(Course) Beginner's Mind Day 9 - Memories And Trauma

Day 9 of Beginner's Mind by Mind Masons. In this talk, we will briefly cover memories and trauma, and their effect on your practice. This will help provide a proper context for you on your meditative journey. We will discuss the occurrence of memories, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the traumatic.

We will also talk about ways to deal with them when they come up, and what to expect. Following this talk, you should practice using my 10 Minute Breath Counting meditation.

Transcript

Hello again,

Good day,

Welcome to day 9 of Beginners Mind where we'll be covering memories and trauma.

As always I'd like to start by saying that I hope yesterday's information was useful for you and I hope that you're able to carry it forward and apply it in your practices and in your life.

As always I'd like to reaffirm if you have questions please ask them,

Please reach out to the community,

Reach out to myself,

Ask your questions.

There will undoubtedly be somebody that can answer your question or at least help you find the answer yourself.

Please ask your questions.

For memories and trauma,

Meditation is famous for bringing up memories,

Good,

Bad,

Ugly,

Traumatic.

And these memories can be old and familiar or they can be new and previously unknown to the meditator and that can be disorienting.

So recognizing and verbalizing the fact that new memories can come up seemingly out of nowhere is an important step in dealing with them and approaching them.

Because if you're forewarned that that may happen,

Then it won't be a shock to you when it does.

So when a memory comes up,

Good,

Bad,

Ugly,

We treat it as we would any other phenomenon or distraction.

We treat it like the itch.

We let it come,

We let it be,

We let it go.

We open the door,

We label it,

We just let it be and we return our focus to the breath.

We just let that memory be what it is.

We let it be a memory.

Return our attention to the breath.

Now what you may notice is that even with old familiar memories,

New parts may come up.

And I like to liken this to an old hard drive when a computer would defragment that hard drive.

Essentially the hard drive had been used so much at such a high pace that the information had been stored separately.

And the computer finds all the pieces of it,

Puts it back together and stores it somewhere logical for access in the future.

And when these new parts of these memories come up,

It can feel like that's what's happening.

You may remember three quarters of an event and there's a bit of a blank spot in between.

That blank spot may suddenly get filled in and it's kind of like a hard drive defragmenting.

And what you may find is that that memory can then be stored a little bit more effectively,

A little more logically for access later.

The same will happen with previously unknown memories or new memories.

They'll come up.

They'll be unfamiliar,

Disorienting.

Most of them will sort of piece together and then they'll be able to be stored within your mind wherever they're meant to be stored.

And that's fine.

So that's memories in a nutshell.

We treat them as any other distraction.

We let them come,

We let them be,

We let them go.

But for anybody who lives with or has experienced trauma,

I would argue that the more I learn about trauma,

The more I see that it is more prevalent in the world than I thought it was.

So the more people will come to the meditation cushion with trauma.

So those that are living with or have experienced trauma will know that traumatic memories are very different from normal memories.

So a lot of feelings,

Maybe there's adrenaline.

It can be like you're reliving the experience very vividly.

And in effect you are.

And without diving into too much about what trauma is,

It's important to know that in effect you are reliving that memory in the moment.

As far as your brain is concerned it is happening.

So if you're meditating and if a traumatic memory comes up you have two choices.

They seem obvious.

You can either sit and go through and experience that memory or you can not sit and experience and go through that memory.

You're going to feel when you're ready to do either of those choices.

You're going to know.

It's going to come up and it will either flash into your mind,

Yes I'm okay I can sit through this or no I'm not okay and I'm not ready to sit through this.

First and foremost either of those choices are perfectly fine.

Particularly when it comes to trauma we want to approach it from a compassionate,

Understanding and loving standpoint.

So if you're ready you're ready.

If you're not you're not.

The time will come that you're ready or it may never come and acceptance of both of those facts is key.

But if you are ready treat it as we would any other memory or distraction.

Let it come,

Let it be,

Let it go.

And being aware of that defragmenting that may happen.

Because maybe this is something that you recall often,

Experience often and it is very common that traumatic memories will have those blank spots.

And it's quite possible that during meditation those blank spots will be filled in for you.

So the same awareness of that disorientation and of that process can really help.

We try to do the same thing.

We let it come,

We let it be,

We let it go.

And sometimes you may actually be able to watch this memory,

This external phenomenon file itself away in the usual memory banks.

And that is a fantastic experience when that happens because you can almost see those links being broken and the links I'm talking about are the links to those intense feelings,

Those hormonal responses,

Feelings in the body.

Those links get broken at that point.

The memory gets filed as a memory and the feelings subside.

That cycle is broken for at least that portion.

You're not always going to feel like you want to sit and go through that memory.

If you don't,

Again,

Perfectly alright,

Please don't force yourself when you're not ready.

If you're not,

Remember meditation is a game of patience.

You have the rest of your life to sit and meditate and to approach these memories at a time that you choose to.

Don't feel like you have to.

It is okay to not be okay listening and going through that.

Sometimes though we can change the conditions under which these memories come up.

We can kind of set the scene as it were and we can do this by if you're a person who lives with trauma and experiences repeated images,

Disturbing or otherwise from that trauma.

Take a moment to set the scene for your meditation.

You find a quiet place,

A calm place.

You can do things like introducing relaxing scents into the air.

Maybe you diffuse some lavender oil in a diffuser or you burn some incense.

Taking some of the physical stimuli and making them peaceful and that can help set the scene and make you a little bit more at ease with these things when they come up.

You can also consider things like where you're sitting,

You can put your back close to or against the wall if you're somebody that struggles with the feeling like people are sneaking up on you and you need to be able to see what's in front of you at all times.

Just eliminate that from the picture.

Put your back to a wall.

No problem.

If closing your eyes is a problem,

You can meditate with your eyes open.

I would encourage you when you meditate with your eyes open to find a neutral something to look at.

You know it could be a mark on your wall,

The corner of a piece of furniture,

A specific spot on a piece of fabric,

But something neutral so that you're not carried away with thoughts of that thing.

And then you could try meditating with your eyes open.

If you're in a neutral spot,

You're still able to cultivate and appreciate some of that peace without being distracted but you don't have to close your eyes and be scared of it.

Now if during the practice if you've set the scene,

The traumatic memories are still coming up,

You can feel free to open your eyes and look around and see that you are still in your space that you've chosen,

You're still safe,

Nothing has actually changed.

Help to remind yourself that it's just a memory.

If you choose,

You can close your eyes and continue to practice.

If you're still uncomfortable,

You can get up and move around.

Stand up from your spots,

Stand up from your cushion,

Your pillow,

Your chair,

Whatever,

Move around,

Move the body,

Get the juices flowing,

Look at the space around you,

Remember where you are.

And maybe then you choose to sit and continue to practice.

Or maybe you're still uncomfortable,

Or maybe it comes to this point right from the get go,

You don't have to continue practicing.

If it's too much,

It's too much.

Stand up and leave,

Mindfully make these choices,

Mindfully make the choice to open your eyes,

Mindfully make the choice to stand up and move around,

Mindfully make the choice to leave.

Now I'm going to take one more deep breath and then I'm going to leave this practice.

Take away the control of the automatic reaction.

There's nothing wrong with having to modify or cease a practice if you're experiencing trauma.

Meditation,

As we're hopefully coming to know,

Is a process by where we start to accept the things that are going on in our mind.

So if with memories or trauma,

We continue to reject them,

Whether they're a good memory of that memory,

A traumatic memory,

Whatever,

If we continue to reject them,

We're just feeding into that cycle of conflict.

The key becomes accepting them,

Accepting them for what and when they are and moving on from there.

And whether you move on and back into your practice,

Or whether you move on to something else that is okay,

Acceptance and moving on.

Thanks for listening.

I hope you have a great practice today.