Repressed Memories By Starr Fuentes © 2005

Sometimes there is this feeling: A deep hole that needs to be filled or something in the back of your mind and you just can't seem to think of it. Repressed memories leave gaps in our lives, and in our consciousness. They haunt us because we get glimpses of them in dreams and in T.V. shows. All memories, good and bad, get pressed into a collective mystery.

As we begin to work on ourselves we start to realize that there are reasons and foundations for our behavior and pain. To search our memories becomes a frustrating, fruitless effort. Soon, others start to suggest to us (by our behavior, which they can see and we may be blind to) that something was not right with our childhood. We have fears of intimate relationships and keep choosing people who act like mom or dad to love. This we do over and over again.

One day we get a "wake up call" and we start to do some serious work, either in therapy or with a group. The memories come. Most people think that they made them up the very first time they speak them to others. The second or third time there is this feeling of confirmation that, yes, this is what did happen.

We are encouraged by the group or the therapist to remember and share these negative memories from childhood. They come out, sometimes in dribbles, and sometimes they gush out. Some of us have worked for years to clear all these memories and still find more.

We process and digest these negative memories over and over again. Some of us can tell our “story” now without even showing any emotion at all. We read books on the subject of our childhood memories seek and take seminars to heal ourselves and work on comforting our inner child.

What happened to the “good” memories or the memories of just being a child? They are still repressed because we have not focuses on bringing this part to the surface. We continually seem to be magnetized to those memories that take energy to deal with. It is time to start working with the memories that give energy and the neutral ones to become centered in who we were.

No matter how “bad” our childhood was, there are “nuggets of gold” to be found. Remember, graham crackers or cookies and milk at school? How about playing on swings? What about birthdays and Christmas? Were they all bad? How about those moments when we dreamed of the future and had glimpses of our connection to source?

As we begin to mature in our spiritual process, the “victim” starts to take a back seat. We become more of a master and can guide our process with fewer “control” issues. This is the time to bring forth the powers of the “other” repressed memories.

The wonder that we held for life as children can come forward into adulthood at the memory of a butterfly landing on our knee. The trust that we may not know we had for our family may be woven into the smell of our favorite food being cooked. Our boundaries may become clear after the memory of staring a “bully” down.

There is no end to the perspective of your self that can come forward again as you work on the “neutral” and good memories. Most people just want to dig in their “stuff” and the “stuff” of others. Trust that there are positive memories or you would have never had the skills to survive.

Who was that adult who planted a seed about life being worth living? Yes, there was one or you would have checked out as a teenager. Was it a relative, teacher or friend?

There are many ways to work on memories. You can use hypnosis, therapy or have the awareness to stop when something “rings a bell” and associate it to the past. My favorite was to teach is to use “Tense Touch” taught to me by the Curanderos of Mexico. A trained healer touches your body in a special way and they start to recite your repressed memories to you. You find your self remembering these things only after their statement and this triggers even more memories and feelings. What would have taken years of work can be accomplished in a few hours.

No matter which way you go, revealing that there were neutral and good memories in your childhood that were also repressed gives you foundation for who you are and how you made it to today.

I am continually amazed by the acts of kindness, insight and heroism that emerge from repressed childhood memories. Isn’t it time you took another look at your past?