You are gradually working through the various filtration processes that enter your neurology via your five senses, filtering the 10,000,000 experiences you have every second of your waking life.

To date, you’ve read about values, beliefs, attitudes.

These have used the processes of generalization, deletion and distortion.

In this article you’ll see what happens with respect to the memories you have chosen to keep, because the ones you keep are in alignment with what your subconscious mind feels you want to keep at any particular point in time.

There is also a 6.06 minutes AUDIO for your convenience.

These are either because they are within your comfort zone, your current values, or because your ADD LINK subconscious mind thinks that you are able to handle an expansion of what you consider your comfort zone.

In other words you are ready to expand you conscious mind on that particular topic or personal issue.

Here is the graphic again, to remind you of your Internal Filters.

This article will deal in a very general manner about memory.

Later articles will go into memory retrieval, sequencing for retention, using memory triggers, strategies for improving the various VAK (visual-auditory-kinesthetic) memories, memory improvement techniques, short-term memory, long-term memory, etc.

So what is memory?

Memory is a process of your brain that involves taking in, storing and retrieving information, whether personal or societal.

Your brain has an amazing capacity to store information.  You have more capacity to store information than all the most advanced and sophisticated computers put together.

It is reported that Einstein only used 33% of his brain. Most of us only ever use 5%.  Amazing, isn’t it?

The memories you retain from your second-by-second experiences show how you evaluate your ‘reality’, your current world at any given time.

Memories filter your current reality.

The way you remember things show what values and beliefs are valuable for you at that time; they are not necessarily true.

The way you remember things will not be true to someone else’s memory of the event that took place.

Therefore, memories are only selectively amassed snapshots of events, what you ‘choose’ to remember.

I’m sure it has happened to you, as it has happened to me, that you and someone else saw an event, and you describe it quite differently to a third person.

You correct each other as you describe the event, each stressing or remembering quite different elements, convinced of your authenticity.

These past experiences, filtered in your unique way, have repercussions on how you view certain activities today.

I’ll give you a personal example.

When I was a child, going anywhere as a family was a monumental affair:|

• There was the fuss preparing for the outing

• I was always told to ‘hurry up’

• If it was a picnic, we all had to dress ‘nicely’ (no casual clothing), after all we had a family image to uphold (I shudder)

• The car trip to the picnic area was a drama, and mostly a ‘learning’ exercise about what I knew of the terrain, farm animals, etc en route

• It was a session of how things were so ‘primitive’ in this country (we came from central Europe)

• We had to find a place to set up the picnic in an elegant manner

• I had to eat ‘properly’

• I was always told: “don’t do this, do that, why are you always such a tom-boy?”

• and so on

For years later, literally years (way into adulthood), any time I had to go out, anywhere, it was a big ‘to do’, I would go into an organizational panic, with physical reactions.

I had unconsciously cemented into my memory the unpleasantness of the whole business of going out officially. 

So I would go out secretly, a much easier, tranquil exercise.

All this changed, when I became aware of what was going on inside me.

Memories can be rational or irrational, that is immaterial, for each of us, they are very real.

Our memories can hold us back or we can use them as learning lessons and move forward.

Next time, we’ll look at the decision we make.