Daily Gratitude: In the strictest sense of this it’s correct. However, your thoughts and your memories of the past have immense power over the present moment since that’s what we base our current behaviors on. So, our task is to either recognize that a “memory” is our interpretation of something that happened (and it may not may not be factual), or to acknowledge it’s an interpretation and move to revise our opinion about it. You’re probably thinking “no way. I can’t do that. It is what it was” (one of my least favorite phrases). But you can think about in another way. It’s just a thought after all. What if you took something you didn’t enjoy and created an entirely new scenario around it. Take a car accident for example. Instead of re-experiencing the fear and anxiety, could you pretend to be Steven Spielberg or George Lucas and create a scene where you are magically removed from the car and you can hover above and watch everything. It might take many repetitions of this fantasy but after a while the thought of the accident most likely won’t create that rush/release of stress hormones and your reaction won’t be so severe. Don’t think it’s silly. Take it as a challenge. Your goal is to reduce the unpleasant reaction. Maybe also create a scene about your going to the car dealer and purchasing a new car. Can that provide you with the enjoyable hormones and give you a good feeling. If you feel this is stupid and don’t think your trauma is something you could do that with, try to remember that repeated playing of the event over and over keeps releasing those stress hormones and that adversely affects how you feel and is not healthy for your body. Remind yourself it’s not happening now and try whatever calming techniques you know about. Play with many combinations and take the power out of that memory.
