We Remember

   “Remember when?” How often have we used this phrase, then delightfully reminisce about a shared event. Hopefully most remembrances are happy ones, or at least fondly looked back on with new insight, a light emerging from a dark place of long ago.

  I recently read of a woman who wrote a memorial** for her dad, using humorous honesty, a simple from-the-heart approach. The article notes that many strangers responded to honor the man because they felt such a familiarity with him - he was like their grandfather, or son, or uncle. People related to the humor and the day-to-day similarities. Their admiration had nothing to do with him being famous, rich, or some other puffed-up social status, he was none of those. 

   How alike so many of us are. Time and time again people find out this reality. We may be in a terrible crisis, perhaps depression, feeling very alone, hopeless, helpless. Only by reaching out can we even begin to thread a connection, to awaken that deep familiarity we have with others.

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   Carl Jung (1845-1961), a great psychotherapist, talks about the “collective unconscious.” (Look it up, fascinating!) One part of it I believe is that deep within we all have a “knowing” of what it is like to live in another’s circumstances. We know. We may not want to “review” it, we may not want to “envision” it, so we put up the walls to protect our psyche from thinking we could ever “be like that,” with “that” being poor, homeless, raped, abused, or even simply being black, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim or whatever prejudice one comes up with. 

   Science is showing the incredible mixture of various DNA cultures that is within all people. Coupled with the collective unconsciousness within us, the very Spirit of Life -makes us all so similar. We may have different experiences, different socio-economic classes, different colors, different religions. But deep, deep down within us, within our minds, our hearts, our very souls, we know. 

   We know good and well we all belong to one another. We know good and well we can relate - we do relate- to one another. Remember when… Theresa M.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Carl Jung

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**Washington Post article “The hilarious obituary that made strangers miss a man they never knew” by Martha Eltagouri (obit by Jean Lahu on her father Terry Ward - was on Legacy.com)