By Katherine Gibson (The Cascade) – Email
Online: March 14, 2014
When we last spoke with Gabriella she had just completed her last session with UFV’s counselling staff and was heading off to a relaxing winter vacation.
Having spent the last semester learning how to effectively use relaxation breathing techniques and pinpoint self-defeating thought patterns, Gabriella has returned refreshed and ready to tackle the next portion of her UFV counselling experience — memory mapping.
Picking up where they left off, UFV counsellors asked Gabriella over winter break to create a comprehensive and chronological list of her memories, from earliest childhood to the present. Although a seemingly simple task, Gabriella reveals that this exercise proved challenging.
“It was difficult. I didn’t even have to get into the nitty-gritty of it …but it was tough,” she says. “Trying to figure out when stuff happened, I filled out the sheet and there were a lot of blank parts. I still find myself during the day thinking, ‘oh, I have this memory now,’ and then I try to place it on the time scale of when it happened.”
Although struggling at times to remember, Gabriella emphasizes that there was importance in listing all of her memories, as it concretely revealed the impact of moving so often in her life. Going from Los Angeles to Costa Rica, to England, and then over to Canada, Gabriella pinpointed frequent movement as a disconnecting factor between herself and her own memories.
“It was really tough, not in that the memories had a [hard] theme, but more that I was just shocked that I really don’t remember much,” says Gabriella. “I’ve moved so many times in my life, so just seeing that moving and how detrimental it [is] to my linear memory. I can’t place where I am in the country sometimes,” she goes on. “[My memories] just feel really distant from my own thoughts. It was kind of like I was separated from what had happened.”
And while acknowledging a disconnect within her memory, Gabriella also noted that this memory exercise gave her the opportunity to relive special moments in her life, moments often left untouched in her everyday life.
“I had a friend who died and I remembered [her],” says Gabriella. “We had projects where we would plan our lives …and we had to say what our career would be and how much money we would make. I was going to be the graphic designer and she was going to be a fashion designer,” she continues. “It was nice to go back and just think about that — and her.”
After having mapped as many memories as she could, Gabriella sat down with a counsellor to highlight and organize all of these moments. Now, having structured her thoughts, Gabriella has left the memory list with UFV counselling staff, in order to have them look through and choose one or two memories from each year of her life to discuss during her next session.
Gabriella is excited for the process, as it will allow for an outside and neutral interpretation of the various moments that have impacted her life.
“I’ve always been independently deciphering these things … so it’s going to be a nice experience to see what other people think of them,” she says. “It’s technically a ‘therapy session’ but just having someone else to share that experience and their knowledge … will be interesting. The burden won’t be all on me.
“We live in the present, which is not a bad thing — you can’t dwell on the past — but it’s important to understand the past and how it’s affected you,” Gabriella concludes. “I don’t think the importance of [memory mapping] becomes obvious until you actually do it. We are who we are, yes — but we had to get here somehow.”
