Tapping onto our mental images.

The more you tap onto a mental image, the stronger it becomes.

I have noticed that we don’t visit and take a trip to mental pictures of happy moments as much as we do of negative events. And so the negatives events take more space in our mental images than the positive ones.

And therefore. We can’t remember but only negative events. You would be able to remember your traumatic and depressing times way more easily than the happy moments you lived.

Because once you have lived those moments, your mind doesn’t see any worth in revisiting them. But our mind never gets tired of seeing the worth in moments that tore us apart.

You take a trip to those mental images. And keep on forcing them into your memory.

Living life is like drawing with the least bit of force. And once you have lived those moments, you keep reflecting back at them by revisiting them in your head. That keeps making them darker and fresh to you. The more you keep revisiting them. The more they are fresh to you. And the more they will seem relevant to your brain. Even if they don’t really matter in the present moment.

How traumatic your past has been, has nothing to do with your present or future. But because you keep reflecting at them more frequently that you keep carrying them in the present and the future.

I remember the moments of shame and insult more than I do of appreciation and regard. Why? Because I have spent sleepless nights thinking about them. I can count them on my fingers. I would probably even start crying if I am made to speak about them. But the case is not such with appreciations.

If you close your eyes and try to remember the details of the moments you enjoyed. The moment when you kissed or when you held your baby for the first time. It will be kind of like meditating and enlightening. You will feel the real bliss in the present moment and gratefulness.

So it is a fact that the traumatic events have covered more space in our mental images than the blissful ones. And that makes us think of our overall life as miserable.

But the kind of mental images we have only matter to a certain level. It has little to do with enriching our lives and increasing our overall happiness level. Our sadness is more of the product of living in our heads. Either we are revisiting the past or knitting the future, which keeps us away from the present.

It would be a temporary solution to revisit more of the good moments and feel the bliss. But the root cause lies in our need to avoid being in the moment.

The only moment that you must focus on drawing must be the present and that will keep you away from this illusion that the mental pictures you have in your head really matters.

Originally published at http://sanarajarsite.wordpress.com on May 10, 2020.