If every cell in your body gets replaced every 7 years, how do you remember things that happened 8 years ago? Where are your memories stored?

The (currently) conventional view is a kind of computer-like model whereby memories are stored in the brain – specifically the cortex (the wrinkly bit on the outside). So let’s think about computers…

Bloatware = software whose usefulness is reduced because of the excessive disk space and memory it requires.

How much are your memories supporting you and helping you run efficiently? How much are they slowing you down and frustrating you?

Uninstall some of your bloatware – optimise yourself – with #hypnotherapysteve

Let’s stay with a conventional scientific model for a moment, and consider DNA. What is it, if not a kind of memory? Your genes are your own – but they contain bits of your parents’ genes, and bits of their parents’ genes… and so on.

On some level, you are who you are because of billions of years of ancestors – not just humans, but smaller animals, and all the way back to single-celled organisms.

The Selfish-Gene Theory suggests that all that time your genes have been slowly learning lessons and adapting to circumstances – like, hundreds of millions of years slowly... So on a subconscious level, you’re hardwired-in to survive and thrive.

That’s a pretty deep resource! You can definitely use that to deal with whatever it is you’re facing now.

Why is learning to ride a bike so tricky? Why is remembering how to ride a bike so easy? How would you teach someone to ride a bike? – can you think of anything to say except push the pedals round and keep your balance?

There’s not really much more to say – you just have to try it, and keep trying it until you’ve got it. It’s the same with learning how to whistle, or click your fingers. Through trial and error, you build up a ‘muscle memory’ of the ‘right’ way to do it. And almost all of this occurs below the level of your conscious intelligence. Learning how to ride a bike is just something that your body has to do, rather than your (conscious) mind.

So your whole body is a part of your memory system…

The Mind is so much bigger than the brain.

Why do you only remember some things; or some details of some things? Who decides what you remember and what you forget?

Have you ever tried to remember something – maybe for an exam, or for a part in a play? You will have realised very quickly that just wanting to remember something is not enough. It's clearly not you who decides what to remember…

This alone should be enough to open your eyes to the profound power of your subconscious. That’s the place to go if you really want to make changes in your life.

We could look at it another way, which is that you do actually remember (store) everything – but it’s the recall which fails you…

So maybe we need to learn how to tidy up our minds – and the key to this is finishing things. When you get something out of a cupboard – like a cup, or a t-shirt, or whatever – that process remains unfinished until the thing has been used, washed and put back in the cupboard. Just have a look around you right now and you’ll probably get some insight into the tidiness of your mind.

Any upset you experience is another indicator of something in your psyche clamouring to be finished. It’s another symptom of inner untidiness.

However, if you’re always concerned with tidiness (in a kind of obsessive compulsive way), this is usually a mask depicting a fear of untidiness. And you couldn’t fear it unless it was in some way an internal reality for you. It’s like being obsessively early for things out of a fear of being late – it’s exactly the same internal pattern as someone who is always late, but with an extra layer of fear on top. Whether your attention is on the past or the future, it’s equally not present.