To Forget, You Have To Remember

There are many episodes from our past that we try to forget.

However, to end this suffering, we need to remember these times; not so much to forget what happened, but rather to make room for all these memories in our current life, with the enrichment that this implies.

Any process that we go through in our lifetime involves changes, and we have to grieve of all kinds.

Changes involve loss, and therefore farewell, suffering, and some renunciation.

It seems that we are trying to avoid this and to leave no room for our painful memories in our history, even if this implies an effort that drowns us in suffering, since by adopting such an attitude, we launch into a fight lost in advance.

Since bereavement is a part of our life, it has an important meaning for our own personal development.

Not only do they help us change and come to terms with the inevitable, but they also prepare us to make room for new, very important experiences.

Accepting the transformation of mourning does not imply having to forget, but rather to integrate, in order to be reborn at each stage of life.

Forgive more than forget

It is in forgiveness that our relentless struggle of resentment, guilt and blame resides.

When forgiveness arrives, acceptance, which will put an end to mourning, is put in place. The same goes for frustrated loves.

We try to forget before we even forgive, and this is how we keep the suffering that plagues us alive.

Forgiveness requires acceptance, which then allows us to learn the necessary lessons from our experiences and feed them into our personal development.

It is a process that leads us to peace and quiet, and therefore to have a clear conscience.

The path to forgiveness is comparable to that of love, since we use this feeling to manifest ourselves.

Surely you have thought more than once of the famous phrase that is often used: time heals all wounds.

However, such a philosophy is erroneous, since time in itself does not heal anything.

It is what we do with this time that helps us to mature, to learn and to grow internally in order to resolve our conflicts and our difficulties.

“You can’t forget time any more than you can use it.”

-Charles Baudelaire-

Learn to say goodbye

Saying goodbye is an inevitable constant in our life. We have several times to say heartbreaking farewells, whether they are formulated towards people (break-ups, estrangement from friends and family members, death, etc.) or towards circumstances (work, health and diagnosis of a illness, unfulfilled expectations, finalization of stages in our life, children who become independent and leave home, etc.).

In every period that we go through in our life, we have to leave the irrecoverable things behind us.

We have to allow change in order to move forward. This is how we learn to say goodbye, and to realize that all the important relationships we have had with others have left a mark on who we are today.

At the time of mourning, especially if it is that of your companion, it is necessary not to keep in front of you everything that reminds you of this person: thus, it will be less difficult to overcome this ordeal.

Once the bereavement is overcome, we can then realize that the memories we have of this person no longer affect us or stir our emotions.

“To hold onto something that helps me remember you would be admitting that I can’t forget you.”

-William Shakespeare-

Live the present moment without forgetting the past

Our well-being depends on how we relate to the present. You can’t change or control the past-

The only thing we can control is our attitude, as well as our way of facing our past in the present.

This is why our personal job is not really about forgetting our past, or the people who mattered to us, but rather being able to integrate all these experiences into our present, as experience and learning.

Being able to take into account what we have been and what we have lived, whether it is pleasant things as unpleasant things, allows us to better know what we want today.

We then take a more lucid and healthy look at things, taking into account all the experiences we have had.

“Walker, only
the path you walk counts ;
Walker, there is no path,
the path is made by walking.
It is by walking that the path is made,
And it is by looking behind you
that you see the path that you should
never tread again.
Walker, there is no path,
but only trails in the sea ”

-Antonio Machado-