Pilgrims Progress
First Memories and their Significance
Posted on: 12/14/2008 18:22
A psychiatrist once asked me years ago to recount my very first memory. At the time I thought it was an odd thing to say - so naturally asked him why it would be relevant?
I've remembered his answer to this day. He said, "It's not the memory itself that's important - but why, of all the things that happened to you, that particular event has stood the test of time."
He went on to explain that it had significance to the core of your personality - to point the way to the person you would become.
So here's the challenge to you all in cafe blogger land. Recount you're very first memory ( at about 3 years old) and see if you can work out the significance to your present life!
I promise you that you will find it a rewarding exercise!
For those who reply to this blog, I'm interested not only in the memory itself - but in the significance that memory has to your present life. Also, for those who want clarification I'm prepared to recount my own first memory and it's relevance to my life.
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Comments
Xango
Interesting post Pilgrim.
Posted on: 12/14/2008 18:37
Interesting post Pilgrim. I have 3 main "first" memories (if that's ok).
- hiding under a dresser drawers as my parents fought violently
- seeing my little brother for the first time (he's 2 1/2 years younger than I am)
- watching my dad inject heroin in front of me (I guess he thought I wouldn't remember - or at least I hope that's what he might have been thinking. But I do remember- clearly.)
I'm not sure if I can tell you the significance of these memories. I guess that is something I have to think about. But they do remind me that my childhood wasn't easy. Except for the one about my brother, which I guess reminds me that even if it wasn't easy I wasn't alone and I have experienced grace.
Faerenach
I have one very clear memory
Posted on: 12/15/2008 00:08
I have one very clear memory from who knows how old (I'd imagine it was around 3 or 4). I remember walking along the road from my aunt and uncle's cottage in Nova Scotia. It's a very happy memory, as that cottage has held a lot of great memories over the years. It's a pretty random memory - no specific event or anything, but I suppose the significance is that I've always considered that cottage to be THE summer vacation space where I felt relaxed and at home.
Pilgrims Progress
Xango, I'm sorry that two of
Posted on: 12/15/2008 02:42
Xango, I'm sorry that two of your earliest memories are so painful - you probably didn't want to be reminded of them!
My comment would be that you value your brother in your life -a difficult childhood can give you a close bond that lasts a lifetime. (I was very close to my eighteen months younger sister - we shared a lot of childhood angst!)
One thing that life has taught me is that if one survives a difficult childhood one learns resilience -which is very necessary to cope with life's traumas.
Secondly, I'm really happy that you have experienced grace. I believe it's there for everyone - but it's amazing how suffering opens our hearts to experience it!
Pilgrims Progress
Faerenach, that's a lovely
Posted on: 12/15/2008 02:48
Faerenach, that's a lovely memory - I'm happy I rekindled it for you! There's nothing better than feeling a sense of connection to a special place and people in your life! I suggest that in times of stress you take yourself there metaphorically.
WaterBuoy
This is strange: The first
Posted on: 12/15/2008 11:48
This is strange:
The first memory that I can put a date on puts me almost exactly at two years of age ... walking along a stone wall with my mother. That wall was being built at the time (or repaired) and the mason put the date of the event in the cap.
A summer earlier I recall lying under the elm trees with my parents along the Nashwaak River in the heat of the summer. It was vague but my father left home shortly after that. Impossible? Go figure the implications!
Pain impacts the memory far more than good times which we easily forget while trying to extract from the other.
Pilgrims Progress
WaterBuoy, I find your
Posted on: 12/15/2008 17:30
WaterBuoy, I find your comment that pain impacts the memory far more than good times interesting.
Mostly I have found this to be true - but curiously enough in my case my very first memory contained many elements.
It was very similar to your memory. I too recall lying under some trees with my extended family in the heat of summer. My family members were pointing up at the tree - obviously wanting me to notice something that they all could see. I remember feeling anxious as my eyes travelled up the branches for I had the feeling that in some way I was letting them down. Finally I noticed this bird, and knew instantly that that was IT! My grandmother said, "The dear little pet has noticed it".
I've since come to believe that the significance of this memory was the sense of connection I felt not only with my family, but with nature and God as well.
My first mystical/religious experience.
WaterBuoy
Harold Kushner discussed this
Posted on: 12/17/2008 10:06
Harold Kushner discussed this whole matter of pain stimuli and stomata in Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Have you had that expression projected on the image of bleeding hands? Onyx, in Hebrew is the dark point, or the pupil ... a learning vision? "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!" Does such an expression have any depth about the smoke, ashes and hidden fire?
I liked the way the former Rabbi said that religion was a funny thing that there were good and bad people in all paradigms, some love and some learn and some well what the eL ... Lam, or multitasking expression for traveling infinite light ...
Do people learn unless they receive a spiritual gift; to just plainly want to know about the infinite's creation? Then many pastors and other authorities will tell you the infinite is just a perception (conception) in their literal aspect of the Roman Book ... none is to add to it! How do they explain omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient in the slow turm of rae-evolutions, perhaps I should project that Icon as ... Revelations?
Does it tend to make the sole of love reflect in opposite rotation ...
kor aeol's effect ... down the drain into the whetted realm ... that'll sharpen the poor dull soul if they can't learn to leap and fly like a pi'j'nn!
More on that later!