Implicit memories are experiences stored in the mind without one’s conscious awareness. These memories can be positive or negative to your mental and emotional health.

Explcit memories are experiences stored in the brain with one’s conscious awareness. These memories can also be positive or negative to your mental and emotional health.

There was a time recently where I realized I was living from a place of negative implicit memories and by gaining that awareness, I was able to then adjust my thinking in a way that produced more hopeful, healthier thoughts.

From the outside it looked like I was having a fantastic week and not an ounce of pain or fear was creeping in but on the inside, I was getting confronted with thoughts bubbling up, thoughts about the other shoe dropping about a particular situation.

“Where are these thoughts coming from?” I thought to myself. My head hurting, the forehead scrunched, I could feel the stress running through my body, cortisol levels going up. “Is there any evidence for what I think might happen in my mind right now, will happen? No, no there isn’t.” Then it occurs to me, my mind is running back to past memories where I saw certain things as a child take place, certain things that were not good, certain things that instilled fear in me.

Those memories are from the past, they do not control my future if I can train my brain to think otherwise. I want health, I want glad to be togetherness, I refuse to let my past, painful memories, fearful memories, dictate my future. By talking through these things with ourselves, a trusted person, and/or God, we can then bring those implicit memories to the forefront of our minds and develop a new explicit memory, or pursuing healing from the past.

Freedom. Joy. Peace. Often comes at a cost, but it’s absolutely worth the effort and work to put in. Your brain will love you for it. Your relationship will love you for it.

It’s the small moments, the small choices like this, the moments of “reframing” those thoughts that help us get to healthier, freer, redeemed places.