Vachon Imagined

When we talk about getting over an event or a person, what we are really talking about is moving through memory.

Memory is not only stored in the mind; it is also held in the body. Together, they shape what we experience as a life, or what some might call a spirit. This “spirit” is what others feel and say about us. It is not necessarily what we intend to project, but what is received through their perception.

Perception is central to freedom. Without it, we cannot see what we are reacting to, or what is actually unfolding within us. Through perception, we assign meaning. We decide what is bad, what is acceptable, what must be resisted or preserved. Each judgment creates attachment.

Before anything becomes physical—before it is spoken, acted on, or resolved—it exists internally as pattern: thought, sensation, memory, repetition. When we are told to “get over” something, or when we find ourselves endlessly replaying an experience, we are often reinforcing those internal pathways. They do not easily dissolve because they are continually re-formed through attention.

But when we truly see ourselves clearly, something shifts.

It does not require years of struggle or elaborate systems of release. It begins with seeing—without distortion, without justification, without turning experience into a story that protects or defines the self. Seeing things as they are, without adding to them.

That kind of seeing is the first movement toward release.

And if, in that process, you have someone beside you—a friend, a partner, a spouse—who can remain present with you as you do this inner work, you are deeply fortunate. That kind of companionship is rare. It does not fix the process, but it makes it less lonely.