Chasing Backwards – Page 4

Last night, we attended a high school drama cafe night — students singing, playing guitars, folk music, rock and roll, jazz etc. What blew me away was the combination of energy, sincerity, off the charts costumes (their normal outfits), and the absolute desire to do their best in front of hundreds of people.

I loved it. Being in touch with the teenage present, catapulted me back to my past and the dreams I had back then.

It takes courage to change and grow. We did it once when we were kids and there’s no reason we can’t just pick up where we left off decades ago and continue the process.

Chasing Backwards into our past doesn’t have to be a trip to the psychoanalyst. It can simply be taking the risk of opening our senses. Hearing the music of our youth, smelling and tasting the foods that we grew up with, seeing pictures of ourselves, our families, and friends back in high school, and having the courage to feel it.

Because we’re part of “the establishment” doesn’t mean that we have to be rigid and unable to learn and grow. We did it once back-in-the-day, and it’s exciting to do it again.

What’s it like for you to chase your past?

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The mind is beyond sophisticated, but a little misguided. When events are too upsetting, it deposits the painful memory or feeling in a place that won’t disturb daily functioning, the “dreaded” unconscious.

Sounds great, right? If you don’t know it’s there, how can it bother you?

Wrong! The hidden memory can still send out subliminal signals that can cause nightmares, panic attacks, depression, anxiety etc. The symptoms are often so disturbing that you finally call your doctor who prescribes sleeping pills, tranquilizers or antidepressants so you’ll feel better. For a while, you do! Then it all creeps back.

“I’d like to refer you to a psychiatrist,” your doctor says.

“A shrink!” you say, more than a little insulted. I’m not crazy!

One tough, Italian guy, Joe Belmont, a 1st year medical student, who just happens to be the hero in my novel, Chasing Backwards, is in an even worse predicament. Whoever killed his mother and uncle are now trying to kill him, and the only way he can save himself and his girlfriend is to find a way into his own unconscious. The key to the whole mystery lies in his past, and Joe has no idea what lies buried in his own mind.

So unlike Joe, who has only days and himself to solve the problem, you can schedule a consultation with a psychiatrist or a therapist like a normal person. By now you recognize that it’s not just some intellectual or philosophical need. You’re sick and tired of feeling miserable and are ready to do what it takes. Figuring out what’s hidden in your unconscious is not psychobabble, as Joe in is his pre-psychological-minded days called the whole process. Psychotherapy is a treatment that can help make the unconscious problem conscious. Once you know what’s really going on, because now it’s out there for you to examine, you get the opportunity to deal with the issue and really feel better.

Please feel free to leave any comments and observations. If you were able to figure out what happened in your past, how did you do it? Did Joe Belmont’s experience mirror any of your own? Did understanding your own unconscious help you to have a better life?

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