AN UNUSUAL YET USEFUL ACTIVITY

As I have previously mentioned, I had no idea that I had HSAM (Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory) until I was diagnosed with it at 23 years old; nor did I know that the condition even existed until I was 21 years old. It was my firm belief that every person thought, felt and remembered in exactly the same way as I do. Yet regardless of whether I knew about my style of memory being somewhat rare or not, there was always an activity (which I now know to be related to my HSAM) that I enjoyed doing since I was a preteen.

This activity involved me waking up each morning, taking note of the date, and then picking my favourite recollection from that same calendar date of previous years. Then my intention was to try and re-create my chosen event. It would have to be a memory which brought me a feeling of intense joy, and would thus have the potential to make the upcoming day equally as positive for me. As well, due to the memory that I wished to re-create coming from the same time of year, it was much more likely to feel ‘right’ for me, given that the weather would either be the same or very similar to before. The way in which I ‘forced’ my mind to focus on a happy memory was to do as many activities as possible that would remind me of that past event.

Usually, the goal of this activity would be a huge success for me, because my mind was 100% focused on positivity, and my intent for that day would be to re-direct my mind to happy feelings whenever I got distracted by negative ones. In
truth, happiness never comes from what is around us or from what is given to us, primarily at least. More rather, it always comes from our own positive reactions to whatever crosses our path.

This does too work the exact same way vice versa with negativity. So regardless of how many gifts and luxuries we are given, we will only ever feel happy if we ourselves appreciate them; and whenever we feel negative emotions such as anger and disappointment, it’s our own inner reaction to what outwardly occurs which makes us feel so down and low.

Therefore, given that emotions only ever come from inside of me, I was able to make a dull or boring day a happy one merely by focusing my mind on reliving a positive memory. From what I mentioned in the above paragraph, I can also say that it never matters where a happy feeling originates. Just as long as I’m feeling positive (for any reason), I will be happy at any moment regardless. So I could indeed make even the most ordinary day feel like my birthday or Christmas, by simply redirecting my mindset.

Unfortunately, nowadays I have since been led astray from this necessary exercise. This is merely because I’ve been so busy with other things of late. Though my mother and therapist are pushing me to start doing this activity again, and I fully agree with what they are insisting. Thus I have now made up my mind to begin this today as I’m writing!

I titled this blog “An Unusual yet Useful Activity” for a reason, because it is exactly that. Yet not solely. Additionally I must too add the words “crucially important for my mental health” in my description of this exercise. It truly is something that I must never under any circumstances omit from my daily life.