Mindfulness, Memory and Puzzles
In my work as a neuroeducator, I come across stories about our miraculous mind that fire my curiosity. Every week, I share my thoughts about how to work smart to amplify your organic potential, develop a growth mindset, and foster your brain health. I hope you enjoy them! (scroll down to read more)
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A puzzle lies on the table. Its pieces live with colors and shapes that don’t make sense alone. Placed together they take on new meaning, fitting together as they were meant to all along, in harmony with the world in pieces around them, falling into place as they should.
Memory is like that.
Memory is one of the most mysterious mental activities of the human mind. Memory builds our life’s narrative. It is a story of who we embody each day, what we know, and who we were in the past.
Your legacy is built one memory at a time in a process much like the construction of a puzzle, yet it is never complete.
But, how often do we explore this idea to get a better understanding of one of the most powerful authors of your legacy? You have more choices than you realize over what your life puzzle will look like.
Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and neurosurgeon said,
“When you recall a memory, it is like assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle from a few small pieces to get it started.” Keeping Sharp: Build a Better Brain at any Age
As the pieces come together the story will emerge.
Those pieces come from a ”brain-wide collaboration” that takes information you have tucked away in the past and modified every time you use it.
For memory to work, the right pieces have to be present AND attached in the right way. If pieces are missing or not placed together as they should, there will be gaps and holes in the picture that are like grey spaces and the resolution and clarity will be diminished.
We have all had an experience where we pull up traces of something we are trying hard to remember that you just can’t quite see clearly. There isn’t enough data to complete the picture fully. Not to mention that memory is fallible, easily manipulated, and can be implanted. Sometimes we fill in the gaps with prior experiences that help it to make sense of the whole scenario.
Memory is not an accurate, objective record of what happened because it is a learning process. It is dynamic and linked to what you already know.
How is THAT for Improvisation?
When we have a memory triggered by new information, it will change because of the link you just created by thinking about it in your present context. That process evokes preformed beliefs and values that come from your collective experience as you. Your reality that has been created by constantly interpreting and analyzing all of the information that has come to you since birth.
In other words, we create our story. We make sense of our world dynamically.
Our truth is an ongoing process that is a unique compilation of what information we have access to and how we interpret it, fit it into our worldview, and our active decision of whether to retain it or let it be forgotten.
Because many of our beliefs, values, and ideas are ingrained, we are not always conscious of how we distort or interpret what we take in as gospel truth. Our perception is not the same as other people's perception because we see it through different lenses. The more abstract or philosophical the question, the more our interpretation of it is often biased by our own constructs.
Even scientific principles that seem to have concrete presentations are consumed and understood in ways that make sense to each of us. My mental pictures of the structure of DNA, for example, shifted when I learned the concept of the Fibonacci sequence. Its design became apparent at a macroscopic level I could see all around me...in pineapples, in the unfurling of a blooming rose, and the facets of a dragonfly’s eye. The depth of my understanding of that spiral shifted. It became more vivid in my mind’s eye.
And while this may seem disconcerting, it is actually a beautiful quality of the mind. We are not robots with computer brains that record bits of data clinically. We digest them and modify them into brand new things. This becomes a powerful source of self-awareness when we recognize the fact that we are approaching our world with bias. A bias that when we have it in consciousness we can choose. We can mold our mind to respond by the information we choose to provide it alongside the things we did not or cannot choose.
Memory builds our life narrative to fit who we are and who we become each day. It changes with each moment and we can bump its trajectory by adding winds of change. If you doubt this, think of someone you know who has suffered from dementia or memory loss.
As a graduate student, I worked in a long term care unit with patients who often transformed when they lost their memories. Some became aggressive who had been sweet natured all of their lives. Some reverted to childhood behavior and lost track of the hierarchy of relationships and called their daughters “Mom.” Some forgot the order you should put your clothes on and wore their underwear over their other clothing when dressing themselves.
The best protection of our memory is an active mind, which can halt or prevent memory decline. We actively determine who we are now by choosing our minds' exposures and interpretations. We are the sculptors that craft our minds and have choice in much of our final design.
We can choose to seek new pieces to add to our grand scheme and change the compilation of our puzzle’s outcome.
But, we only have a say in who we become if we are intentional and conscious of what new pieces we add. It changes with each moment as time extends our story. Without memory, we lose our identity and our legacy. Without awareness of what pieces we surround ourselves with, we can be influenced by those who don’t quite fit the picture of who we want to be and become blind to the crucial pieces we need to become complete, at least in this very moment before our margins expand.
To me, this is the purest form of mindfulness.
I want my own personal puzzle to grow and reflect a vision of discovery, beauty, light, and color.
What do you want your puzzle to look like?