Imagine you get amnesia… Who will you be?
“Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep”…your ears woke up first. “Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep” Already, in that moment; who are you?
That repetitive tone you hear; what is it causing or triggering in your body? You don’t know your name, where you live, who you love or who loves you… “Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep”… What are you feeling? Are you tense, stressed and alert or are you smiling and moving your toes to the beep-beep-beat? Interesting… your memory may have disappeared, but your nervous system didn’t.
Next you’re about to check out of hospital, Doc says you’re well enough to go home and tells you to get back to your regular routine. ‘My regular routine??’ You have no idea what that is! Someone drives you home, you walk in… and your life introduces itself to you.
What you are doing on a daily basis now. Take your amnesia-struck self through that experience mentally; who will you be?Clear your mind, just open it up for a moment… and if clearing your mind is difficult, let’s IMAGINE… Create an imaginary clear open mind…and step into it.
Walking into you house or bedroom…look around, feel, see, be in your room. Be a detective, your life is the mysterious riddle and your home holds the evidence to solve it. The books you see; why those books? The coffee mugs, your music and the art on your walls. The shoes on the floor, the clothes draped over that exercise bike… look for evidence in your wallet, an expired gym membership, the half-finished knitting, the six notebooks full of business ideas, the stack of unpaid bills and the inside of your fridge…
Your environment is your autobiography, without memories, your possessions become clues…what evidence have you found?
Our habits reveal more about our identity than our memories ever will, without your memory; do you still get up and make coffee? .you still reach for coffee. Do you still make your bed (did you ever)? Do you still apologise too much, still interrupt people, do you still smile at dogs and do you still avoid difficult conversations? Memory is only part of our identity…but habit…Habit is identity made visible.
I purposefully didn’t add your pets, but cannot quite leave out personal relationships. Meeting up with you best friend, you don’t know this person at all, but they know you. Observe carefully, what response are they expecting from you? We al play a role of sort in each relationship, does your best friend expect you to laugh, to complain, to gossip… do they expect you to save, help and advise them? Others remember versions of us we no longer notice…If you had amnesia, whose version of you would be true? Yours? Theirs? Neither?
The partner you chose, what they expect and express. Your chosen profession, is it chosen? Are you good at your job and do you actually like it?
Who are you? What do you love? What lights you up and what makes you frown and crinkle your nose? Inspect your life, your relationships and routines, your environment and possessions… not for comfort, but for alignment.
Who will you be? … And how far is it from who you are now? This explorative exercise was fun when I started…because no matter who I know myself to be; truth is, my calendar says more about me that my journal, my habits say more than my opinions, my room speaks louder than my words…my routine speaks a truth that I was not ready face.
If you woke up with amnesia and your life spent a few days introducing itself to you… would you recognize it? Recognize yourself? And if not, would you chose or do differently?