Being there - again

For the past couple of weeks, I have been bombarded with memories from the past. Not just the odd flash of recollection but vivid moments of “being back there”. A sensory assault of smells, touch and sight. I feel everything of those moments.

I have been taken to some dark places and relived the feeling of those experiences, from so many years ago. 20, 30, 40 years ago, and I am right back there, fully in the moment.

As you know, I have been slowly increasing my Iyengar yoga practice and this may be the cause of this re-hashing of the past. Yoga does unravel you, layer after layer. At the same time, I have also been trying to re-invent myself, or rather return to myself after years of just going through the motions of my life. In any case I seem to be clearing out my mind, just like the wardrobe I cleared out last week, only without any seemingly deliberate intention.

Not all memories have been confronting, some have been joyous, all have been interesting.

A couple of days ago I found myself on the floor of my grandparents’ home. I must have been 4 or 5, maybe younger.  I felt the sun on my body as I played near the back door. I felt the carpet and saw the crockery planter that always fascinated me. This memory was so incredibly real. I could smell my grandmothers cooking and the strong smell of my grandfather’s pipe. I also remember feeling out of place. Lonely. My sisters were not there. Why was I? I had been there for days, or was it weeks? On my own. Was it a holiday?

This memory also sparked other memories from this time. There was definitely sadness and confusion surrounding this "holiday" without my sisters. I was so young, where was mum? 

As it turns out, we had all been separated (my two sisters and I) and sent to stay with relatives. Mum had had some sort of emotional breakdown. I never knew. I am the youngest and at that time no doubt would never have understood, had it been explained to me. However, my body knew. I have held that sadness, confusion and feeling of abandonment within my physical body, within my mind and in my soul. Not consciously. Not so that I felt it had any bearing on who I am today, (although it probably did on some level) but there it was and I was being shown it, feeling it again, only this time as an grown up.

Today, when these flashes of the past resurface, I am able to process them from a wiser place. I can see them through eyes of love and without judgement. I am able to forgive past hurts, to laugh at the innocent childhood folly and to cry gently, to wash clean the memories of past devastatingly painful events, the ones I  kept locked away for fear of feeling of them all over again.

They say you shouldn’t dwell in the past and to a certain degree this is true. However, I believe that it is very healing to “go there” from time to time. To look with loving eyes, to feel with an understanding and forgiving heart. Once this is done it is simply a matter of letting it go. Just let it float on down the stream, watch it go as your child self would watch a leaf simply wash away. You will be amazed how light and free this process makes you feel.