Mama’s Best Advice: Words of Wisdom Digest
The Brain In My Heart
When my heart remembers what I’ve tried to forget.
by Wandra Felecia-Najat MamaSezWisdom™
My heart skips a beat, I’m feeling happy and excited, then fearful and alone, all after I see a picture. It’s of someone I’ve loved who has since drifted away. Although we aren’t together, my heart has kept a record of the emotions, without my permission. Those emotions are embedded in my heart. This phenomenon I experience–when I feel emotions that I hadn’t conjured up through my conscious thoughts-is due to my heart’s memory. It means that even before my mind goes to meditate on an old painful event, my heart of its own volition has stored, identified, and pulled up that file. It has remembered the feelings and all at once–they’re ignited, even if just for a moment.
Like the brain, the heart has a memory. If you’ve ever experienced an EKG (electrocardiograph), which looks sort of like a telegraph. The brain inside my heart is a metaphor for the heart’s memory, a printed encoded hard copy of life’s emotional events. Amongst other emotions, the heart remembers fear, pain, and love.
Embedded in your heart is a record of emotional events for people, places, things and this can trigger your heart to react and feel the emotions before you are able to intellectualize where they stem from.
When I see the face of someone I love or used to love, it triggers a response in my heart. Immediately feelings emerge — it’s an involuntary response. My heart sometimes skips a beat or I take an extra breath. So, although, I’ve tried to forget, the brain in my heart won’t let me forget.
Getting through it
There is a science to document this phenomenon, as is published. “The heart remembers what the mind forgets.” There is also a science that can help to deal with this phenomenon. It is called cognitive-behavioral therapy; with CBT you can learn to channel insight coupled with self-talk to accept that the memory in one’s heart has a life of its own. Knowing that it’s a fleeting feeling which – unless entertained – will pass, you can learn to tolerate them. Even when the feelings bring negative emotions, they will pass, if you allow them to. Otherwise, if you can enjoy the trip down memory lane, then do.
I’ve gotten through some of these experiences where my heart remembers and so these events have become less toxic and more tolerable over time. I have learned that the memories in my heart have a purpose. I’ve learned that I can briefly visit the painful things my heart remembers or my spontaneous negative memories and not get stuck there.
References.
Ballet A, Mulleman R, Vandermotte M. Acta Clin Belg. 2021 Aug;76(4):310-313. doi: 10.1080/17843286.2020.1724449. Epub 2020 Jan 30. PMID: 31996105.
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