Healing of Memories for Oneself

I received this handout from the Center for Ignatian Spirituality. It's relevant and I'm certain, it'll it home to most who read this.

Sometimes we experience a lack of freedom in ourselves, an inability to cope with something, an inability to forgive, a fear, a problem with uncontrollable anger or something like that. No matter how we pray or what we do, nothing seems to help. The first step is to discover the root of the problem. Very often it helps to talk it over with a spiritual guide. Sometimes our weakness or unfreedom is a result of an inadequate prayer life. Sometimes it is a result of an unwillingness to face the truth or to let go of something we want or a lack of discipline in our lives. Sometimes it is because we are too busy or too tired. Sometimes it's because we have not forgiven another. In instances like these, what we need for healing is repentance not prayer.

There are times however that the issues are rooted in the past, even in the time we were being carried in our mother's womb or in the process of birth. No matter how loving our home life has been, no matter how happy our childhood, it was not perfect. During the various stages of growing, we have experienced the oppression of others as well as that of institutions and structures. So we carry in ourselves the wounds of bad experiences, some of which we have not thought about in years.

There is a way of praying for the healing of past experiences. It is sometimes called 'healing of memories', sometimes 'psychological healing'. It rests on the fact that Jesus is the Lord of all time, past, present and future, that he can even change the effects of the past.

Some time ago a woman in Joseph's community said to him in passing that he had a lot of bitterness in him. Joseph was busy at the time and busy afterwards with a lot of things so he did not do anything about it. From time to time her remarks reoccurred to him and he did realize that occasionally a sharpness would develop in his tone of voice, a certain harshness would color his relations with others. He would ask for forgiveness when he could and move on. Finally he did learn to pray over these experiences and experienced through prayer a great deal of healing.

The elements of such prayer are simple:
1. Recall God's love and power.
2. Ask the Spirit's help in recalling the memories of the bad experiences of the past which affect you now.
3. Be quiet and let them come to mind.
4. Walk back into those recollections with Jesus and imaginatively reconstruct what would happen.
5. Thank Jesus for his love and healing.

Sometimes this must be done more than once. You know when you are healed when the child or person in the memory is smiling and happy because of the presence and love of Jesus.