Quick Book Review: Remember

I devoured the book Remember by Lisa Genova. It’s completely altered the way I think about and use my memory. Here are my three biggest take-aways:

• Your memory isn't a camcorder. Your brain isn’t objectively recording everything you experience. To remember something, you need to be paying attention to it. And what you pay attention to most are meaningful, emotionally-charged experiences that stand out from the pack. (This is why you don’t remember what you ate for lunch three Thursdays ago, but you do remember your first kiss). 

• Your memory is wrong. As someone who prides herself on remembering “right,” this one was a doozy. Basically, every time you take a memory file out of your brain bank, you alter it just a little bit. It’s like playing a vinyl record. Every time you slide the record out of the sleeve, place it on the turntable, and let the needle spin through the grooves, the record changes every so slightly. (This is why reframing a memory based on new information about yourself shifts the memory itself.)

• What you remember creates your life story: I found this fascinating. We tend to remember the memories that support our identity and outlook. Do you think you’re a feisty, unspoken women,? If so, you’ll more likely remember, and therefore reinforce, the memories of moments you stood up for yourself and others. What if you think you're always the unlucky one? Well your autobiographical highlight reel will feature an endless stream of painful disappointments. (This is why it’s important to examine which memories you’re holding on to and whether they’re reinforcing the type of identity you want to have?)

Our Genes Have Emotional Memories Too

An old newspaper clipping posted in our family’s Facebook group made every cell in my body tingle. 

Published in the Humboldt, Iowa, local newspaper in 1921, the article described my great grandmother’s epic exodus from her war-torn Russian village to her safe arrival in her new American town. 

Here's an excerpt:

“Finally Mrs. Serber secured aid and six months ago succeeded in reaching Roumania. One of her daughters died, and Mrs. Serber and the remaining child finally reached Paris. Snuggling on their way, mother and daughter were helped to Belgium. She arrived in Antwerp and sailed on the steamer Lapland. After ten days at sea the mother and daughter were landed at Ellis Island.”

I already knew about my great grandmother’s horrific loss of her two-year-old daughter, Myala, who fell fatally ill during their treacherous journey over. But what I didn’t know, yet viscerally felt, was that my great grandmother had passed through Paris on her way to America. 

For as long as I’ve been irrationally obsessed with France I’ve wondered what hidden forces drew me to this culture, this country, and more specifically, Paris. 

Discovering that my great grandmother had once walked the City of Light's cobblestoned streets felt like a small clue. 

Maybe she loved the city, and wished she could return under different circumstances. 

Maybe she felt at home, but had to push on. 

Maybe something magical, or mysterious happened to her here. 

Maybe she saw the bustling boulevards filled with cafes and escaped her misery for a moment over coffee with some locals. 

In any case, I feel like she passed a Parisian seed through the family gene pool that germinated and blossomed inside of me.  

Often in my coaching a client is deeply attached to an emotion, narrative or system of beliefs that feels so entrenched that it could well be ancient history. 

In our exploration, we sometimes find that these feelings and thoughts have been transmitted invisibly over generations, like familiar hand-me-downs you’ve been wearing for years, but whose original owners are long gone. 

The latest research in epigenetics reveals that our genes have a “memory” and that unprocessed emotions and experiences can be transmitted from one generation to another. 

If you're curious like me  about the provenance of certain longings, behaviors and emotions, I highly recommend the riveting new non-fiction book, Emotional Inheritance. 

Written by Dr. Galit Atlas, an Israeli psychoanalyst who lives in New York, the book is presented as a fascinating series of therapy vignettes. In each chapter we go behind-the-scenes as Atlas and her patients unravel present-day problems by uncovering and processing emotional material that sometimes goes back generations. As Atlas explains "when we heal ourselves, we also begin to heal the generations that came before us: our parents; our grandparents; our great grandparents and beyond."

Run, don’t walk to pick up your copy.  It's one of the most thrilling, and mind-bending books I've read in years and I’m sure it will be made into a Netflix series!