Photo Album

Do you have photo albums?

Do you enjoy going through them? Of course, you do. Doesn’t matter if they are digital or of the physical kind. 

Most likely, in these, you keep memories of happy times to revisit. Photos carefully clicked by you to reminisce over, later.                                          

Maybe there’s a photo…

… of you with family, smiling, at a get-together

… of you with friends, having a great time

… of you on holiday seeing exotic places

… of you as a happy child

… of your wedding

… of things that you want to remember, things that make you feel happy.

But, do you take photos of unhappy moments? I am pretty certain you don’t store those in your albums.

I am sure, you don’t have a photo …

… of you being scolded by your teacher/mom/aunt/uncle

… of you worrying, stressing over something

… of crying when you were hurt

… of breaking off with a significant other

… of an angry moment

… of you when you’re sick

Nobody would take pictures of these and put them in their albums, would they?

And yet there’s another photo album — the one inside our heads.

Our secret photo album — which is made from our memories.

In this album, we safely store negative, sad photos.

•  Snapshots of being insulted

•  Pictures of being let down

•  Vignettes of unhappiness

•  Images of our failures

There are very few happy pictures in this secret album in our head.

Isn’t that sad?

Well, we just can’t help ourselves, can we? After all, life is a blend of various emotions based on our experiences.

Life gives us a choice of what we would like to focus on. We can choose to stay miserable or learn from our experiences and move on.

Now, here is a little exercise which you must try:

•  Pull out that secret album from inside your head.

•  Then, delete the photos/memories of things that make you really unhappy, things that don’t inspire you, things that upset you.

•  Dump them in the bin and then, empty the bin. They have no place in this album.

•  Replace those sad photos with photos/memories that are similar to those happy pictures, the ones you keep in the albums you look at to walk down memory lane and feel nostalgic, the ones you show off to people.

To your secret memory album, add a photo …

•  of that time when you and your friends/family/partner shared a special moment

•  of that time when you experienced real kindness

•  of that day when the sun shone bright and everything looked beautiful

•  of that warm hug from a loved one.

•  of that…

Think of happy memories you can add to this secret album.                          

These are the photos that really belong in your memory.                                            

Then, when you pause during your day, you will find yourself lovingly pulling out this album from your mind and turning its pages, smiling, laughing, feeling good.

When you sit back and think, you’ll have pleasant thoughts.

You’ll be less stressed, and far more happier with these wonderful memories.

This weekend, Try to rearrange your Mental Photo Album to retain Happy memories and remove the negative ones and Stay Blessed Forever.