Boxes

This week, I was having a chat with Steve about the healing process behind emotions and our past memories. “In many cases, we ‘split off’ parts of ourselves that we don’t want to deal with.” he said, as we walked through the rainy streets of San Francisco.

The idea behind ‘splitting off’ aspects of our consciousness involves creating a distance between ourself and the object/memory/person we somehow perceive as a threat. As the distance grows, so can our perceived notion of the threat, until we perceive it to be an enemy – rather than a reflection of ourself.

I think this idea helped lighten my own experiences with the changing dynamic our family relationship has evolved through as time has gone by. On one hand, there are moments where the bond feels ever-close and bulletproof. Other times, I’ve found myself creating safe space to allow our differences to be voiced, heard, and disarmed.

Past memories seem to resemble gifts. At some point, we make a trip to the store to purchase a gift for a loved one. We then take the time to wrap, present, and release the gift to the recipient. In other cases, the process flows in reverse.

I’ve found that a healthy way to process past emotions is to treat them like gifts; each one resembling something new we gave/received. Without concerning whether we were the giver or the recipient, there comes a healthy time to wrap up and put away the details of these memories. We can wrap them, knowing they’ve come from loving hands.