Remember to Remember

 

In memory’s golden basket, drop a pearl for me. - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

You can boost your memory by "remembering" instead of forgetting. Every time we say, "Oh no, I forgot my keys!" We are actually affirming forgetting rather than what actually happened - you remembered (present tense) that you forgot something (past tense). Affirm the present moment, the remembering, and retrain your brain to say, “Wow, I just remembered my keys.”

Notice your memories replacing your eggs in your sacred womb space. There's a reason all these memories are coming up now. Mainly, because you can handle them. Emotionally, spiritually, you have the experience and maturity to review the past, and much like the oyster that coats the irritating grain of sand with the iridescence of the mother, it creates the pearls of wisdom. 

While going through the pause, I often found myself doing just that - pausing. Spacing out, blanking on names and words, forgetting what we were doing - a few more challenges to be sure. Fire up your brain. Practice mental exercises: crossword puzzles, Sudoku, logic games, and memory games. Use your fingers to keep lists for short-term memory. Use your phone for longer or long-term lists. Practice Beginner's Mind, connecting with a sense of wonder and innocence rather than confusion or doubt.

As we walked down to the beach, my daughter said, “Ok, Mom, I’m going to want you to remember something.”  I said, “Ok, honey, I’ll try to inscribe it into my little brain.” “Mom,” she said, a little exasperated, “It’s not your brain that’s little. It’s your bladder.”

Excerpt from Laphrodite's Guide to Mindful Menopause or the Adventures of a Baby Crone

Sweeping Beauty

Focus and Simplify

We live in a time of multitasking, over-committing and having shorter and shorter attention spans. According to Leo Babauta,

• Multi-tasking is less efficient, due to the need to switch gears for each new task, and the switch back again.
• Multi-tasking is more complicated, and thus more prone to stress and errors.
• Multi-tasking can be crazy, and in this already chaotic world, we need to reign in the terror and find a little oasis of sanity and calm.
• Our brains can really only handle one thing at a time, and so we get so used to switching between one thing and another with our brains that we program them to have a short attention span. This is why it’s so hard to learn to focus on one thing at a time again.

So the challenge is to begin single tasking. Charles Dickens once wrote, “He did each single thing as if he did nothing else.” This is a life lived fully in the moment, with a dedication to doing the best you can in anything you do — whether that’s a work project or making green tea.

Today my single-minded, distraction free, 15 minute task was sweeping the front walkway and sidewalk. Each time my mind would wander I would do a simple hypnosis exercise of noticing 3 things I could hear, three things I could see, and three things I could physically feel. 

For example, I noticed the sounds of the broom, the neighbors talking, an airplane in the distance. I noticed the weight of the broom, the sun on my shoulders, my hair lifted by the breeze. I noticed the colors of the leaves, the textures of the slate pavers, the plants that are surviving despite the drought. I was also aware of the smell of winter, the change in light, the satisfaction of creating order even though I will need to repeat it all over again tomorrow.

Hypnosis is an excellent way to retrain your brain to stay focused, increase your attention span as well as memory, and live a more intentional and mindful life. Call or email for your appointment today!

Warmly,

Kayla

Kayla Garnet Rose, PhD
www.KaylaGarnetRose.com
(831) 435-5182