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Change your memories to change your life.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”

Marcel Proust

One of the most interesting recent areas of research into the brain might help you to change
your life. Most of us worry about forgetting as we get older, but some memories persist
whatever we do. Forgetting becomes more important (and harder) than remembering as
the years go by. Have you ever thought ‘if only I could change my past everything would be
different now’? Well it turns out that you might be right…you could change your life by
altering your memories. Change your emotional stories and your life could be better.

Why bother?
We define ourselves through our memories. Our present and future selves depend on our
past and our recollections trigger emotions that can be helpful or not. For most of us this
has consequences as we get older: an upbeat, positive state of mind grounded in positive
memories leads to a happier and more satisfied life. On the other hand, anxiety, lack of
confidence and a negative outlook can all prevent us from being happy and achieving our
dreams. For some, bad emotional memories can contribute to far worse conditions such as
depression, anxiety disorders and even post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). Over a
lifetime, these stories become more and more entrenched in our unconscious version of
ourselves and can lead to a negative spiral of feelings about life in general. As a mentor, I
come across this regularly in people over 50. By mid-life, our memories are us. Changing the
brain with pharmaceuticals is passive, but for most of us there is a way to change our own
brains without pills.

This is neuro-engineering and is based on some challenging and interesting

factors about our memories.
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How does it work?

Typically research has focused on pharmaceutical solutions to depression, anxiety, PTSD and
chronic physical pain. Danielle Schiller is one of a number of specialists are dedicated to
discovering ways for the brain to adapt and recover using non-pharmaceutical means. This is
called neuro-engineering and is based on some challenging and interesting factors about our
memories. This paper is about the emotional rather than the physical memory, but for those
with chronic pain, there is also research into using the brain to manage pain. It is well
described in the book ‘The Brain’s Way of Healing’ by Norman Doidge.

There are three things about memory that we need to know before we can change the way
unconscious feelings from the past de-rail our present and future lives.

Our memories are never right they are always subjective.

1. What we remember is never ‘right’.

Our memories are a story with emotions attached that we have woven around events in our
lives. This is why different family members have markedly different memories about past
events and one reason why ‘eye witness’ accounts of how accidents happen are so
unreliable. Both the events and the emotions are chosen by our brain. Most brains are
unable to remember everything, so what we remember about an event depends on our
focus at the time – our brain is selective.

Emotional memory has an important survival role in generating instant responses when
danger is detected. This and other negative emotions are not only useful for survival but
also help us make better future decisions.

However, past events that we perceived as threatening or unhappy can become locked in
our memories. Those ‘stories’ can plague us for the rest of our lives even if they serve no
purpose any more. Over time, a bias towards negative emotions can change our
personalities. Our brain is ‘plastic’ that is, it adapts constantly; we are what we regularly do,
think and feel. If the bad moment was near death from an accident, then that recall would
be useful. However, if it was a bullying teacher or overbearing parent who made us
miserable, they may have imprinted us with a lifelong emotional response that gets
triggered whenever we encounter a similar situation.

In my case, I have a neurotic fear of travelling fast on the road because when I was a
teenager I rolled a car while driving far too fast and nearly killed myself. In the slow motion
of the split second when it happened, I remember having enough time to make a deal that if
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I lived, I would never speed again. I survived and may have been saved many times since
then too! This is a useful fear to have.

On the other hand, when I was about age 7 I cut a pattern in my school uniform during
sewing class at school and the teacher made me stand on my chair for the rest of the class.
That wasn’t punishment enough so she then took me around to every other class, standing
me on a chair and telling them how stupid I was. I was a shy child and deeply embarrassed
by this. This incident became a story that controlled my feelings for many years. It was hard
to be confident when that fear of ridicule had become part of my self-image.

No doubt the teachers’ memory of that event was different and she may have forgotten it
almost immediately. It was a way of setting an example to the others. For me facts about
the event were far less important than the attached feelings. Our memories are never right
they are always subjective.

We remember and build on our last version of our stories.

2. Each time we recall, our brain changes the story.

Our brain adapts the memory to fit with more recent events and knowledge as well as
future aspirations. The old becomes incorporated into the new to form a complete story of
your life and who you are. Memory isn’t so much a filing cabinet as an evolving story. My
story about the sewing class has now changed with the benefit of hindsight and
interpretation. I can describe the teacher as cruel, but at the time, I thought I was wrong
because I saw her as a grown-up in charge. I felt stupid and embarrassed. Continuing to
build on that negative memory could have lead to a vicious spiral through reinforcing bad
feelings every time I recalled the event. I grew up hating teachers and feeling embarrassed
in front of groups until I revisited the memory a few times! We remember and build on our
last version of our stories. Good ones become better, bad ones worse – unless we intervene.

We can rewrite the story every time we revisit it.

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3. We can intervene and construct or reconstruct memories.

According to Schiller, if we can change the emotional impact of a memory by intervening at
the right time, we can permanently change our present and future emotional states. We can
rewrite the story every time we revisit it and reconsolidate it in our memory. The facts
remain the same, but the feelings should be reconstructed. She says: ‘When you affect
emotional memory, you don’t affect the content. You still remember perfectly, you just
don’t have the emotional memory”.

Her research is showing that we can intervene at the right time after a traumatic event so
there is a way to record a painful memory differently. Parents can help their less developed
children to do this. For those who didn’t have an opportunity to consolidate an experience
this way in the first place, we can also change memories every time we recall them. Each
time the memory consolidation process takes place in our brain, we have a small window of
opportunity to change it before our brain reconsolidates it. This is ground breaking, and we
can all take advantage of it.

When the spiral has deepened to a clinical state it‘s important to get
treatment with a professional…

What does this mean we can do?

For most of us without serious clinical conditions, the ability to change our stories allows us
to start an upward cycle in our lives:

• Be happier
• Have more confidence
• Find more ‘luck’
• Be more likeable to others
• Prevent depression
• Create a more exciting future

Clinical depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD need to be treated by specialists. When the
spiral has deepened to a clinical state it‘s important to get treatment with a professional
cognitive psychologist who is up to date with this research. For those of us who simply want
to be more confident, happier and more successful, we can simply start to identify and
recreate our otherwise limiting stories from the past.
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Writing and talking through our stories seems to have more power than simply thinking
about them. Wiring Warriors use a four step approach:

1. Identify a significant moment in time that has influenced your present

2. Write a one page account of that event…tell the story
3. Sit with another person who can be objective and talk about alternative
ways to recall the memory. Find another person’s perspective, a more
positive view of the story or the way in which the event has created
learning or other, better circumstances today.
4. Rewrite the story in a more objective and positive way. Separate the
learning from the entrenched emotions; change your state of mind.

We should use negative emotions to improve – to become better.

For rewiring yourself today…should we be banning the negative?

When you experience a negative emotional event in daily life, remember that timing is
critical. Always consciously revisit a memory within a few hours. Try to create a constructive
memory with a positive ‘angle’, even if you don’t feel that way! How you imprint those
thoughts and feelings into your brain will dictate your future memories and your future self.
That doesn’t mean that you should become a happy fool who turns everything into an
upbeat experience! Feeling negative emotions such as sadness, disappointment, fear and
grief is healthy, it’s good for learning and important for putting life into perspective. It is the
ability to move on from the bad feeling that matters. Simply revisiting a negative story over
and over again is not useful and can be damaging. The idea is to use negative emotions to
improve – to become better. Taking a positive and practical approach helps us learn from
and accept the experience so it doesn’t grind us down as we age.

I had a shock a few weeks ago when I looked back at my diary for 2007. Before my third
brain operation I had written of the fear I felt in anticipation of the excruciating pain that I
knew was coming, the possibility I would die and the despair of never escaping hospital and
being normal again. Today I have completely forgotten that reality ten years ago and
remember only the people whose supportive words helped me cope - and the fact that I
survived. My subsequent diary entries indicate the pain was indeed even worse than before,
but somehow I avoided drowning in that sea of blackness by accepting it, looking towards
the future and feeling grateful for my progress.
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I now look back on that year as one of learning and future possibility. If I had memorised the
trauma negatively, I would be carrying a huge burden of emotion today. Also note that it
was others who helped me to reframe the experience at the time – my husband, mother,
my Neurosurgeon and a nurse who kept me company the night before my surgery. I
concluded that there is always a place for positive support but sometimes too much
sympathy can be harmful…but that’s another story.

How to have a go
Writing new stories about your life may not come naturally for you, so we can help. The first
Wiring Warrior workshop in February 2018 will be ‘Re-write your Life’. Lindsey Dawson is an
author who has facilitated many ‘hands-on’ life story workshops. Join us if you would like to
have a practical experience with some support from her and myself!

More information will be posted on the Events page of the Wiring Warrior website in 2018.

Links to papers, articles and videos

If you are interested in reading more or hearing Danielle Schiller talk – here are some good
links:

• Schiller Video ‘Neuro-engineering – the future is now’ about 15 minutes

• The New Yorker Magazine ‘Partial Recall’ By Michael Specter

‘Can neuroscience help us rewrite our most traumatic memories’?

Psychology Today Magazine ‘Your Memory Isn't What You Think It Is’

By Arthur Dobrin ‘Memories change each time we remember’.

• Smithsonian Magazine ‘How Our Brains Make Memories’

By Greg Millar ‘Surprising new research about the act of remembering may help
people with post-traumatic stress disorder’.

Janis Grummitt helps communities,

corporations and individuals to build better
brain power. She started Wiring Warriors in
2011 to promote understanding of
neuroplasticity and practical actions we
could all take to protect and grow our own
brain power as we age. She describes her
work as a curator, translator and inspirer.

© Janis Grummitt 2017