How could forgetting make you lighter?

My graphic novelist friend once told me that writing down the moments of our history lets us take ownership over them.

Doing this assures the events belong to us rather than us belonging to them.

Isn’t that powerful? It’s one of the most compelling reasons to spend time each day blackening pages with our thoughts and feelings.

Because when we write, we always get the last word. There’s no need to dwell on such matters forever. We can free our mind and heart from the burden of holding on to the details of our past, and from the stress of whatever future challenges are ahead.

As someone who writes every single day of his life, let me say, this ritual is profoundly cleansing, lightening and liberating. Once I write what happened to me the day before, I can totally forget it. It just goes away. I am no longer suck in time.

This is not an insignificant feeling, considering most people spend their days remembering things a way that does not allow them to forget.

My goal is to seek out places where forgetting is more useful than memory, and let things expel out of my system. It’s like a bowel movement for the soul.

Hyde, in his profound book that explores the healing effect forgetting can have on the human psyche, says that to forget is to stop holding on, to open the hand of thought. Whereas the continuation of psychological time and the survival of the ego are really the same thing.

He asks:

Why drag about this corpse of your memory? Slough off the memories which no longer have present relevance. Forget what yesterday had in store for us, good, bad or indifferent, and then refocus on our goal for today.

Wow, talk about pure presence. Who knew forgetting was such a powerful form of leverage?

It’s funny, most people just use alcohol to do this, not writing. It’s the oldest cliché in the book. Some drink to remember, some drink to forget.

But scientists have recently found that drinking actually strengthens bad memories instead of diminishing them. Austin researchers found getting drunk primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember things more clearly. Alcohol alters the brain’s chemistry which makes the overwriting of memories difficult.

Like where you parked your car, for example.

All kidding aside, the words of my mentor come to mind, who once told me, writing is the basis of all wealth.

Perhaps we could extend that mantra to, writing is the basis of all health.

If you’re struggling right now and looking for a magical, glowing doorway to a warm and fuzzy world, find a way to take greater ownership over your story. Blacken some pages and lighten your spirit.

Do you write to remember, or write to forget?