How can scary 2 minutes that were lived 20 years ago still be so vivid?!
How can a short moment impact us deeply for many years, and why do scary moments have a deeper impact than happy moments?
In the last 20 years, I have been meeting people who live their lives with fear of water, people who will not enter the sea or the pool, and even being on a boat above water or seeing other people jumping into the water will make them feel deeply scared.
I kept on being fascinated by the human mysterious tendency to keep “bad” or scary short experiences imprinted for a lifetime in their body, while giving such a lighter impact to the “good” experiences they had before, like having a good bath before or after.
How can scary 2 minutes that were lived 20 years ago still be so vivid?!
I couldn’t find a logical answer to this phenomenon…
I was starting to question the human race’s tendency to cling to the “bad” while letting the “good” memory fade…
Recently, I came across Amitai Meged on the meaning of the concept of Sanskara –
In Sanskrit, it means – Mental impressions that get imprinted into our psyche
He refers to Michael Singer, that explain that each emotion that we resist gets imprinted into our psyche, unlike emotions that we live fully, and they get imprinted.
Meaning that a big part of who we believe we are, what we love, and what we fear, is based on the Sanskaras, the emotions we resisted in the past and got imprinted into our psyche.
While being grateful for the unique opportunity to be part of the salvation experience from fear of water for many individuals and the ripple effect to their children and families, that might be a big part of my fuel to keep on being excited to enter the pool and offer integrative water therapy after 20 years.
And from today, I am placing a new focus on allowing emotions to be felt, lived, and dismissed, so I will not be made just from what I resisted…
as a father , i understand that one of my main goals is to support my child allowance to her emotions to be allowed and felt , so they will not get stuck and she will not be stuck with resistance for many years in her life, as a therapist i have the same belief.
