How We Make Memories

Memory: By definition means

: the power or process of remembering what has been learned

: something that is remembered

: the things learned and kept in the mind

Taken from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memory?show=0&t=1417465844

 

 Remember your Memories

To remember is to hold keys to your past, to understand your future. To remember can be a good and bad thing. Sometimes we do not want to remember our past. Sometimes we try very hard to put our heads together with other family members or friends to remember every detail of a great past memory.

After studying psychology for years, working with young children and adults in my own private practice I have seen and heard many stories and have worked with people who have struggled to keep memories alive in their family due to memory loss. It really breaks my heart to watch a family member who may feel less loved or cared about due to their own parent getting a disease like Alzheimer’s for example.

Never Take a Day for Granted

Many times we get going so fast in our day to day work that we literally do forget to stop and smell the roses as we enter our home or work office. We forget to stop and eat lunch or worse yet, we just start to forget over time because we are working ourselves silly.

Our memory helps make us who we are whether recognizing past loved ones, how to walk and talk, recalling past joys, or how to grill a burger. Memory is accessed through recall, recognition, and relearning. A time capsule helps you fulfill all of these, recall facts of the past, recognize old information when presented with an old object stored in the time capsule (like an heirloom pocket watch), and relearning or refreshing old information such as when you study the family tree you relearn the things you have forgotten more easily then when you first created it.

We are all like computers. There are three stages. Memory is recorded in the brain, stored for future use, and then eventually retrieved. Starting with external events or activities around us, memory is encoded in the brain through sensory memory to working or short term memory, then to long term memory. We take our minds for granted many times. Many times I have to turn things into songs, in order to remember it, which is why those annoying commercials sing you their phone number over and over so you do not forget it.

So what does all this have to do with a time capsule?             

Many times as we get older, we start to lose our memory, or things like procedural memory which involves how to do things. This is why our elderly parents need our help. One way to help your parents who may have alzheimer’s is by pulling out their own time capsule and reminisce with them as they recall their old, past stories of the good old times. To make memory really stick, you want to connect it to something meaningful or related to your own personal, emotional experience. That is exactly what the time capsule does.

Memory is extremely powerful and is constantly shaping and reshaping who you are, your life, and identity. Our memories may haunt us or sustain us, but without them we are left on our own with no identity of who we are.

Preserve memories and traditions as your kids grow up. Don’t wait till it is too late, and you forget those important memories.

Write your kids a letter about the things you are excited about or scared about as a new parent. Then when your child is older let them open their own Baby Time Capsule with the letter in it. You may be surprised yourself as a parent what you forgot you felt like as a new mother. Also make sure to include a letter from your baby’s grandparent while he or she is still alive to tell their old stories of life as a grandparent to your baby.

As you, the parent, get older, you may want to preserve your own meaningful photo albums or tangible items in the time capsule, so when your memory starts to slip, you have a reference point of what life was like when your baby (now grown child) was born.

Do you remember what the price of gas was when you were first able to drive a car? Comment below.

 

Making Milestone Moments Count,

–  Marcie

www.timecapsule.com