Getting high on nostalgia: why do we idealize the past?

I've always been a nostalgic girl. It's a feeling I experience often and willingly; bittersweet, sometimes more bitter than sweet.

In fact, what is nostalgia, if not the feeling that reality is different from how it once was, and a longing for it to be a little more like the past? Like that carefree childhood, those golden years full of friendships and fun, that warm summer, when that person was still in our life, or still alive, when everything seemed to be going better.

Yeah, but was it really better?

Our brain tends to idealize memories, focusing on the highlights of a certain event, and smoothing over the rough edges.

This happens for two reasons:

• Selective memory: it's the human tendency for our brain to remember certain events or small details that resonate with the individual, while forgetting the irrelevant ones.

• Fading affect bias (FAB): the psychological phenomenon where memories associated with negative emotions are forgotten more easily than those associated with positive emotions.

  
  

  

  
  

We can say, then, that most likely when we feel nostalgic, we're largely remembering the good moments and sweeping the negative ones under the rug, even though both were happening at the same time.

Fine, but you could argue that this awareness doesn’t take away from the fact that you feel sad right now and that you wish you could relive those moments, that past.

What I want you to understand is that, first of all, since you are here thinking about the past, it means that you are alive. And second, it means that yes, you had amazing experiences in your past.

Why are we turning that into a bad feeling at all?

Because you're there, maybe in your room, listening to sad music and thinking 'oh, how I wish I could go back'. But it doesn't make sense, because that moment is dead.

The landscapes you see in your memories are dead, because they no longer exist, or at the very least, they've changed since the past. Their appearance, their warmth, even your perception of them - they wouldn’t evoke the exact same emotions anymore.

And above all, the people who live in your memories no longer exist as they did then. Because everything is temporary, and we change constantly, like a river.

I'm not the same person I was back then. I'm not even the same person I was five minutes ago! And neither is that person you're thinking about.

So, even if you could relive that moment, you wouldn’t be the same person you were. It would be a different reality.

This truth hurts. It hits like a punch in the stomach. And your mind will try to convince itself otherwise.

"But if only I could travel back in time!"

"No, it's not true, I'm still the same person I was back then!"

These are all lies we tell ourselves to make sense of the chaos in our minds. Try to sit with the feelings that are surfacing. Feel them deeply, don’t be afraid of them. And then, let them go.

When you accept this - that the past is the past, and it's dead - then you could try to switch your mindset. Next time that you're feeling nostalgic, instead of thinking to yourself, 'I wish I could go back...'

You could instead think, 'I am grateful'.

I am grateful to be alive and I am grateful for this feeling too, because if I am here getting to experience nostalgia, it means that I am alive, that I am well, and that I am living life the way that it's supposed to be lived: having fun, meeting amazing people, seeing beautiful places, loving.

Nostalgia is a very natural feeling born from Love itself, because you either felt loved or you gave love. I want you to know that all the love you gave to someone, it's never wasted.
It's always right. It's exactly what life is supposed to be about. To love and to allow yourself to be loved deeply. Because you deserve it.

Don't twist these beautiful past memories into something sad or to be desperate about. The past is the past. Do not attach to feelings tied to the past, because people change constantly and everything is temporary.

Just be grateful for these feelings. Welcome them. And watch them go. Because it means that you are alive. It means that you're doing well. It means that you're living life the way it's supposed to be lived. Then celebrate. And open your heart to welcome ever more of these beautiful moments, here and now.