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Repressed Memories

Several months ago, my wife and I were sitting at a bar on Kaanapali Beach on Maui watching a mother humpback whale and her pup frolicking not more than 100 yards from shore. The sun was setting and frost was forming on our Mai Tais. Across the bar from us sat a couple, both in their 30s. She started talking about two women she knew back in the states who had both died of breast cancer. They were her age. Here she was on the beach in Hawaii not enjoying the sunset or watching the whales, but worrying about her mortality.

The Common Thread
Over the years in my exploration of the mind I've had the chance to work with women who have been diagnosed with cancer. There is one common thread that I have found throughout all of these women...they were sexually molested as children. I would be using some of the standard NLP techniques to resolve other issues and they would spontaneously remember being molested. (I later discovered that some therapists can induce false memories, but I wasn't looking for them; they just showed up.) Now I'll admit that my sample size isn't that big, but if every single person was molested, maybe it's a clue.

I've seen estimates that one in three girls and one in four boys are molested. If so, it's a wonder that cancer rates aren't higher. But the difference may be that some people repress the memory and others don't. They deal with it.

One man I spoke with was a long term survivor of colon cancer. I asked him how he'd done it. He gave me the standard answers: chemotherapy and radiation. Then he said: "I asked myself why I got cancer and what I needed to do to get rid of it. An answer came from deep within: Stop doing business with those asshole partners!" He immediately sold his interest in the business and was alive 10 years later to tell about it.

Repressing a memory doesn't make it go away, it just stuffs it down and forces us to deal with it as a physical manifestation. In some cases as a cold and other cases as cancer.

How do you know if you have a repressed memory? Most people tell me that there is a time in their past that's black, gray or foggy. It's obscured in some way. I'll tell you, it's temporarily painful to deal with an unpleasant memory, but isn't that better than carrying it around forever? Find a good doctor for your mind and resolve it.

The resolution involves integrating conflicts, changing limiting beliefs, and editing memories.

Autoimmune Diseases
What about autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS)? One of the women I got to know during my journey had been in the final stages of MS paralized from the neck down. She was going to die, but a budding NLP practitioner worked with her to integrate her internal conflicts. Eventually she recovered a memory.

She wasn't molested as a child, but her family was puritanical and somehow taught her as a baby that her genital area was off limits. You might be able to imagine the conflicts that would create when the biological imperative kicks in. Doctors wonder why MS rears its ugly head between puberty and menopause in women and only rarely in men.

The common thread I've found in autoimmune diseases is a strict religious or cultish upbringing that somehow creates a conflict between our natural urges and imposed ideals. To resolve the conflict, the immune system fights the body's urges by attacking tissue.

The resolution involves integrating conflicts, changing limiting beliefs, and editing memories.

Other Treatable But Incurrable Diseases
Doctors can prescribe medicine to treat hypertension (high blood pressure), but they don't know how to cure it. One doctor's book on hypertension suggests that at least half of all patients can eliminate their hypertension by resolving what he calls "hidden emotions." What are hidden emotions? In most cases they are the symptoms of a repressed memory.

Here's My Point
Bad stuff happens to good people and children. Sadly, some of these experiences leave a lasting impression or memory. Repressing the memory can result in diseases of one form or another.

But you don't have to live with the memory. Memories can be changed to neutralize their impact on your life and health.

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