Do you actually remember it, or did you build it? Every memory is based on a true story, and the gap between those two things ends most arguments.
We store fragments and then construct the rest. We are terrible listeners and brilliant at waiting for our turn. A woman of ninety could not remember what she had for dinner but could tell you about decades ago. It protects you, which is why you never drink the thing that made you ill at fifteen. So stop arguing that you remember it exactly. Your conversations get softer.
One thing to try: Next time you are certain about what was said, allow that you built some of it.
In this episode
(0:04) Based on a true story, and what that phrase really means
(2:40) Being a typical seventeen year old, and not treating her well
(4:40) That is Claire, and she knows who she is
(7:30) We store fragments and build the memory from them
(9:29) Ninety something, and remembering decades but not dinner
(11:40) Why you never drink that again after being ill at fifteen
(14:25) Stop arguing that you remember it exactly
(16:26) The softness that arrives once you stop needing to prove it
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Do you actually remember it, or did you build it?
Every memory is based on a true story. The gap between those two things ends most family arguments, and understanding it stopped mine.
The heart of it
You do not replay memories. You rebuild them from fragments, live, every time.
What you are recalling is the last time you recalled it, not the event.
Two people can both be completely certain and both be partly wrong.
Try this. Picture a rabbit. Got one? Is it chewing anything? Grey or brown? Long haired? On grass or in a hutch? What colour is the sky behind it?
You built all of that as I asked. That is exactly what happens with a memory. You think there is a complete picture in there, and there is a handful of fragments and a very good construction team.
My sister and I used to argue about what was said two hours earlier. And I did not just remember the words. I remembered her face, her tone, where she was looking. So did she, differently. We cannot both be right, and we were both certain.
The reason it feels so solid is that anything with strong emotion attached gets stored in vivid detail, because that is protective. You never touch the drink that made you ill at fifteen again.
My nan, in her nineties, could not tell you what she had for dinner. She could tell you about being a Wren in Scotland, working on the aircraft. The pilots left a small box on the table on the way out with their belongings and their letter home. When they got back they collected them. She and her friends would look to see whether any boxes were left, because a box left meant somebody had not come home.
She told it with the colours and the sizes and the feel of the room. She was not remembering 1943. She was remembering the last telling, which was built out of the one before, and somewhere in there are films she has watched since.
Lawyers know this, incidentally, and use it. Was he six foot, or was he five foot? Are you sure? You are now building a five foot man to check.
One small thing to try
Stop arguing that you remember it exactly.
Next time you are certain, say that is how I remember it rather than that is what happened. Two words, and the whole conversation goes soft.
You might be ninety seven per cent right. Nobody is at a hundred. That has been tested on police officers and forensic scientists and nobody manages it.
Questions people ask
Does this mean my memories are worthless?
No. Most of the shape is right, and the emotional truth is usually accurate. It is the certainty about the details that causes the damage.
Why does it feel so vivid then?
Because you generate it in high definition at the moment of recall, the same way you did with the rabbit. Vividness is a property of the retelling, not evidence about the original.
What actually changes if I accept this?
You stop needing to be proved right, which turns out to be most of what an argument is. My daughter once held a mirror up to me at exactly the right moment, and it only worked because I was not busy defending my version.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
relationships · empathy · ego
Read the transcript
Hey, welcome to my podcast.
On today's show, I'm talking about the myth based on a true story.
You know, the beginning of the movies or you see on TV shows or
even in books, based on a true story.
I'm going to talk about that and I'll talk about our memory and
the way we can stop arguing.
We really, when I come, come across this, the fact of how our
memory works.
It totally stopped me arguing with my family for years.
I used to argue with my family about so much.
But just recognizing what I'm going to share with you in this podcast
will stop you arguing with your family, believe me.
Welcome to Stillness in the Storms.
I'm Stephen Webb, your host and this is the podcast that will
help you to quieten your mind and find that stillness you need
to overcome whatever comes your way.
I've decided over the next few podcasts I want to share just a little
thank you, a little gratitude and a really brief story of why I
want to thank this person.
And also I want you to send in your thanks, your gratitude on a
very similar story, about a minute, minute and a half long.
And I'll play some of them on the podcast either at the beginning
or the end.
And if you're particularly listening to it on anchor, it makes
it so much easier.
You can just hit the record button, send in a little snippet
and don't worry about the quality, don't worry about the thing.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
I can probably clean it up in pre post or whatever you call it.
I don't know, in editing.
We'll just call it editing for now, shall we?
I was writing about this story and this person in my book the Gift
of no Choice.
The an Incredible Journey from Deep Despair to Freedom and Joy.
And throughout the book I. I share my different stories about
different things.
And this story, when I was writing it, I kind of forgot it,
but it was in the back of my mind.
And you know what?
Some people really do help you in life in the most dire circumstances,
but you may not realize at the time how much help they are.
And this person is one of those people.
You know, before I broke my neck, I was.
I broke my neck when I was 18 and just before that I was hanging
around with this individual and we would have fun and we're just
friends.
There was nothing in it.
And I didn't treat her brilliantly.
I don't know why she wanted to hang around with me, but I was a
typical 17 year old that I didn't treat her that nice.
And I was never really that polite to her, but I kind of liked
her company.
It was one of those relationships that, you know, I don't
love you, but I kind of just want to be in your company.
And there's a couple of songs that come out, ZC Top, I'm not in
Love, and things like that.
But when I broke my neck, I went away 200 miles.
I was 200 miles away from home.
I spent 12 months away in hospital.
And over the first few weeks, I used to get a card and a letter
every few days.
And whoever was there, whether it was a nurse or my family, they'd
read out the card and a letter and I would very much brush it off.
It's like, yeah, I know it's just her.
But really, over the weeks, it really started to make a difference.
I was looking forward to it.
And it was that connection to home that I didn't have.
You know, I was lying on bed rest.
I could barely.
Well, I couldn't talk at the time.
And she would tell me what was going on with my friends and what
was going on in Truro.
And then after I started getting out of bed, or I think I
was still on bed rest, but she used to come up and stay up there
over weekends, and she used to spend hours beside my bed, and we
used to be chatting, we used to have a laugh.
And you know what?
She did so much for me.
And I don't know if she ever realized it, but, you know, I always
used to brush it off at the time, but now I realize quite how
special she was and quite how special.
I needed that relationship.
I needed that connection beyond family of someone that was
just real.
I was just there.
Someone that I knew before my accident that treated me the same.
And, boy, did she treat me the same.
You know, she was great.
And that's Claire, and she knows who she is.
I just want to share that, and I want you to share your stories.
I have so much of a deep gratitude for Claire now that I've
grown out of my egoic, narcissistic.
Well, narcissistic.
Trying to grow out of it still.
Okay.
My egoic, narcissistic self that, you know, Claire, I love you.
Thank you.
You know, I mean that from the depths of my heart.
You helped me through a lot.
But today's podcast, and please send in your stories.
If you're listening on Anchorage, hit the record and send
me your stories just to thank you.
One, one and a half minutes.
That'd be perfect.
So on Today's podcast I was talking about the myth of this is
based on a true story.
So how many times do you and a sibling.
And I'll say it with me and my sister, we would say something and
I would say something back, and then within two hours, we'd be
arguing about what we said.
I would say to her, I didn't say that.
And she would say, you did say that.
And I'd be like, no, I didn't.
You said this.
And here's the thing, here's the really crazy thing is I could
remember in my head her saying it.
And I could also remember me saying it.
And it wasn't just, well, I can remember the words.
No, I can remember their voice.
I can remember where they were looking, what they were doing, why
they were saying it, how they were saying it.
And the same with me.
And of course, they would do the same thing.
Yet both of us cannot be right.
How can both of us be right?
It's impossible.
It just doesn't work.
So who's wrong?
Both of us are right and both of us are wrong.
But here's the problem with our memory.
It's not so much the way we remember things, but it's the way
we recall those memories.
And if I said to you, now, think of a rabbit, think of a rabbit
in your mind and make sure it's a really good image of a rabbit.
Have you got that ready?
What about the rabbit?
Is it chewing on a carrot?
Is it gray?
Has it got long hair or short hair?
Is it on the grass or is it in a hutch?
What colour is the sky behind it?
Then, as I was saying those things to you, you were zooming in
and out and you were creating them on the fly.
Well, this is what we do with our memories.
We think we have a full picture of the memory until we're
asked questions or until we start to create it even more.
We then create the memory based on fragments that we stored.
And here's the thing, we don't listen very well.
We're terrible listeners.
We're brilliant at listening to what we're saying.
We're terrible at listening to what the other person's saying, but
yet we think we hear what the other person's saying.
Do you see where this is going?
So what we do is we store fragments.
We store what we hear, what is the baseline of it, and we store
it in a very analog way.
That isn't a digital version.
Difference between digital and analog.
A digital version is an exact copy, naught and ones, whereas an
analog one is roughly, you know, if you had an analog light,
you can turn it up and you could have it on any kind of level.
If you got a digital light, it's on or off or 50%, 100%.
You cannot have 52%, whereas analog, you can have all of them.
So when we store things in.
I'm really geeking out here now, and I apologize, I'll get back
to like normal life in a moment.
But when we store things in an analog way, the brain doesn't know
to go, okay, that's a conversation with your sister.
I'm going to store that in truth.
And then you watch a movie that's very similar and your brain
goes, I'm going to store that in the movie Untruth, or maybe partly
true.
If it's based on a true story, your brain doesn't know those things.
So what your brain does is just store everything in the best
way, in a mingled way somehow in your mind.
And it relies on the way we recreate it.
And it's, it's very similar to if you bump into when I was visiting
my nan in hospital just a couple of years ago and she was 90
something, and I'm trying to remember her exact age and I'm going
to get it wrong if I say it.
So she was 90 something and she couldn't remember what she had
for dinner, she couldn't remember what was going on or who
visited her day before.
Yet I would sit there and she would tell me in brilliant detail
about where she was, Iran and working in Scotland and working on
the airplanes during the war.
And she told me about this wonderful story about the way when
the pilots would go out and fly sorties over Europe, but just
before they went out they would have a little box and they
would put them on the table on the way out the door.
And that was their belongings and that was the different things
that they would want to go to their family as their letter and
things like that.
And then when they come back, they would pick up these boxes and
they were taken back to their dorms or wherever they were sleeping.
And she would always look, her and her friends would always look
to see if there's any boxes left, because if there was a box
left, it meant they didn't come home.
And she told this story with vivid detail.
The color of the boxes, the size of the boxes.
How can someone do that yet they cannot remember?
Now then, in part it's the way we store things, in part the way
the, the brain isn't very Good at doing it as it gets older, the
proteins and all that and the neurons.
You know, I'm not a neurologist, but it gets harder to
do.
The more you do something, the harder it becomes.
And it depreciates eventually.
But how can they remember something 80 years before?
Well, they're not remembering the event 80 years before.
They're remembering the last time they recalled it.
So that event was stored at the time with a great emotional impact.
So whenever we have a big emotional impact, whether really
good or really, like, painful, we store it with great vivid detail.
You know, the smell, the situation, everything.
We store it with great detail and we can recall it really quickly.
And there's a reason for this.
You know, it protects us.
You know, you don't need.
You don't drink the same alcohol that made you really, really
poorly at the age of 15 ever again, because you smell it and that's
it.
No, can't touch it.
So it's the same reason my nan stored that memory of those boxes
with great, vivid detail.
And every time she'd retell it, she would retell it with passion
and real emotion.
And I loved hearing that story.
And she told me several times when I was going out there about
that story and about the way they had a dial that was upside down
and things like that.
She wasn't remembering the event, and it probably wasn't even
much like the event anymore.
But with all the movies she's watched, all the different things
she watched and the things, it's.
It's a combination.
It's like a hybrid version of what did happen then.
Some of it is true.
Some of it is mixed with movies and mixed with other things.
Some of it, like, probably even made up completely and.
But we all do that.
Right back to the conversation with my sister and the argument two
hours later.
You did say that.
You didn't say that.
I know I said that.
We're so convinced that our memory is perfect that we argue,
well, guess what?
Your memory is not perfect.
You're not remembering the event.
You're not.
You haven't got this recorder in your mind of what was said, how
it was said, the tone of it, everything.
You just haven't.
But it's not exact.
And this.
Just realizing this stops us arguing, makes us realize that our
memories are flawed.
You, me, everybody, Nobody can remember everything perfectly.
Lawyers know this.
Lawyers deliberately.
I can't believe I'm telling you that secret, but they will deliberately
plant words and create scenarios in your mind on the testimony
stand, you know.
Now, let me Put it to you.
Mrs.
So and so, did you really see the person?
Was he five foot or six foot?
Well, I think he was six foot.
Are you sure?
Are you sure he wasn't five foot?
And of course, at that moment, you're then creating a five foot
person in your mind to check whether or not that's real or not.
Isn't that interesting?
So stop arguing that I know what you said.
I remember it well.
It was like this.
I'm telling you I can remember.
I'm telling you I was there.
Well, you might have been there and you might have 97% correct,
but nobody will have it 100% correct.
And they've tested this with lawyers and police officers and forensic
scientists and everything.
And all the way through all these people, nobody can recall the
same situation exactly the same way.
Nobody.
So if you want a little more peace in life, stop arguing.
Stop arguing that you can remember that you're right.
Maybe they're right.
And maybe your recollection of the event is wrong.
Maybe you're mixing yours with a movie or something like that.
It doesn't feel like it.
Because what you can see in your head is, you know, a high definition,
brilliant version of like what we said with the rabbit.
You know, we, we have this illusion that we can, we can recall
everything perfectly and we can't.
It just simply doesn't work like that.
And here's the thing.
You know this podcast about stillness in the storms, about having
a little more calmness when everything's going on around us.
Well, the reason why I share this is because if you realize how
your body works and you realize how things are going in the
way of recalling your memory, we stop arguing.
We start having compassion for the other person and understanding.
We stop this, I'm right, you're wrong.
And we realize that, hey, we're both beautifully flawed and
beautifully perfect at the same time.
There's no flaws and there's no perfection.
It just is what it is.
And we just stop arguing.
There becomes a softness to our conversations with people.
We no longer feel the need to have to prove that we're right and
they're wrong.
So like I said at the beginning of the podcast, I will
teach you something.
I will show you something that would totally blow your mind when
it comes to memory and things like that.
But it'll also soften you and stop you arguing with your family.
I no longer argue with my sister very much.
I no longer argue with family very much that I'm right and they're
wrong.
It still creeps up.
It still happens sometimes.
Sometimes they gotta remind me sometimes like you're arguing.
Yeah.
My daughter come in one day and I let it rip about three years
ago.
And she stood there and she took it.
Oh, I just went off and she said, oh, that's very Zen like of
you, isn't it?
Oh, she knew I was working on it.
She knew I was working on it.
And I can't even remember what it's about now.
It was like totally not even that important.
But I take my, you know, open my heart to her.
She stood there and took it and she held that mirror up to me
that I needed at that moment.
She was perfect.
So deep thank you to Kemba, deep thank you to my sister and deep
thank you to Claire for being there when I needed her most.
And don't forget, if you, if you're listening to this on anchor,
press the recording.
If you're not on anchor, head over to my website or go over to
Facebook and just type Stephen Webb, Inner peace.
Inner peace guy or something and find me and send me a voice or
send me a little email or something, emailtevenweb.com and
I will read it out.
That's the other thing I can do.
Take care, guys.
I love you and thank you for spending this time with me.
Really appreciate it.
I'm trying to get a new podcast out every week at the moment.
Please can you share?
Spread it around.
Leave a review.
That'd be amazing.
If you're listening on an iPad or an iPhone, leave a review and
