them has a good eye for seeing your best qualities shine through those memories? Is there anyone on that list of five who looks through a critical lens at your past? What made you share so much of yourself with someone like that?  

Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.