Memories are patterns of energy

All of your assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, expectations, habits, skills, behavior, moods, emotions, experience, language, and creative thought are based on memory. Memories themselves are patterns of energy that symbolize events which are stored in such a way that an inner or outer stimulus (even another memory pattern) can activate them. Memories, of course, are vital to our functioning a human beings, but if the activation of the memory also activates a negative emotional response, the effect can be detrimental to our health, well being, and effectiveness.

While most techniques that work with emotional memories are designed to change your reaction or relationship to the content of the memory by teaching you a new response pattern (an additional memory), or changing the content of the memory itself (like changing the events in a ream) so that it no longer evokes the negative emotion, it is also possible to change one or more elements of the storage pattern, and thereby change its effects. In this process you change the context, not the content.

As an example, a big boulder in a vacant lot might be an eyesore, but a landscaper, without even moving the boulder, could change the surroundings so that the boulder would become the center of admiring attention. Another example, a poster taped to a wall might draw criticism, but in a nice frame it might draw praise. This is what I mean by changing the context instead of the content. Putting something in a different context can change its effect entirely. When you do the same thing with negative memories they can become neutral or even positive.

Memories are stored according to well-defined patterns, with one or more contextual elements being crucial to defining the positive, neutral, or negative emotion of the memory.The patterns can be different for each individual, so you'll have to do some experimenting and exploring on your own.

For instance, one of my students found to her great surprise that all of her successful and positive memories were stored in black and white, and all of her negative memories were in vivid color. As she began changing her most negative memories to balck and white, they either became neutral (they didn't bother her anymore), or she discovered positive aspects to them that she had never noticed before. This also led her to begin planning for future successes in black and white instead of color. It's always easier to work with the mind rather than to try to change it's basic patterns.

~by Serge Kahili King