A question often asked of me is how can I erase a memory.
My answer is that at this time, (perhaps in the future this will change, and I think it already has), we cannot erase any memory, any experience that we have learned or had. The memory pattern, the neuron pathways will always be there.
The problem is, can we access them.
OK, there are going to be times when memories will be deleted, when people abuse the brain with alcohol, drugs, through an accident or brain damage, a stroke or the ageing process and degenerative deceases like Alzheimer’s. I am talking about the normal functioning brain.
All memories are started by some stimulus, a firing of in NLP terms an anchor. It is when that stimulus occurs and the brain searches the memory banks or goes on a transderivational search, it is the strongest match to that stimulus that will delivered to our consciousness, and a memory is brought to our attention or an unconscious reaction will occur.
I have had in recent times two examples of how our brain works.
The husband Necdet, of my colleague and sponsor Mehpare of GAP Consultancy in Gaziantep in Southern Turkey, took me to a football match between Gaziantepspor and Beşiktaş J.K. (click to see entry). He had a box available, a room with a big glass window, so we could sit in comfort and warmth, eating nuts and drinking, without sitting with the normal supporters in the cold.
Now unlike some people, a football match is not a sport I would go out of my way to watch, even when on TV, I have little interest, but I am not uninterested, I will watch a game on television and have over the years.
It has been over forty years since I did go on a semi regular basis to watch Wolves (the English Wolverhamton Wonderers), and I would shout and jump up and down with the best of their supporters. Since then, I have grown out of that way of life, I have been confined to watching matches on television
It was during the football match in Gaziantep, sitting in comfort in the box, that Necdet and myself said couple words to each other, and during in this brief conversation, a goal was scored, and I missed it.
Now I am so used to watching football matches on TV, that I was very aware of my brain saying, “no problem, you can watch the replay”. But at the same time, I was also aware that there was no TV screen, the glass window of the box was not a TV screen.
My brain was in conflict. It took some time for me to instruct my brain that there would be no replay as there would be in my home.
One of the best meals of the day for me, especially when I am in a hotel, is breakfast. It is a time I can sit and relax, watch others interacting with the world and others around them, and for me to be drinking a hot cup of tea with milk, and a fresh orange juice.
In the Hotel Auriga here in Milano, Italy, a small 4 star central hotel, I help myself to some cereals and go to the jars of juice. It is now my brain is in conflict, confusion occurs.
Which is Orange Juice and which is Ace (mixed fruit) juice?
Which is the orange juice?
All my life I have learned that oranges are the colour orange, and the inside segments of oranges are orange coloured, as is the juice. My brain, my memory is conditioned to these facts.
The red juice will be strawberry or raspberry juice. I am not that interested in that taste or drink, so I help myself to the orange juice, even saying “the orange juice” tells the brain it is derived from oranges, but when I taste it, it is not oranges, it is mixed fruit juice or in Italian, ACE juice.
The next day I serve myself the red juice, and guess what, it is orange juice.
Even drinking it now every morning, my brain still is in conflict, it still recognises and expects a different taste that should be associated with the red colour. Strawberry.
So we will have learned that the brain Deletes, Distorts and Generalises information it receives. My eyes had seen the signs near the jars of juices clearly indicating what was in each jar, so the brain Deleted that information, it took the resulting depleted information and went on the Transderivational Search to make an understanding, found matches that said that orange coloured juice will be orange juice and red coloured juice will be strawberry, thus Distorting the information, then it Generalises that this is the truth.
I am still aware that this process, this conflict goes on in my mind my brain every morning, and I cannot stop it.