Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone over the recollection of a past event? Isn’t it infuriating when the other person changes the facts around?
Have you ever been able to resolve such an argument? Most likely, you haven’t. That’s because of memorality.
Memorality is the balance we maintain between our memories and the objective truth of a past event.
Our memorality is the reality of our memories.
Our sense of memorality must be challenged because it literally is driving everything we do today. It makes our decisions, it installs our buttons (the ones that other people then learn to push to make us crazy), and most of all it closes doors all around us and keeps us trapped.
Want to get free from your past and resolve those old arguments about what really happened? I introduce to you, The Memorality Challenge.
The Memorality Challenge is what Iris & Lily Capotosti did with each other in the Iris & Lily novels and it transformed their lives. Here’s just one example:
Lily recalls the memory about how, despite her hard work and best efforts, she received a white third-place ribbon for showing a cow at the infamous county fair while Iris - who seemed to excel at absolutely everything without even trying - received a red first-place ribbon for her efforts.
This event demonstrated the way Lily saw herself: a third-place, white-ribbon loser.
The ribbons remained present for years. Iris’ hung on the mirror of the dresser that she and Lily shared, and Lily’s were shoved in a drawer under the socks with holes and the emergency underwear.
Those ribbons became the symbol for the expanding chasm between the sisters as they grew older. In the novel, Iris and Lily grappled (more accurately, they bitterly argued) about what really happened that summer during their mysterious visit to the family farm, and it became clear that they remembered the event in radically different ways. And it wasn’t like they could figure out whose version of the past was accurate and whose wasn’t; there was no way to know. Iris defended her version, and Lily held fast to hers.
By challenging their memorality, the question presented itself, “Is it possible that things didn’t happen as I remember?”
Let’s consider that Lily may have misremembered. How many opportunities did she pass up or miss out on because of her self-image of less-than, loser, failure, inferior to her sister? And how might the trajectory of her life have changed if she hadn’t carried that story around always and everywhere?
Of course, one bad cow show doesn’t a loser make. There were many experiences that reinforced Lily’s poor self-image. That white ribbon was just one more piece of evidence in the case that Lily was building against herself.
Do our experiences really create our memories, or do we edit our memories to reinforce the beliefs we seek to validate about ourselves?
Read that question again. It should be burning a hole in your mind, because think about this: If your memories were created by you alone (and they were), and if those memories shape who you are today (and they do), and if those memories only exist in your mind (just try to find them elsewhere), AND if we each have the power to change our mind (you probably do this a hundred times a day), what does that tell you about the power you hold to change who you think you are and how you experience your life?
The purpose of The Memorality Challenge is not to prove or disprove your memories. The purpose is to get another perspective on your memories, to challenge what you think is fixed and absolute about you.
You can take The Memorality Challenge with anyone you trust who was there with you as you grew up. Could be a sister, a brother, a cousin, a friend, or a parent. Don’t have anyone? Grab a journal. In fact, grab a journal anyway; you’re going to need it.
The Memorality Challenge eventually caused Iris and Lily’s lives to collapse, but only that which collapses can be rebuilt and reinforced, made better than before. If your life collapses because you challenge your memorality and you find a few discrepancies, then you will see it:
Parts of your life as you know it are based on a figment of your imagination.
But saints be praised, you own your imagination. You can begin the miracle of reimagining your life in this very moment, and then start anew. Use your memories to identify what is keeping you stuck in fear, anger, jealousy, or hate. Then use your powers of imagination to build a foundation that supports a new, happier, more powerful vision of yourself and positions you to achieve your dreams for your life.
Challenge your memorality to transform your life.
🕊 & ❤️
Julie
PS: What are you waiting for? Why are you still here? There is no time to waste! Go find your Memorality partner and get started!
Julie Scipioni is the co-author of the bestselling novel series for women, "Iris & Lily," and author of “downward facing dogs,” and “Taking the Stairs: My Journal of Healing and Self Discovery,” all available on Amazon. For more information, see Julie’s Amazon Author page.