A Muddy Memory Brings a Fresh Perspective

It had been a particularly rainy, wet week. To the left of our house was a small section of grass and the water had logged there, creating a soup of mud, grass, and water.

I don't remember how it came to be, but my brother and I were playing outside and we had this idea to go into the mud. My feet squelched in the wet boggy mess. As I moved my weight from one foot to the other, I felt the sensation of my foot being drawn deeper into this earthly abyss.  I remember distinctly the panic, as I realized I was stuck. My prim white knee-high socks, freshly laundered, were now brown with dirt.

As I attempted to lift one foot out of the mud, I lost my balance and fell forward.  

I felt totally helpless. I cried. My tears were further entertainment for my older brother, who stood at the side watching this comedy of errors unfold. Through my swollen, tear-drenched eyes, I noticed he was immaculate - not a spec of dirt on him. It made sense he didn't want to help me. I was a hot mess and he knew it was only going to get worse.

My dad, home alone that day and responsible for getting us out of the house, dressed, clean, and presentable for whatever activity lay awaiting our arrival, was not happy. In fact, he was angry. His frustration spilled over into his actions and words and I felt the sting of more tears reach my face. My cheeks were flush with embarrassment and shame. I think I may have wet myself so distraught I was at making such a mess of the situation, both literally and metaphorically. My world came crashing down in those few moments. 

I must have been four years old at the time. I know my memory of this event isn't accurate, but it's how I recalled it last night.  

I have been reading a book recently called Loyalty to Your Soul - a book I highly recommend. It was this passage that brought the memory back to me:

“Freud has yet to be disproved in his assertion that the basic personality structure is laid down in the human infant prior to the age of five. Moreover, developmental psychologists have determined that cognitive reasoning as a mode of functioning comes into prominence at around age six. Isn’t that interesting? If these two observations are accurate, it means that basic personality structure is being formulated prior to the child’s ability to reason! How do younger children learn—up to age six—if not by reason? The answer seems to be that early learning is by association.”

Loyalty to Your Soul by Ronald & Mary Hulnick.

This is fascinating to me because it speaks to the human condition. Our minds are a powerful database that stores all of our experiences and those deep-rooted experiences, the ones that have the most influence over our adult lives, were imprinted in our minds before we had the capacity to reason. By reason, I mean to make sense of what has happened, to process it, and put it down to experience.

As I look back on the muddy memory, I realize my unreasoned mind had made a few strong associations that had overshadowed my actions and inactions over the years.

• I must be good - if I do something wrong, if I make a mistake, if I make a mess, there will be trouble and that trouble will be frightening and embarrassing and lead to terrible consequences.

• I also made an association between things going wrong and my needing help from others. A sense that I lacked the power and wherewithal to get myself out of difficult situations.

Don't get me wrong - this isn't a parent-bashing exercise - far from it. What the book is pointing to is how we all have these things in our memory banks that were innocently created. It's not anyone's fault, there will always be murky data in everyone’s system, it's unavoidable. In fact, it's an essential part of your learning process because it's these deep-rooted experiences that create the curriculum for your school in life.

So what can you do about it?

Actually a lot.

The first thing is to notice what disturbs you, to notice any internal reactivity, anger, judgment, impatience, or insecurity. These are signposts to help you unearth an old piece of data that is keeping you small.

As I look back now, I can see that one of these associations played out at times when I felt overwhelmed by a situation. I would get angry and upset that it was all on me to solve. I would look to others to help me, and when I sensed they couldn't or wouldn't, I would feel resentful that they were leaving me in a quagmire of shit. I would act out, and take my fear and frustration out on those around me because it looked to me like it was their fault I was stuck, just as it looked to me like it was my brother's fault that I was knee-deep in mud.

I also often felt an untenable amount of pressure to get things right, to have things in order. I grew to learn that mess equaled trouble and so my home would be immaculate and when people stayed with us or visited, I would struggle with the upheaval of that. So uptight I was about having everything just so. At the time it looked to me like it was the presence of visitors, it was their fault I was feeling so stressed, in reality, I was creating that disturbance within myself by the way I was interpreting and relating to it, based on these old associations.  

There are more examples, but hopefully, you get the idea. The things that stress you out, that cause an internal disturbance, have nothing to do with the outside world and everything to do with the way your brain interprets and relates to the external situation, and much of that interpretation comes from old associations innocently imprinted on your mind as a child.

“Nothing outside of you causes your disturbances.”  

Loyalty to Your Soul by Ronald & Mary Hulnick.

The second thing you can do is to fully, 100%, accept responsibility for your internal experience.

What keeps us imprisoned within our mind's habits and associations is that we typically perceive those disturbances as if they have to do with our current circumstances, or other people and so we project our anger and frustration onto others and our insecurities onto our circumstances.

This puts us into a victim mindset, there is a powerlessness when we project our internal experience onto our external reality. The implication here, is that anything and anyone out there can make us feel upset or disturbed, and that simply isn't true.  

When you take personal responsibility for your internal reactions and responses to life, you immediately create a sense of empowerment. It can be scary and daunting to make this shift, but it is essential when learning to grow beyond your limitations.  

“Personal responsibility is the foundational key that opens the door to Freedom.”

 Loyalty to Your Soul by Ronald & Mary Hulnick.

To be free of your mind's habits and patterns of perception, to stretch beyond those old associations, the ones that limit you, cause you upset, box you in, and have you holding onto grudges, is, I feel the soul's core desire. To find freedom from the psychological habits that inhibit potential and creativity.

Over To You

There is more to come on this topic but for now, I invite you to sit with these ideas. To reflect on what causes a disturbance in you.

What difference would it make to how you respond to your internal disturbances, if you stopped looking outside of yourself for answers or causes and instead looked within, to see what hidden, unconscious habit or association can be brought into the light?

What difference would it make to your sense of power and free will, if you took 100% responsibility for your internal experience and stopped projecting blame onto others?

If you feel a reaction to this article, if it seems wrong to you, or if it really resonates, I would love to connect: melanie@therestorativecoach.com

Life is a journey of growth, and our greatest lessons are the ones stored within us and they tend to have the most negative impact on our lives today.