How do you treat your memories? Do you dwell on them, push them aside, or use them to increase your love spaces? The memories that hold love can be collected with gratitude. The memories that hold upset can be forgiven and refilled. Either way, your memories can be used to strengthen love as well as heal dark spaces within you.

My grandmother lived her life with honor. And the honor I resonate with her didn’t end just because she died. With every memory, I can receive a new dose of honor. And with each new dose, the quality of honor in my life gets stronger. Many of the memories I have about my grandmother make me smile and some make me feel sad, but all have allowed me to increase my love of honor.

By consciously looking for the love that was present or should have been present as you wander back through memories, your life will light up. Unpleasant memories will be healed and brighten the dark space they made. The love found in pleasant memories will be passed on to others through your smile. All memories can be a powerful source of healing.

Grandmother’s honor so underscored everything in her life that using her memories expansively gave me the love I needed to forgive my brother for shutting me out of his life. Grandmother always was a peacemaker. So even after her death, she has helped me to make peace by expanding my honor enough to shine it on my brother’s choices about me. Of those two, my grandmother and my brother, one was seen as my biggest gift and the other as my biggest block. But by forgiving my brother’s shunning through my memories, they both ended as gifts.

Recently a student of mine, who felt worn out by the constant rerun of fearful memories, decided to journal them to make the healing more conscious. Believe it or not, it is working. If certain memories refuse to be forgiven and keep replaying in the background of your mind, you might give journaling a try.

Whatever method works for you remember to use it, because healing memories will put you on the fast track to love. Probably the greatest love enemy a person can have is a mind that runs on a constant loop.