Exploring Memories - Personal Tao (2025)

I was asked about managing memories, so this month’s Blog Post and Video Tao class will be about memories.

I will first share a picture and memory from living in a small cottage with my rescue cat Ishtar as a magical moment of life.

This was when I started Personal Tao in 2004 twenty years ago. Yet, while this is a current memory of living once upon a time, I cannot live within this memory. Memories are in the past, and the past, well… is past gone.

While this may look like a happy memory, it isn’t. At that moment, I didn’t take the time to pause and be fully present. Now, all I have left is an external memory stored in the picture. External memories never carry the full flavor of the event. Fortunately, I have many other moments I did pause with Ishtar, so all is good. We cannot pause in every moment; otherwise, we miss the other moments of a full life.

The video for the class can be watched here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/online-retreat-109997869

A picture Julie literally just took 5 minutes ago, sharing a moment of her life. This Buddha paused a little too much :)

I will share a secret: we might not be able to relive the past, but we can live eternally within the moments we pause. This is partially why I teach people to pause, to help each person touch their eternal nature. I will go over this teaching in the Tao class this week.

Curating Life Stories with Memory Management

A Memory of Julie, Mina and myself walking in older ruins. Arizona in 2007.

People hold onto memories tightly, like a life vest, to keep them afloat in the vast sea of the universe amidst their challenges. Instead, a light approach to memories opens up more of the universe to explore over just treading water in life.

We are our essence, our consciousness focused on striving in life with our personal style of expression. We then follow the lead from our essence and create stories as a vehicle to move through life. Memories are the echoes from our life’s road trip, used to navigate future challenges.

Memories help capture life experiences and are used to learn our life lessons, yet they also create problems. Let’s discuss some of the challenges that come with memories.

Memory Problem #1

Memories echo, repeat, reverberate, and pester a person. Memory echos can drive a person crazy when they reinforce trauma or mistakes.

Memory Solution #1

Don’t only try to remove bad memories; doing so will create more echoes and reinforce them.

Use a mantra to dampen any memory echo that bothers you. Say out loud: “I don’t know” when a bad memory pesters you to dampen it down. Another mantra is to say “KALA” and imagine light and then fade the memory into that light.

The mind doesn’t like to ignore things, so you lightly acknowledge and dismiss non-useful or terrible memories. Accept that memories will echo, so practice this acknowledgment and fade concept so memories will dampen with time rather than get reinforced through giving them extra energy.

Using this approach can also allow you to substitute one memory for another.

Memory Problem #2

Have you ever seen a person trapped in false memories?

Memories are not stored as a “fact” in your mind; they’re fractal, intermixing with other memories and is “lossy” (every time your mind revisits a memory it loses a little bit) over time. Over time, gaps form in memories, and the mind fills in gaps with other memories or best guesses.

Memory Solution #2

Never “edit” (correct) another person’s memory, as that will only create conflict.

Memories are personal truths, and truth is always a story about facts. As a result: memories are stories.

We are allowed to edit our own stories. People unconsciously edit their stories and memories all the time. Strangely, people think it is bad to edit memories consciously. But guess what? You can also consciously edit your life stories and memories.

This is a profound insight: We are allowed to curate our life stories. We are the authors of our own stories. Every seven years, our instincts are wired to push us into becoming a new person by starting a new story. This also means we can choose which memories to hold on to and release memories that no longer serve us as we age.

For example, I don’t need to remember throwing up after eating that ketchup-dosed hotdog at seven years old now that I’m 60! Ok, I just remembered it again, that is the echo problem I mentioned above. I didn’t actually remember it until I dredged and forced myself to remember some yuck to use as an example here. But now instead I will swap it with the memory of swimming at my grandparent’s docks and move on. No more… what was I talking about? See it worked. We can choose to hold such memories if they serve us somehow (in this case, for teaching others) and let other memories fade. Sadly, the more intense ketchup-cover memories tend to echo, so see point one again. The point is this: we can let some memories fade as part of changing our story lines.

For example: Above is a very different hotdog free Casey from 20 years ago. In essence the same Casey, but in memories and story a very different Casey than you know now.

It turns out that each person has a limit to how much memory space they have, and if you hold on too tightly to all your older memories, you hamper and reduce the number of new memories and experiences you can embrace.

In order to become the Casey of today, I had to released many memories from the twenty years before this photo. This doesn’t bother me, I celebrate the changes and continue to embrace new life and experiences that may come. Keeping some memories and releasing others.

Going Deeper into Memories

Now, let’s make memory management more interesting. I break down memories into four distinct different types of memory.

Fractal “Experience of Facts” memories

The basic memory construct everyone thinks about and uses day to day.

Story Based Memories

Our minds can process memory more as a story than as a fact. As a result, if you tap into the story side of memories you get a very different experience. Some people have a more literal style of memory, and others have more story-based memories.

External Memories (pictures, cell phone)

As tool users we can extend our essence into tools. This means tools become a part of us and increase our capacity to do things.

(1) So you can extend your memory into physical objects. Touch your shoe right now, pause and let memories come back to you. You might remember this mornings walk, or running away from the mad dog very vividly all of the sudden.

(2) You can also store memories into objects (using your cell phone to remember phone numbers)

(3) Our mind can stash memories, emotions, trauma, and pain into our muscles and body. Touch you arm, and remember when something happened to your arm. You might be surprised at how many memories will come flooding back into you. This is why hot baths, massage, and other other healing modalities can help people process memory and trauma.

Discover that releasing some memories, means you must also release the objects you hid the memory into.

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