Delete Sorrow from Your Memory.

Personal grief and post traumatic stress can be devastating and life will always seem unfair to those affected. After loss people live many narratives of anxiety and make choices within them; not being aware that these decisions made based on grief throw off the balance in their life. Now neuro- scientists Thomas Agren and team have discovered that newly formed emotional memory can be deleted from the human brain. When a person grieves for the loss of a loved one or has a traumatic experience – a long lasting memory is created in the brain by a process called consolidation. When we remember some sorrow the memory becomes unstable and is then restablilised by a consolidation process. In short we are not remembering what originally happened, but what we rememb ered the last time when it happened. By disrupting the reconsolidation process the memory is rendered neutral and no longer incites sorrow or anxiety. Dramatic changes to the normal patterns occur when the mental pathway is disrupted. The amygdala in the temporal lobe which stores these fearful memories is erased. Though this may sound path breaking the paradox is that this technique was available with our ancient Rishis. Sage Patanjali’s technique (Sutra: II, 33) asks us to cultivate contrary thoughts when our minds are affected with patterns of deep sorrow and intense privation- by rejecting sorrow only to accept happiness. The concept involves exposure to activities that bring joy and pleasure to neutralize reconsolidation of fearful memories. He exhorts us to indulge in the thrill and exhilaration that resides in true and genuine serious enjoyment of worldly pleasures. This raises our spirits to overcome the scars, hurts and past deprivations. In short it blocks the pathway and affects the context of our sorrowful memories. A sort of cleansing of the crisis of the soul. – Vinay- Psychology Uppasa University & Sutras of Patanjali.