Unlocking the Mystical Reasons Behind Selective Memory: A Spiritual Exploration

I have very few memories of my youth.

From childhood to young adulthood (mid-to-late twenties), I don’t really remember many details. The details I remember are usually immensely embarrassing or awful, and they continue to haunt me. Many of the lovely memories just cease to exist. Mundane memories are a hit or miss; the weirder they are, the longer I remember them.

I don’t remember riding my very first rollercoaster with my friend at Wonderland, but I remember when the wave pool was closed due to feces. I don’t remember relationships of my youth, but I remember when one partner mistook “I love your hands” for “I love you” and the self-sabotaged well of anxiety that brought me down. I don’t remember anything about my high school prom, not even the theme, and I was on the committee that chose and organized the theme (and I didn’t do drugs or drink), but I remember being consistently led on and embarrassed by my former male best friend. All the things I want to forget or have no need to remember are burned in my memory. All the things that seem like joyful things to reflect on have vanished from my brain. My former best friend always used to say, remember when, and I always had to say no (which is too bad because they were hilarious stories).

When I posted a story on Instagram about this around a month ago, quite a few people messaged me privately and told me they were also in the same boat. They remember really useless, embarrassing, or terrible details but can’t remember much else. Initially, I thought it might have been a result of my EMDR therapy, but the forgetting and remembering isn’t consistent enough for that to be a reason. So it got me thinking: could there be a spiritual reason for this forgetting?

Now, I am well aware of the reason for forgetting our past lives when we enter into a new incarnation. This is why I thought that there might be some interconnected reasoning behind forgetting present-life past doings. I am also aware that souls in the aether have nostalgia for their past lives, so I also wondered whether many of my earth memories would return to me at the end of this lifetime. These are things I cannot answer indefinitely (and I haven’t clairaudiently tuned in to confirm), but they’re meant to encourage thought and discussion.

In Michael Newton’s book Journey of Souls, he speaks about this forgetting (with past lives) when we enter into a new body.

“In Chapter Five, Case 13 demonstrated how amnesia is imposed upon us when we come into a current life, so that past life experiences will not inhibit self-discovery in the present. The same condition holds true for souls examining future lives. Without knowing why, most people believe their life has a plan. Of course, they are right. Although amnesia does prevent having full conscious knowledge of this plan, the unconscious mind holds the key to spiritual memories of a general blueprint of each life.
[…]
Dr. N: And you haven’t yet had the memories of all your past lives and your life in the spirit world blocked out by amnesia?
S: That starts after birth.
Dr. N: When the baby is born, does it have any conscious thoughts of who its soul is and the reasons for the attachment?
S: (pause) The child mind is so undeveloped it does not reason out this information. It does have parts of this knowledge as a means of comfort, which then fades. By the time I speak, this information is locked deep inside me and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
[…]
S: Learning from a blank slate is better than knowing in advance what could happen to you because of what you did before.
Dr. N: But wouldn’t knowing about your past life mistakes be valuable in avoiding the same pitfalls in this life?
S: If people knew all about their past, many might pay too much attention to it rather than trying out new approaches to the same problem. The new life must be … taken seriously.”

I decided that my own past-of-my-present-life forgetting must be the result of one (or more) of the following:

• Personal choice of my soul for its evolution and learning
• Karmic cleansing or balancing
• A lesson on non-attachment and mindfulness
• Spiritual rebirth or a result of ascension (frequency complications)
• Divine plan and purpose

Let’s break each down.

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PERSONAL CHOICE OF MY SOUL FOR ITS EVOLUTION AND LEARNING

My humanness and my human brain are really nothing without the guidance, instruction, and leadership of my soul. Even Newton mentions this in his other book, Destiny of Souls, saying, “Our thoughts, feelings, moods and attitudes are mediated by body chemicals which are released through signals of perceived threats and danger from the brain. Fight or flight mechanisms come from our primitive brain, not from the soul. The soul has a great capacity to control our biological and emotional reactions…” Our souls take the lead on our primative and lizard-like brain. Humans are shells without a soul.

So, perhaps my soul knows exactly what it is doing. Perhaps there is an intention behind it moving these memories of my past out of the way. Maybe I am evolving exactly as I am supposed to and my past serves no real purpose in that evolution. But that doesn’t explain why I remember many of the bad things but never the good.

That leads me to the next point…

KARMIC CLEANSING OR BALANCING

Perhaps I am supposed to remember all the uncomfortable things because I am supposed to find forgiveness in those moments. Maybe there are karmic cords that need to be tied off and discarded and because I haven’t done that yet, those memories stick around. Happy moments usually don’t serve a lesson or learning where energetic balance in concerned, so maybe I haven’t properly energetically let go of the others.

A LESSON ON NON-ATTACHMENT OR MINDFULNESS

The more we focus on, obsess about, and drift off into our past, the less we live in the present. I had a friend who only ever talked about high school and I honestly think that kept her trapped in it. Emotionally, she never truly grew up because she only found her joy in the memories of those four years. So much so, that when I grew up and became different than the girl she knew from high school, our friendship dissipated (and she continued in relationships that were high school in nature and which nurtured her attachment to the past).

What does it serve me to remember my high school prom, other than stories for my child when they’re older? But what does this story serve them in the grand scheme of things? My hard lessons will be far more valuable than the others. By releasing my past, I can fully step into the present and walk down into the future of me.

Claudia of my youth is no more, so why remain attached to who I was and what I lived?

SPIRITUAL REBIRTH OR THE RESULT OF ASCENSION

It does seem that every time I go through some sort of shift or Awakening, a lot of memories fade away with it. There are even pieces of my first months in France (and the traveling I did on my own) before meeting my (now) husband that I have forgotten, despite them being (at the time) so essential to my growth. I do wonder if it’s like stages in a video game where you beat the “boss” of the level and you’re moving on up to stronger and more important bosses that are essential to your character development and life storyline.

Perhaps these memories that I no longer have just don’t serve the new me. Perhaps my frequency has changed so intensely that those memories simply do not align with where I am at anymore. Maybe each rebirth comes with a new “amnesia”.

DIVINE PLAN OR PURPOSE

Finally, maybe this forgetting is all a part of a Divine plan or purpose beyond my soul’s knowing that I just wouldn’t understand until I reach the aether. Maybe me and others who seem to forget pieces of their past are simply not meant to know the purpose of this forgetting. In the end, since I simply can’t change that I’ve forgotten, perhaps it’s better to just accept it as it is and move forward, focus on the present, and not worry about it at all. To be quite honest, it doesn’t bother me that I don’t remember, I just always found it rather odd. But if it’s Source’s/God’s plan, perhaps it’s not odd at all.

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Michael Newton on Memory

Unrelated to past lives, Newton does touch upon memory. He divides memory into three categories:

“1. Conscious Memory.

This state of thought would apply to all memories retained by the brain in our biological body. It is manifested by a conscious ego Self that is perceptive and adaptive to our physical planet. Conscious memory is influenced by sensory experiences and all our biological, primitive instinctual drives as well as emotional experiences. It can be faulty because there are defensive mechanisms related to what it receives and evaluates through impressions from the five senses.

2. Immortal Memory.

Memories in this category appear to come through the subconscious mind. Subconscious thought is greatly influenced by body functions not subject to conscious control, such as heart rate and glandular functions. However, it can also be the selective storeroom of conscious memory. Immortal memory carries the memories of our origins in this life and other physical lives. It is a repository of much of our psyche because the subconscious mind forms the bridge between the conscious and superconscious mind.

3. Divine Memory.

These are the memories that emanate from our superconscious mind which houses the soul. If conscience, intuition and imagination are expressed through the subconscious mind, they are drawn from this higher source. Our eternal soul mind has evolved from superior conceptual thought energy beyond ourselves. Inspiration may seem to spring from immortal memory, but there is a higher intelligence outside our body-mind which forms a part of divine memory. The source of these divine thoughts is illusive. Sometimes we conceive of it as personal memory, when actually divine memory represents communication from beings in our immortal existence.”

It is clear my Immortal memory (my subconscious mind) is a very selective storeroom of my conscious, ego, human thought. Maybe it is for that reason that so many conscious thoughts are forgotten; they are of no value to the Divine Memory or my superconscious mind, so they are not worth ruminating over.

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In the end, I don’t know that I’ll ever fully understand why so many of my memories have vanished. If I spend too much time thinking about it, I’m losing precious opportunities for present growth and future advancement and Ascension. The most important thing of all is that I am on an ever-present journey of healing and who I am now is one million times better than who I was five, ten, twenty years ago.

I have always been one of those people who needed to write it down to remember (can’t even go grocery shopping without a list) so perhaps this is just further push from my spirit to remember my path as a writer, and to make an effort to scribe all I can. An analog approach to life, something I may have lacked at certain phases of my life, will be the key to helping me remember and keep what matters most.

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xx C