Where are my 17 years old? Why do we love to remember the past so much and is it useful?

Oh, and this unpleasant feeling is melancholy! Some kind of pinching sensation in the chest. Nostalgia. It’s as if someone is holding you by a string and doesn’t let you move forward without looking back. So your whole life can pass in the premonition that nothing will be better than it was before. What happened with me? Why do I so want to go back to the past, to a place where I wasn’t even always happy? Is it possible to get rid of melancholy and live with pleasure?

When the stars light up in the night sky, memory enters my home as an uninvited guest.

I. Talkov

Longing for the past is like temporary anesthesia

It's so nice to remember moments from the past. Especially childhood. Then I wanted to become an adult. Well, here it is. So what now? Depression, apathy, despair and fear are constantly pursued.

Oh, these four alternate between each other and then show up for a visit with the whole group. And they can also take with them such a state of melancholy that this attack of pain in the soul cannot be overcome. At such moments I dream of inventing a time machine and traveling back in time. Forever.

Well, okay, childhood is cloudless for many. Why am I filled with memories of my teenage years and college years? Was it really that good there? There were also enough problems. But even if you crack it, it was still better than now.

What about memories of pregnancy and the birth of a child? I start crying instantly, such a feeling of longing for that time comes over me! I could cry all night. After all, that wonderful time will never happen again. Never.

I constantly remember the little things that brought me joy once upon a time. In the past, it seems, bread was tastier, and people were better, kinder, more honest, or something. We supported each other, got together as a family more often, but now everyone is on their own... I think about it and fall into a state of melancholy. And before going to bed, I plunge into memories, which for some reason bring relief. They are like anesthesia for me, which will certainly wear off in the morning, and grief for bygone times will again remind me of the need to survive another day.

Why do I want to get rid of melancholy? Because today's life began to lose color for me.

Natsukashi - the Japanese alternative to sad longing for the past

At the moment of experiencing ostalgia, you experience temporary happiness, which is quickly replaced by sadness and sadness. But the approach to remembering past events varies in different parts of the planet.

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

For example, in Japan it is not customary to be sad about the past. On the contrary, he is honored and remembered with gratitude. “Don't be sad that it's over. Rejoice that it happened” - there is an unspoken law here.

For natsukashi (the Japanese equivalent of nostalgia, which translates as “always remember”), the memory of something past or past is placed in a positive context, and this is an essential part of the emotional foundation. Nostalgia in Japanese is not a painful desire to return something that no longer exists, but an opportunity to once again express gratitude.

Remembering the past is a special quality

Yes. Exactly. People are born with a specific role in nature and society. The vectors that a person is endowed with determine this role. The System-Vector Psychology training by Yuri Burlan explains all these points in an accessible and easy way.

Along with the task entrusted to us, from birth we receive the corresponding desires and aspirations, and in order to realize them, nature endows everyone with all the necessary abilities.

And one of these vectors, called anal, is “responsible” primarily for the past. People endowed with it are born to transmit information and experience from the past to the future. Children with the anal vector from a very early age are drawn to knowledge, collect and accumulate information to later pass on to future generations. They are easy to train, have excellent memory and the necessary concentration on the subject of study.

A person with an anal vector is thorough. Quality comes first. Until he fully understands the subject or finishes some task, he will never proceed to the next one. Everything needs to be completed to the end and nothing should be missed!

Most often, people with the anal vector become teachers, educators, specialists in various fields - they are always there where patience, perseverance and thoroughness are needed.

Without such people, development and movement forward is impossible. Adopting experience from the past and passing it on to new generations is one of the primary tasks! Otherwise we would always be reinventing the wheel, every generation from the very beginning.

Where does nostalgia originate in the brain?

In an experiment conducted at Tilburg University in the southern Netherlands, social and behavioral science expert Ed Vingerhoets found that certain songs not only make people nostalgic, but also feel warmer. After following a group of students for a month, Xinyue Zhou, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in China, found that nostalgic moods were more likely to occur on cold days. Thus, people who are in a cold room are more likely to relive memories than those who are in a warm room. This connection between body and mind leads scientists to think that nostalgia may have had evolutionary value for our ancestors, prompting them to continually seek shelter and food to survive. There is no doubt that this psychological phenomenon occurs in the brain, but where exactly?

Modern neuroimaging methods have helped answer this question. In an experiment, Japanese scientist Kentaro Oba decided to find out which areas of the brain are active when viewing children's photographs. The presence of activity was observed in the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for storing memories, as well as the ventral striatum, the region responsible for the feeling of reward. It turns out that indulging in nostalgia is useful and pleasant, but not if you are diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders.

But for some, the feeling of melancholy is a habitual state

The vector responsible for emotions and sensuality is called visual. This is an extroverted vector. People endowed with it have a huge range of emotions. The extreme points of amplitude are the fear of death for oneself and all-encompassing love for people. At different points in life, a person can be in different emotional states.

Such extroverts are born to create sensitivity and compassion, help those in need and develop culture in society. All modern art was created by them. Doctors, nurses, teachers, fashion designers, actors, volunteers - just a small list of professions for people endowed with a visual vector.

Such a person cannot be alone with himself. He needs other people. Only by creating emotional connections with them can the viewer live a full life. This is his natural necessity. Experiencing constant emotions is what he needs!

When a person lacks communication, including spiritual communication, when there is no exchange of emotions with other people, a feeling of melancholy overtakes. Various kinds of fears, emptiness in the soul, hysterical states and hopelessness arise. This is a kind of signal that a person is not fulfilling the tasks for which he was born.

As they say, open the door, melancholy has arrived. And it doesn’t matter what it will be expressed in - longing from loneliness or longing for some person, or maybe longing for the past - it doesn’t matter! The essence does not change - melancholy does not give peace.

Types of nostalgia

Researchers divide this phenomenon into several types, depending on what provokes melancholy.

1. Nostalgia for the Motherland. Many, almost all emigrants experience this feeling. Even those who have received social benefits in a new place and improved their quality of life tend to feel an emotional attachment to the place in which they grew up. Oddly enough, it is the improvement of life that can provoke regret and bitterness, awakening the nagging melancholy and dissatisfaction that accompany nostalgia.

2. Nostalgia for the past. It is often experienced by those who have few bright events and emotional moments in their lives. In our youth and adolescence, we have sharper perceptions and receive the most vivid impressions. Dull and gray everyday life that cannot compare with what happened before. Sometimes the past seems better than the present, “overgrown” with new details and looks more and more attractive.

3. Nostalgia for a person. Longing for emotional connections and people from the past is typical for those who have experienced separation from loved ones, friends, and relatives. When we remember and relive pleasant moments, even in our imagination, the body reacts in the same way as before. In such cases, the production of so-called happiness hormones occurs. But their dose is limited, and after their release into the blood ends, a contrasting state begins - hormonal hunger. This condition is similar to withdrawal in drug addicts and forces them to return again and again to what they once experienced.

In addition to these three types, there is pathology - a mental illness with attacks of varying intensity. The consequences of this condition can be expressed in depression with a fatal outcome.

Memory and emotions, without realization, give rise to a feeling of longing for the past

Now let’s imagine a person with an anal and visual vector at the same time. Yes, we usually have several vectors.

Thus, the presence of an anal vector in a person determines his good memory and focus on the past. And the visual vector “swings” emotions. If such a person is not sufficiently realized, then melancholy, and even along with fears, is guaranteed. In the anal-visual ligament of vectors, a dull feeling of longing for something that can never be returned can arise. It will seem like everything was better in the past. Longing will be directed to the past.

Longing is an emotion that is difficult to cope with if you do not understand your nature.

When nostalgia becomes a problem

On the other hand, it is this “game of hide and seek” of one’s own consciousness that can have catastrophic consequences.

Photo by Dim Hou on Unsplash

For example, things from flea markets are just things that can be used in everyday life (and many of them marked “made in the USSR” will outlive their modern counterparts, so you can use them with confidence). But if you perceive them as the legacy of a bygone era (where youth, memories and other components of a happy existence remained), then you yourself will cultivate a dislike for the present.

Be careful, there will be glasses in your sideboard that “can only be taken out on holidays”...

Longing for a person can put an end to your personal life. One day you will simply decide that “there was no one better than him and there will never be anyone,” and all the handsome princes will mix into one gray mass.

Even noble longing for the Motherland has its dark side. So, you may hate your new environment so much that you refuse to interact with it and find yourself and your place in it.

How to get rid of melancholy and stop living in the past

The System-Vector Psychology training by Yuri Burlan will help with this. He explains that the reason for fixation on the past is simply the wrong “use” of a property. The priority of the past is given in order to pass on experience and knowledge to new generations, and not in order to relive one’s personal experience again and again. A person with an anal vector, immersed in the work of a teacher, scientist, historian, completely exhausts his natural aspiration to the past. Understanding how this works allows you to regain the ability to live here and now.

We eradicate the cause of melancholy by making maximum use of our visual vector properties. Melancholy is a feeling of concern for oneself, a state of isolation. If emotionality finds its way out in the form of constant communication, creating emotional connections, empathy and real help to others, then melancholy simply does not arise.

Try to do at least something, small at first, but meaningful for someone else. Feel the loneliness of those who feel bad right now - bring some food to your old neighbor, take some toys and treats to the nearest orphanage. There are a thousand options. The main thing is to give away your unspent sensuality. It will be incredible pleasure and relief. Then you won’t have to treat melancholy - the question “what to do with melancholy” will go away by itself. This does not mean that the state of sadness will be unfamiliar to you. Both being sad and crying are a necessary part of life, but it will no longer be hopeless melancholy.

Now, even when some significant stage in life ends, the past does not become a source of melancholy, but evokes a special feeling of light sadness and gratitude.

Who said nostalgia is a brain disease?

Literally, nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unfulfilled desire to return home. The first case in literature occurs in Homer's Odyssey, which tells the story of Ulysses' return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. But a similar condition was first described in 1688, when the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer used this term to describe homesickness, captured by the soldiers of his country. Among the physical and psychological symptoms they suffered were tachycardia, crying spells, insomnia and fear. Consequently, Hofer defined nostalgia as “a neurological disease arising from demonic causes.” This theory was questioned by others who attributed the defeat of the Swiss soldiers to changes in atmospheric pressure after they were moved from mountain villages to the plains. There were even those who suggested that the continuous sound of cow bells in the Alps had damaged the eardrums and brains of these troubled people.

Homesickness is a fundamental feeling of nostalgia.

And yet, until the nineteenth century, nostalgia, thanks to Hofer, was interpreted as a disease of the brain. It has been described as a pathological form of melancholia or a kind of immigrant psychosis, that is, a mental disorder that causes uncontrollable sadness and disrupts the thinking of those who wish to return home after a long absence. These theories persisted until 1979, when American sociologist Fred Davis (1925-1993) described nostalgia as a sentimental longing for people, places, or situations that made us happy in the past. Thus he established the modern definition of nostalgia. Since then, many scientific studies have tried to show that it is not only a negative mood, but also a good feeling that gives meaning to our lives.

Do you often indulge in nostalgia? How do you think it affects your emotional state? Let's talk about this in our Telegram chat

“It’s too early for us to live on memories...”

Getting rid of melancholy is not so difficult if you have systemic knowledge. You will see that you will naturally want to live in a new way, in the present, looking to the future. It will be joyful to watch how the world is changing, and we must keep up with it without getting stuck in the past.

System-vector psychology training by Yuri Burlan helps you understand yourself and those around you. By realizing your craving for the past, you will get rid of painful memories that could not be relieved. The mechanism of getting rid of melancholy will also become clear and real. Hundreds of people have already done this and are now ready to shout every morning: “I love you life!”

Do you want to get rid of boredom? Sign up for the free online training System-vector psychology by Yuri Burlan using the link

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Author of the publication: Anna Ryzhkova, chief accountant
The article was written based on materials from the training “System-vector psychology”