ARE YOU AFRAID YOU ARE LOSING YOUR MEMORY?
Do you forget unforgettable dates, meetings, faces, names? Do you easily lose or misplace items?
I have always had photographic memory. At least growing up. At school, I never had problems retaining information. I loved school and loved studying and learning, however I will come easier to me to learn from photographic memory.
I cannot remember whether or not I had trouble growing up remembering events during my childhood. Maybe because it wasn't a concern of mine like it is now.
I started to realize, specially in college that all my learning was by photographic memory. Being a student-athlete, your hours of studying are cut to half because of your sport. And when you are an international student-athlete, the limited amount of hours you have to learn are also maybe cut down to another half. In terms of grades, I never had a problem since most of my learning was from photographic memory like I mentioned before. I was able to write down word by word from the textbook, even if I didn't know what I was talking about. And there lies the first problem.
I am not so much worried whether I learned anything from my major in college or not, since as much as I wanted to have a degree, my main priority was always golf. But there are some evitable actions I could have worked on earlier on, to avoid the situation I face now.
The older I become the least information I am capable to retain. I am actually forgetting important things in my life. Even those who I would think are truly meaningful to me, I will still forget.
I cant remember important dates with Robert, or successful moments in my Junior career when I was winning left to right and holding records yet to be accomplished. Cannot remember the name of the golf courses or places I travelled to. Even childhood memories at my house. I swear I forget a lot of things.
Faces, people, things... Day to day obligations are maybe the things I forget that makes me more irritable. And to be honest, I am not one to lose many things. I misplaced them, and either someone turns them in, or I manage to find it at the end. Amazing how life works.
I suffer a lot when I do things like this, I push myself really hard not to do it again and remain hopeful I would learn from these mistakes. I can say I have gotten so much better at it, bit still I am a work in progress.
The first thing I had done to work on this matter is to work with a mindfulness coach. I strongly believe the act of misplacing or forgetting things has less to do with my memory than with the act of not being present.
I want to state that I have tried many times to work on mindfulness, with coaches, audiobooks, books, and on my own. But it doesn't stick with me. This is something different I might talk about in the future. But even though I haven't become a mindfulness master, I have learned one or two things from the many times I have encouraged myself to practice it. I still do regularly, just not as regular as I would want to.
The one thing that has stuck with me is that the majority of times we are incapable of retaining important details, information and moments in life is because we are not present at that specific moment we live them. We are not truly aware of what is happening. The main reason is our minds. We are constantly worried about many different things at the same time life is happening around us. Our minds tend to be irrational emotional, bouncing from millions things that makes us preoccupied, therefore we do not invest our full attention that whats happening in front of us.
The worst part is that most of the times, our minds wonder in things that truly, once dissected into simple things, are not relevant or important. But because we attach big emotions to it, our minds make us believe it is a matter of life or death.
HOW TO FIX IT?:
First, I need to state, the following tips are tools I use to help me get better. There is not one rule for all, but for sure it won't hurt to try and see if it helps you too.
- Stay in the present. Easier said than done. But we can start by acknowledging when our mind start to wonder, and if there is something that is disturbing us, we can accept it. Press pause for a second. Tell ourselves that we are going to be OK, that things wouldn't happen to us if we weren't ready to face them. And continue on.
- Learn to make room in your day for yourself. Again, easier said than done. During this time, you can read, write, sleep or just pay attention to your breathing. You can go on walks, or attend to your pets. This is a great tool I use to slow down my pace and forget chaos for a second and focus on the core value of who I am - which is live.
- If interested in changing, search for a mindfulness coach. Look for a few, set up to meet with them, via phone or in person. Choose the one you connect with the most, and arrange a set of meet ups during the week. I prefer to choose a package of several pre-paid lessons, that way I cannot escape from them.
- Most importantly, don't judge your self. Use kind words when realizing you are not capable of retaining crucial info, dates, people or memories. Don't bring yourself down, otherwise the next time you are faced with needing to remember something important you might choke. Be your best friend out there, there is plenty of nasty people in this world to become one for yourself. Love yourself for wanting to change and love the process of changing with humbleness.
Long story short, we each fight our own battles, and more often than not we face similar battles. I just thought of sharing some of mine and what I choose to do to try to be a better person not only in the world, but with my self.
Have you guys faced similar phases in your life? Would love if you would want to share what you did to overcome ? I would love if you could share with me who you worked with, what books you read, any interesting workshop you assited and what strategies you used to get better.
OS OLVIDÁIS DE FECHAS O MOMENTOS IMPORTANTES, CARAS O PERSONAS? OS SUCEDE QUE SOLÉIS PERDER COSAS? TELEFONOS? CARTERAS? DOCUMENTOS?
Siempre he tenido una memoria fotográfica. Fue durante mi etapa de adolescente en el colegio que me di cuenta sobre esta facultad. Nunca tuve problemas para aprender, de hecho es lo que más me puede gustar en esta vida: aprender. El problema es que quizás mi método de aprendizaje solo fue de memoria, no de racionalización.
Y esa memoria fotográfica con los años se ha ido desvaneciendo. Y me preocupa.
No se en que momento comencé a tener dificultades reteniendo información. Ni si quiera sé si en mi época de esplendor, cuando aprendía todo con memoria fotográfica, también tenía problemas en recordar momentos en mi vida, o en mi carrera golfística. Si tuviera que apostar, diría que si. Lo que pasa es que ni me hacia perder sueño, ni me importaba. Diría que si porque he llegado a la conclusion que yo, Belén Mozo, tengo problemas hoy en día reteniendo información por dos cosas muy claras en mi mente:
1. Soy muy emocional y esto se que siempre lo he sido.
2. Al ser tan emocional, soy incapaz de mantenerme en el presente. Siempre me ha costado mucho. Soy una persona muy impulsiva, con muchísimas emociones, ideas, perturbaciones en mi mente a cada segundo. Lo mas curioso es que la mayoría de las emociones tan fuerte que siento, muy pocas son por mí. La mayoría de perturbaciones, pensamientos y emociones suelen ser ajenas a mi, suelen ser por personas a mi alrededor. Incluso pueden ser por personas que no conozco. Suelen ser sentimientos de alegría o pena. Y todos estos pensamientos y perturbaciones son las que hacen que me sea casi imposible retener información importante. Puedo estar escuchando, puedo incluso anotarlo en mi agenda. Pero lo mas seguro es que mentalmente este socorriendo algún que otro pensamiento que me vino a la cabeza involuntariamente. He aquí el poder de la mente, y del conocimiento involuntario como son las emociones.
Pienso que esta fase mía tiene arreglo. De hecho, lo he intentado varias veces. He intentado trabajar con varios entrenadores de mindfulness. Cuando no eran entrenadores, han sido libros, o documentales, talleres de meditación o simples conversaciones con gente especializada. Nunca he conseguido ser muy constante con este tema. Pero si he aprendido un par de cosas en el camino que me gustaría compartir con vosotros.
Lo mas importante, y aquello que tenemos que tener muy claro es que no estamos enfermos, ni somos bobos. Es muy importante no hablarse mal ya que el principal problema es emocional, si encima le metemos mas presión negativa, nos vamos a bloquear. Y eso es lo que debemos evitar, el bloqueo.
Es importante no ser tan autocríticos, y no juzgarse de manera negativa. Ni siquiera juzgarse. Lo que se debe intentar hacer es darse cuenta de que tu mente dispare. Una vez que seas capaz de identificar ese momento, saludas al nuevo pensamiento o perturbación, y te hablas. Te dices que es normal, que no pasa nada. La misma forma que entró involuntariamente se irá cuando seas capaz de aclararte a ti mismo que es normal tener este tipo de pensamientos relámpagos. Que todo va a ir bien y repetirnos que las cosas que en su momento pensemos que son malas, no nos estarían pasando si la vida no supiera que pudiéramos superarlo.
Esto son las pequeñas autoayudas que intento diariamente para poder progresar. Sobretodo durante estos meses que llevo sin competir. Por que si me pasan en mi día a día, os podéis imaginar en el campo de golf no?
Y vosotros? Habéis lidiado con esto? Me encantaría saber cualquier consejo de autoayuda, coach, libro, talleres o documental que me pudierais recomendar.