Enjoying Yesterday's Pleasures Today

By Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT

When you are laughing and having a good time with people you love, you feel well physically. While you are experiencing that event, your mind stores the sensory images connected with it, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and texture that contributed to your pleasure. When you remember that occasion, those images come flooding back, bringing with them the ability to again create a biochemical reaction -- giving your body a wonderful sense of well-being, even if only temporarily.

After you are through reading this piece and return to the activities of daily life, you may find yourself remembering other times in your childhood, and in your years as an adult, when you felt great pleasure, when you were glad to be alive and filled with joy. Whenever you recall those times, allow yourself to experience them with all your senses, closing your eyes and taking yourself back in your imagination to the events which gave you so much pleasure in the past, letting yourself fully experience those moments. And while you are remembering these past pleasures, you may notice some things you have always associated with those events and others that you had forgotten but which are good for you to remember now. And you may want to once again touch your wrist (see below) or in some way build a bridge from your memories to your life today, giving you once again the pleasure you felt long ago.

Taking time to recall past pleasures is not a cure for present problems. But when our lives become filled with stress, we may need to be reminded that all of life has not been difficult -- there have been many good moments along the way. Experiencing them again, with all your senses, allows you to receive added value to something that once gave you pleasure -- and can give you pleasure once again.

Please Note: Eventually this will become an article, but it is now in the form of an imagery script or exercise. And as with all the imagery scripts on this website, you can use this in several different ways. First, simply read it as you would read any article, with the purpose of learning something and exploring how that might apply to you. On the other hand, you may want to get into the piece more deeply by reading it several times to yourself, pausing when you come to breaks identified by three periods (. . .) in order to have time to experience that section in whatever way feels comfortable to you.

Or, you can try to experience it as a regular imagery exercise is usually done, that is, first read it into a tape player (or have a friend or family member read it for you) and then, as you listen to it, close your eyes and follow along in whatever way feels right to you. To learn more about the technique of imagery, I suggest you first read Using Imagery Scripts. You might even want to take our Imagery Classes, which are easy to do at your own pace and can teach you about this effective technique for gaining insight into who you are.

As you prepare to remember the pleasure of events in your past, loosen any clothing that may be binding you in some way and let your body settle into your chair or sofa or bed, allowing it to fully support the weight of your body as you being to relax, shifting your position if you need to, so that you can be as comfortable as possible. . . .And as you allow your body to relax more and more, gently close your eyes. . . . .

And now, as you relax, I invite you to imagine fluffy soft clouds drifting lazily across a deep blue sky-the kind of clouds you might have enjoyed watching when you were a child, seeing in them all kinds of faces and strange features. Perhaps you sometimes had a contest for who could see the funniest cloud. And so, imagine the clouds move across the sky now, as they did then, noticing how they form one shape and then another as they move in the sky high above your head. It may be that you can see these clouds and actually picture them in your mind, or you may only get a sense of what they would be like-and even though you may not see them in your mind's eye, you can still experience them with the same sense of enchantment you had as a child. And so, take a moment now, as you relax more and more, and let your imagination play again as you experience these clouds in any way you would like. . . .

And now turn your attention from the clouds, if you will, and allow yourself to remember any event in your childhood that felt good to you. It may be a sweet memory of being with a special friend; a wonderful vacation; a perfect moment either when you were alone in nature or with someone else; a time when you felt filled with purpose or madly in love, a time of great triumph. There were undoubtedly many times that you experienced happiness as a child, both in your daily life and in special events. And there were certainly many times you experienced disappointments and pain. For now, though, allow your mind to select one special event that would be good for you to recall at this time.

And now, allow yourself to be in this event as you experienced it many years ago, moving around in your imagination, letting your body feel itself participating in the remembering, noticing where you were when that happened, what time of day it was and who was with you, if anyone. . . . Look around you and see all the details that made that experience so wonderful. . . . Notice the smallest thing you can see that contributed to your good feelings and the largest. . . . Notice the colors. . . . And just as with the clouds a moment ago, you may discover that you do not see shapes and colors as you think about this event from your past, but nevertheless you can still experience a sense of how wonderful it felt to you when you were young. . . .

And now, try this, take a piece of something from this event and touch it. What does it feel like? Is it be soft or hard . . . smooth or rough . . . warm or cold? As much as you can, let yourself imagine you can still feel the texture of those objects today. . . .

And what do you hear as this event is being replayed in your mind? Are there sounds associated with the good feelings? Listen to them carefully. . . .

Was there food or drink associated with this event? And if there wasn't food, what kind of food would have been special and appropriate for that occasion? Can you taste it? Roll the food around inside your mouth. Swallow the delicious flavors. . . .

And now remember the smells that were part of that event. If there were foods, what would those smells have been? If you were in a garden, perhaps there was the smell of flowers or if you were at the seaside there would have been the wonderful smell of salt air and fish. And if you were at your grandmother's, there was likely to be a special aroma you always associated with her house. Allow all the odors that surround this pleasant event in your childhood to come back to you today. . . .

And now, allow yourself to thoroughly experience that scene and to let the good feelings flow through your body today, seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling, sensing with your whole body, filling every cell with pleasure. . . .

And now, while you are still experiencing the good feelings, place one hand on the opposite wrist and give it a gentle squeeze. . . .

Now the next step in this exercise is to recall an event in your adulthood that felt particularly good to you. And once again, there have undoubtedly been many good and wonderful things that have happened to you as an adult, as well as some events you don't like to think about. Just allow yourself to select one out of many and, as this image arises, note all the various ways in which you experienced the original event and let yourself feel those good feelings again. Notice what you can see, what you can touch, hear, taste or smell. Notice what your whole body felt like as it moved about during this event. Take several moments to experience this part of the exercise, recapturing the wonderful, positive feelings of an event that meant something good and special to you. . . .

And now, again, while you are experiencing the pleasant feelings of this event as an adult, place one of your hands on the opposite wrist and give it a gentle, loving squeeze. . . .

Notice how your whole body feels less tense and more comfortable because you have allowed yourself to experience pleasant memories from the past. Each time you squeeze your wrist, you will remember those events once more and bring those past good feelings into your life today.

And now, be aware of the chair or sofa or bed on which you are sitting or lying, notice how your body feels . . . take a deep, energizing breath . . . gently stretching your arms and legs a little . . . and, giving your arm a little squeeze . . . open your eyes and come back into the room feeling relaxed, alert and wonderful, realizing that the pleasures of the past are always part of you and available when you need them today.

© Copyright 1997, Revised 2002, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT