Website design By BotEap.comDid you know that you can evoke memories with all your senses? Some studies have decreed that being right or left brained defines your personality. Other studies show that we use both hemispheres to solve problems.

Website design By BotEap.comAccording to Dr. Judi Hollis, family therapist and psychologist, “Our creative and emotional right brain is much more influential. I always recommend less intellectual discourse and more action and emotional exploration instead.”

Website design By BotEap.comRegardless of which side of the hemisphere your memories come from, just know that they are there waiting for you.

Website design By BotEap.comI have the perfect plan to recover memories. She closes her eyes and calls on your five senses for memories. I guarantee they will come! I’ve used this method in my workshops, and once my students tune in, they can’t help but let their pens go crazy. A treasure trove of memories is waiting to spill out, and it’s hard to know where to stop.

Website design By BotEap.comThis, then, is the easiest way to write a memoir of a certain moment in your life, or an autobiography that you can pass on to your children. You are giving them a gift. When you ask the question: How did my parents and their parents deal with life? What made them the people they turned out to be? What made me the person I am?

Website design By BotEap.comTry these exercises the next time you sit down to recall memories.

Website design By BotEap.comAUDIENCE: Use your ears to pick up sounds that can remind you of years past: favorite songs, expressions, poems. The haunting whistle of a train in the distance. Have you ever taken a trip on the train? Where? What was the occasion?

Website design By BotEap.comThink about listening to the radio when you were a child. What shows were favorites in your family? Do you remember lying on the rug with your siblings listening to those radio shows? Was there a favorite baseball team you rooted for as you watched the radio and listened to the announcer shout out the exciting play-by-play action? Were your parents there? Did you have a sense of family?

Website design By BotEap.comVIEW: Look for hidden items in old drawers or boxes; things you could have kept years ago. These treasures will spark memories. Tickets to theaters, plays, ball games. Napkins or a box of matches from some long-forgotten first date. Who was she/he? Old photo albums. Scan them for people you know, who you haven’t seen in years. Did they impact your life? What were they like? Where was the photo taken? Old photo albums are a link to your past.

Website design By BotEap.comI TOUCHED: Find old clothes at the bottom of the closets; clothes in boxes stacked in the garage that you couldn’t part with. An old coat that belonged to your mother, father, or a child who moved out a long time ago. A mohair sweater that you relegated to a back drawer years ago. Touch them with your eyes closed. Feel the memories.

Website design By BotEap.comTASTE: The burger joint you found that reminds you of “the old days.” The cherry coke you used to have after school at the corner malt has now returned to diners in 1950s style. Think about who you were with, your favorite outfit, hairstyle, friends. What were your favorite songs you put on the jukebox while you were at the malt?

Website design By BotEap.comSMELL: This is a sense that we could not do without. This is a tried and true source for bringing back memories. Animals live on it, humans take it for granted. However, without smell, the food would have no flavor. Imagine a world without the taste of food! What if there was a fire? You wouldn’t have any warning without smell.

Website design By BotEap.comNow sit down at your computer or grab your lined yellow legal pad. Close your eyes and breathe slowly through your nose. Now think of your youth. Think of the wet grass early in the morning where you loved to run barefoot. Inhale slowly through your nose. Think about how the earth smelled after a good, hard rain. Inhale again. Think about how bad your dog smelled after being caught in a good, heavy rain. Don’t inhale!

Website design By BotEap.comOne thing about the sense of smell is that most people can associate some kind of memory with it. You hear it often: “Oh, what is that smell. It reminds me of when I was…”. The smell of our mother when she worked in the kitchen; Fried chicken, oven-roasted ham, scents that clung to her as she went about her chores. It smells when she was getting dressed to go out on the town with Dad; the cologne that wrapped around her as she leaned in to kiss us goodnight. Comforting scents.

Website design By BotEap.comThen take those memories, one by one, and expose them to improve your writing memories. Try to associate those memories with another memory. A sentence on the page can last ten pages longer as you recall smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing, all associated with moments in your life. All of these memories can be triggered by most of the senses, but the sense of smell can more easily bring them back.

Website design By BotEap.comTry to remember what was happening in the world at the time you are writing about. What year was it? Open Wikipedia.org in your browser and type in a year. Amazing what you can find if you try. Start with that year on your document. As you write, other memories from that time will bounce off those memories. More associations. Write down the month or season. If those memories take you to another year, start another page for that year.

Website design By BotEap.comWhen doing this, don’t be tempted to edit. Let your fingers fly and your memories flow. Inhale the odors. Write whatever comes to mind while you’re in that old room with your family. Don’t stop until you run out of thoughts.

Website design By BotEap.comWhen you come back to your story, whether it’s a day later or a week later, go back to those memories and breathe in. More will come. As the years go by in your document, you will remember more: your classroom; the smell of chalk, the smell of sweaty children after recess. You will remember the children you played with; the bullies, the friends. Write it. All these memories are what made you who you are. They should be included so you know what made you the person you are. Your children need to know this.

Website design By BotEap.comSoak in the smell: your college dorm, stale beer, dirty socks, and cigarettes. Or dances, dates with handsome boys and corsages that smelled of lavender and gardenias. Memories will flood one after another. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to bring back memories of your sense of smell.

Website design By BotEap.comTry it out and let me know how it worked!