Seriously, do you?
To show the power of suggestive questioning and the ability to implant memories into the human mind, researchers showed two groups of people in the same car accident on video. Both groups witnessed the exact same thing.
They asked one group “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” and the other group, “How fast were the cars going when they made contact?” Changing only the verb used in the question. The group that was asked about the speed of the “made contact” group estimated that the cars were going about 32 MPH whereas the group that was asked about the speed of the cars that “smashed into”one another at around 41 MPH. Not that big of a deal, right?
When they asked the groups if they saw broken glass at the scene, the group that was asked about the cars “smashing” into one another recorded seeing broken glass 3x higher than the “made contact” group. The problem here is that there was no broken glass at all. By simply asking the questions two different ways, the questioner was able to implant an idea about the accident by simply changing the wording of the question, and the witnesses, without deliberately lying came up with different answers. Lawyers do this to unsuspecting witnesses, as do the police. If nothing else, be aware of this for your own good.
If your memories of things that you just saw moments ago, can be this flawed (albeit slightly) imagine the potential for mistaking facts in memories that happened years or decades ago.
Need more evidence?
Researchers went to a group of people who went to Disneyland as children and showed them an old advertisement touching on their nostalgia about when they shook hands with Bugs Bunny after the Its a Small World ride. 16% of the people remembered that exact memory and went into more detail about it specifically. The problem is that Bugs Bunny isn’t a Disney character and was never there. Now 16% isn’t a giant percentage but it shows that your memories can be wrong and/or actually influenced by others.
Finally, in another study, they consulted the families of subjects to ask them 3 stories from the subjects’ past. When they reviewed these stories with the subjects, they added one more about the subject being lost at the mall as a child. 25% of the subjects also vividly remembered being lost at the mall, crying, and even being found by an elderly woman. 1/4 of the people interviewed remembered a traumatic event that never even happened!
So often therapists like to dive into your past, and because they are looking for “hot button items”, can inadvertently (at least I hope it is unintentional) influence you to remember something that may or may not have happened or might be exaggerated. Worse yet, even if true, allowing those memories to identify and even excuse your behavior or failures.
How many of us are harboring ill feelings or have negative thoughts about our past that are affecting us in an adverse way today?
How have these memories affected how you treat others, or how you think of yourself?
Memories are fallible and are almost never worth harboring for another minute. Now, if you have pleasant or happy memories, there is almost no harm in holding on to them, but even in the case of happy or positive memories, we do not want to be held in the past holding the present or future up to that, possibly fantastic, standard.
It is the negative memories that we need to re-address if we want to live happier and less personally restricted lives.
Martin Seligman, a past president of the American Psychological Association, wrote:
“I think that the events of childhood are overrated: in fact, I think past history, in general, is overrated. It has turned out to be difficult to find even small effects of childhood events on adult personality, and there is no evidence at all of large – to say nothing of determining – effects.
The major trauma of childhood may have some influence on adult personality, but only a barely detectable one. Bad childhood events, in short, do not mandate adult troubles.
There is no justification in these studies for blaming your adult depression, anxiety, a bad marriage, drug use, sexual problems, unemployment, aggression against your children, alcoholism, or anger on what happened to you as a child.”
That might feel a little like a slap in the face to hear, especially if your therapist tells you otherwise. But, man is it liberating! You are literally not your past…so much so that you don’t even have a clear recollection of it! You do not have to hold on to those negative memories or feelings for another minute. They might have contributed to where you are, but from this point, they should not weigh you down another second!
I am not saying just forget the past (as if that was even a viable option). Understanding your past helps you not make the same mistakes twice, or fall into negative patterns. I am talking about those long-standing beliefs or negative biases that you may have that are at best not real, and at worst an anchor to your success.
Believe it or not, some people who survived Auschwitz can be classified as “past-positive”(people who view their past as positive). I challenge you to read Man’s Seach for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. He was “past positive” as he didnt let his past destroy him or his future and went on to be a successful doctor and writer in spite of it all. While there is no denying the horrors Viktor and others endured, they chose to remember the few positive memories and not dwell on the negative ones. Even in my darkest times, I can look back and think of some funny, or heartfelt moments without conjuring up the fear, loneliness, and heartache that came with it. It doesn’t mean that I didnt feel that way, or that I have forgotten, but I choose to look at the high points of my struggle with real gratitude. The alternative is downright depressing. Worst yet, it is counterproductive.
You might say, “Sure that is easy now that you are out of the woods” but the truth is, you are never out of the woods with cancer and we are talking about the past, and quite frankly, I am in control of how I want to think of the past, and you are too! The only reality we need to deal with is the present
If you are having issues with letting go of the past, I can help you with some exercises to reprogram those ideas. You may say, “Michael, there is no way I am going to get over what he/she did” or “I cant just change the fact that INSERT SOMETHING HORRIBLE HERE, happened”. You are right, and I am not trying to get you to ignore that. What I hope to do, is to show you that people who are “past-positive” have greater advantages (scientifically) than those who are “past-negative”. This is a choice that we have the power to make in our favor once we know that our attitudes about the past are optional.
