O Teach me how I should forget to Think…Thou canst not teach me to forget

We are addicted to many things, but perhaps nothing more pernicious, contagious, or enduring as the addiction to forgetting and its twin--denial.  To forget is an attempt to remove from our heart, a central aspect of life, exiling, forcing memories into the darker regions of the unconscious where they fester, and live hidden from consciousness, while actively sabotaging our psychological and spiritual growth. 

We have learned a great deal from the fields of psychology and thermodynamics about the effects of damming up energy. Ultimately, psychic energy, like all other forms of energy will not be contained or thwarted, as it will always find its way to expression. 

This natural law is true of the migration of memories is especially evident in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  Here the haunting, never-ending presence of their murder of King Duncan brings both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to their ruin, and ultimately to Lady Macbeth’s death. In a desperate attempt to escape from the inner madness caused by the endless flood of unwanted memories of her merciless part in the Kings brutal murder, she commits suicide.

On the other hand, memories are revered and play a central role in many of the world’s religions. In Judaism, we learn, “That to forget is to abandon, to forget is to repudiate…without memory truth becomes only the mask of truth. Remember that only memory leads man back to the source. ..Only memory matters.  No not a phantom which I see only at midnight, I know one cannot see a memory.   But I can.  I see it as the shadow of a shadow which constantly withdraws and turns inwards… Then I hear it cry out, I hear it whimper softly.  It is gone, but I see it as I see myself.”.

Far too many drunken and drug induced nights lived as a desperate attempt to outrun the ghosts that can never be evaded or denied. Regardless of the wreckage and ruin caused by the addictions, and the never ending bleeding in of our memories, like Sisyphus we try day in and day out to push that stone up the mountain only to see it fall back down in the morning. An all too familiar and endless cycle of pain, and forgetting, until we find the strength, to face those ghosts whose presence never let forget the life we have lived or feared to live. In such moments, grace allows the healing process to begin.  Hand and hand in this dismantling of the addictive life, is the need to remember.  Now out of the shadows and away from those unsavory denizens frequented for far too long, allowing us to imbibe on some exotic elixir promising forgetfulness, perhaps we can finally look at our self in the mirror without contempt feel compassion and the courage to begin the life that has been waiting for is in potentia for so many years. Healing process begins helping us to begin the process of dismantling their addiction and to remember and all those moments and experiences which have shaped our lives.  Now out of the shadows and those denizens we have frequented for far too long, perhaps we can finally look at our self in the mirror without contempt and now for the first time in more years than we care to remember, feel compassion for the life we now have to live.
 

Suicide is not the only way we try to avoid unwanted memories. Many people turn to alcohol and drugs as a desperate attempt to outrun their pain that can never be evaded or denied even through the reliance on these substances.  Like the mythic Sisyphus, they try yet again, day in and day out to push that stone up the mountain only to see it fall back in the morning.   This endless cycle repeats until they find the strength, courage and grace to face soberly the consequences of their transgressions, and to consciously life with and suffer the  guldtadn shame for what they have done, so that their life’s energies are again free to begin the process of dismantling their addictions and begin the p[process of redeeming their their life’s meaning.

       The wisdom of these stories encourages us to listen to the inner pleas offered by Psyche, who holds a promise of a future we had given up on.

To be updated shortly..