And we’re back again for another week. You know sometimes I wonder to myself, will I have enough to say when it comes time to post? But the thing about life is, when you think about something and then the time to act comes. It all just falls into place.

This week’s topic of discussion is pretty obvious by the title, but I prefer to keep things clear cut, so let’s jump in. When we experience things in life, we tend to think that they are crystallised moments of time that are stored in our memory. That the way events occurred, our reactions and takeaways from them, remain the same. But this just isn’t true. A perfect example, do a quick bit of research into how unreliable eye witness testimony is as evidence. People’s mental and emotional states can completely reframe how things went down. In fact even inventing new details, like a person being somewhere when in truth there weren’t there at all.

Understanding this concept is very important and can become a vital tool in improving our lives. I know it works, because I had to employ it just three days ago. Story time, yay, we haven’t done one of these for a whole Texas minute.

I recently moved into this apartment complex, the place is great and all. But the one annoyance is the underground secure carpark. The car spaces are ridiculously small, I mean unless I’m wrong and it’s just an optical illusion I’m not seeing. But a small hatchback car fills a car space pretty snugly. The problem for me is that I own a Ford Territory, which is a big soccer mum type of car (I love my car btw, so comfy and can easily seat 7 people). I’m trying to say that getting in and out of my building is a high concentration activity; I don’t want to damage my car but more so, I don’t want to damage someone else’s car.

But a couple nights ago, I was heading over to a friend’s place because lockdowns had ended in NSW. I reversed out and smashed one of the back tail lights and scratched the side panel. The damage itself was minimal and can only be seen from the side, the tail light as well works fine and only a tiny bit broke off. However, when it happened, I was way too hard on myself. I cursed moving to this new place, which makes no sense because it’s been the best thing for me. I wasn’t hysterical or anything, but my negative perspective was tainting things.

So, I parked into a different spot. Got out and assessed the damage, then hopped back into my car. I sat there for a couple of minutes just recalibrating my perspective. Firstly, I acknowledged that, seeing how tight the carpark is, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. I appreciated the fact that the incident involved solely my car and a cement pillar, so no guilt from damaging someone else’s car. And lastly, I accepted that the damage was mainly cosmetic and not really something to stress over.

After that reassessment, I felt so much better. Mainly, because I didn’t let a negative state have control over the frame in which I perceived the experience.

This is just a recent event that prompted me to write this piece, but the idea can be applied to anything that has happened to you in your life. Changing the frame to a move positive one will help you to see things in a new light and may make you reevaluate what that memory means to you.

Now, when you talk about this kind of idea. There is always some smart ass who quips, “Yeah but what if the memory or experience is abuse as a child or something like that”. When people say such things, I struggle to take them seriously because it’s such a cop out.

No, reframing your perspective won’t change what happened in the past, especially if it’s something as extreme as that. But what it can do, is give you the understanding that that memory doesn’t have to ruin you or your life. I can’t remember where I read it, but there was a story of two brothers who had an alcoholic father when they were growing up. When they became adults themselves, one ended as a drug addict while the other turned out as a well adjusted person. Both brothers were asked why they had gone down the paths they had in life. The two brothers both said that it was their childhood which influenced their choices. One framed the experience as a lesson of what he didn’t want to become, while the other framed it as an excuse to fall down the same troubled path.

Look, I could keep going but I think you get the message. However, I’m forever amazed at the powers locked within our minds, if only we could remember to use them for good.

Well my Hedites, that’s why you like and follow my content, it’s those reminders that make the difference.

Now remember, it’s all in your head.