How memories affect our present

   I sometimes wonder how our past affects our present and in what way. I’m not talking about actions we did in the past which have some effects on our present. I’m talking about remembering things and situations. Our memories are as powerful in influencing our present feelings as our present day. This is how it works: we remember something from our past (positive or negative) which will trigger a corresponding emotion and this emotion will bring into our mind more memories from the same range.  It not always starts with a memory. Sometimes it starts with a thought that triggers an emotion that will bring into our minds some memories that can feed that emotion. It’s a crazy circle.

   Have you noticed that when we feel a little down, we remember more and more shitty situations from our past and this brings us lower? The interesting part is that this happens for the good things too. When we’re feeling good, we can remember things from our past that made us feel good.

   Our minds have the ability to find things related to the ones we already think/feel. If we can lock into a thought or a feeling we want to have, our mind will do the best it can to bring more of that to us. Are we scared about something? Our mind can find more things to be scared in that moment. Do we like a certain car? Our mind will find more nice things we can do with that car. Whatever our mind brings to us, it’s not necessary what we truly think or want. Those things come from unconscious self so we most likely got in touch with that through a movie, a story etc.

   Bottom line, memories can influence our present by feeding the feelings we already have. So if we have positive feelings, we’ll find ourselves having positive memories. The same thing applies to the negative feelings.