The Woman Who Can't Forget

Click here to order if after reading this post you would like to buy The Woman Who Can't Forget!  It's quite a neat book.  It's even crazier how I found it. I'm a bookworm to the core and sometimes you can even find me reading and walking through a store.  I can only do that alone of course when I'm without my kids.  Otherwise I'd lose them all.  Anyhow....

The Woman Who Can't Forget is about an extraordinary story of living with the most remarkable memory known to science.  This lady can remember everything from the time she was fourteen.  Before that it was more selective.  If you even give her a specific date, she can tell you what day of the week it was one and what she did that day or what was in the news that she saw.  She can remember in detail even how she felt, smells, emotions, fears.  Like someone playing a video tape and watching their past.  She sees it all like it was just yesterday.  That can be a good thing or a bad thing.  She said it is terribly distracting for her because something will trigger her memory and she'll have all these memories flood her mind.  One time she walked into a house where she smelled baked potatoes cooking. Instantly she had a memory of when she was two years old and her mom was doing the same thing and what day it was.  It's just incredible how she can accurately give you dates of things that happened and all the details for that day.  She says that people around her in her life don't argue with her about certain things.  Like what was said because she accurately remembers converstaions.  Her husband probably thinks that is interesting.  Ha. Anyhow, I could talk forever about it but it's because I find it fascinating. 

So, here is what I've gleaned from this book so far.  She talks about memory scientifically speaking.  She talks about different things about our memory. One of them is how people can make up false memories for us.  Or tell you something over and over till you believe it.  Like suggesting memories to you.  You can actually start to believe it.  Its why you don't give suggestions to a child who is in a trial for obvious reasons.  Like "did Mr. Bob do such and such to you?"  You don't suggest an idea to them because they will start to believe it.  Well, think about how this works with the people you grew up with or hung around.  If you are always told you are stupid.  That you always were this or that.  You start to believe what you hear.  We tend to exaggerate our pasts sometimes too.  Or our significance in a room.  We think that if we volunteer with a group of people, we have the most significance in helping.  Our brain can go many ways.  We can build up our memories (add to) in our mind and it becomes truth to us.  Well, that never happens with this lady because she remembers everything exactly as they happened.  Good and bad.  I've had people, and still do, in my life that spoke so much negative into my life that I tend to believe it.  As if it were truth.  Never mind that 80% of people I know speak positive.  For some reason I take the insults of the smaller percentage of people and take it as truth.  "You'll never be a good mother. You'll never be a good wife, etc."  Why do I take it as truth when in fact it's garbage?  GARBAGE.  Of course we all have stuff we have to work on.  We learn things.  I usually learn them them the hard way.  Well, at least I learn.  I'm open to correction.  To teaching.  I'd be an idiot to not take criticism sometimes and see if maybe there is any truth to it.  Maybe it's a crock when someone tells me I talk too much and don't listen.  Then again, could it be true?  Could  I learn to listen more?  That was an example. But if someone in your past spoke negative into your life, don't take it as truth.  Don't let someone pin something on you.  I may not be the most organized supermommy their is.  But I love my kids like crazy and I'll do anything to help them live their life to the fullest and learn to live their life in Christ.  This book helped me to realize I was letting people put thoughts into my head that were false.  To not take them as truth.  I don't need to stoop down to the bar they set for me.  I refuse to become that person.