How much of what you remember about your life never even happened? If we believe science (and I really hope you do), there’s a good chance that a significant number of our memories are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves. We entertain a flash of a blurry image, a snippet of language, and then we fill in the gaps with what we think is true of ourselves, of others, and of the world we live in.
What blows my mind about this is that we all recognize how the past drives our current day behavior. Our fears, our expectations, even our values are shaped by our memories of past experiences. This is what happened to Iris & Lily Capotosti (of irisandlilythenovel.com), and it's what happens to all of us.
What if… some of those memories never really happened? Or what if… it happened kind of like that, but not exactly? And here we are, making critical decisions and drawing conclusions for our lives based on that. It’s like our memories have us caught in a loop.
I find that a little bit scary and a whole lotta exciting. It's exciting because if some of my memories are just stories I’ve told myself, well, I can totally make up new stories. When you think about it, this gives us the power to change our past - or at least to change the power our past holds over us.
And if our future is influenced by our past, we can open up entirely new possibilities for ourselves. I hope that makes you tingle a little bit. You know, in a good way.
Let's go through our memories with new eyes. What stories will you change so you can open up new possibilities for your future?
🕊 & ❤️
Julie
Julie Scipioni is the co-author of the bestselling novel series for women, "Iris & Lily," and author of “downward facing dogs” also now available on Amazon. For more information, see Julie’s Amazon Author page.