Last year, I heard an old English song—"Memories" by Maroon 5—playing in the background. And the moment it hit my ears, something inside me just… knew. I said to myself, this is so true. Memories bring more memories.
Maybe you've felt this too. A song plays, a smell drifts by, someone says a phrase in a certain tone — and suddenly you're not standing where you are anymore. You're somewhere else. Some other moment, years old, wide awake inside you again.
It's not random. And it's not "just in your head" in the dismissive way we sometimes say that. It's actually how your brain is built to work.
Why This Happens
Our brain stores information based on how we feel, what we think, and what's happening around us in that moment. When something new happens, it creates a fresh neural pathway. But when something similar happens again — a similar feeling, a similar kind of moment — it doesn't create something new. It strengthens the same old path.
That's the science of it. But here's a simpler way to understand it.
The Cupboard in Your Brain
Picture a cupboard with five sections: clothes, papers, medicines, hardware, and extras.
Every time you buy something new, you don't just shove it in anywhere. You put it exactly where it belongs. New clothes go with clothes. New medicine goes with medicine. You'd never put your medicine in the clothes section — it just wouldn't make sense.
Your brain works the same way. Every experience, every feeling, every incident gets matched to the section it belongs to and placed there, quietly, without you even noticing.
So when something happens today that resembles something from that section — a similar kind of feeling, a similar kind of moment — your brain doesn't just recall that one thing. It opens the whole section. And everything inside it comes tumbling out at once.
That's why one song can bring back not just a memory, but a wave of them.
So the Next Time It Happens
Don't be shocked when a small thing suddenly unlocks a flood of feeling you weren't expecting. It's not you being "too much" or "too sensitive." It's simply your brain doing exactly what it's designed to do — matching, storing, retrieving.
Memories bring more memories. That's all this is.
Journaling Prompt: What's one small, ordinary thing — a song, a smell, a word — that recently opened a section of memories you weren't expecting? What was actually inside that section?
If reading this stirred something up, you don't have to sit with it alone. I help women untangle these moments—the ones where an old memory suddenly asks to be seen again—through journaling and coaching. Connect with me at richagoyalkatiyar.com and let's explore what your sections are trying to tell you.