Every person in his life has moments that he wants to forget about and never return to the memories of them. Unfortunately, the human structure is very complex, and throwing out all negative memories from consciousness is not as easy as we would like. Memories continue to haunt us whether we want it or not and can come flooding back at the most unexpected and inopportune moment, preventing us from perceiving the real world, in which everything is fine with us, which is filled with positivity and there are no prerequisites for feeling bad. Instead of living a full life, we return to memories over and over again and relive those moments in which we were hurt and bad.
Is it possible to somehow correct the situation? If yes, then, poisoning our lives?
Human thoughts and memories are stored in the human mind in the form of a kind of “vinaigrette”, mixed up and without a clear structure. They are not something specific, like separate blocks and segments of information. So maybe something can be done to structure the memory, and then remove all the burden of negative memories from it? It's actually possible. Moreover, this can be done without resorting to complex techniques, alcohol or even drugs. All that is required of you is to devote a few minutes every day to special exercises, and very soon you will be able to make sure that not a trace remains of your bad memories.
Exercise 1.
Make yourself comfortable in a chair or bed. There is no importance to any particular posture. The main thing is that you feel comfortable and that your attention is not distracted by anything for several minutes. You can close your eyes, you can keep them open - it doesn’t matter either. Take a few deep breaths and completely relax the muscles of your face, shoulders, and chest. The exercise is completed.
Exercise 2.
Try to imagine your problem in the form of some kind of collective image. Concentrate on what exactly you want to throw out of yours forever and try to imagine it in the form of some kind of image. Don't try to strain yourself to get the clearest picture of perfect quality. It is enough that you understand what exactly you are seeing. You can understand how well you coped with the task assigned to you in a simple way - if you did everything correctly, the image created by your efforts will cause strong negative feelings in you.
Take a close look at your picture, “attach” an adjustment knob to it, such as on receivers or televisions, and try to mentally reach out to it. When you succeed, start rotating the imaginary knob, smoothly reduce the sound of the image you created to zero. Then do the same manipulation with the contrast of the image, and then with it, ensuring that it becomes a silent black spot. There is no need to rush. On the contrary, do everything as smoothly as possible, and when the picture you created disappears, try to get rid of even the background on which it was located. When you succeed, you can consider the exercise finished.
Exercise 3.
Another way to how to forget bad memories consists of placing the visualization you have created in some room in which many lamps and lamps are burning. Start turning them off one by one gradually and without haste until they are completely turned off. The main thing in this exercise, as in the previous one, is to take your time, recording each step in your consciousness.
As you can see for yourself, there is nothing complicated in the proposed exercises and everyone can do them. Do them for 15-20 minutes for several days, and very soon you will notice that your bad memories have become dull and no longer evoke the same memories in you as before. They will practically stop bothering you, and if they return from time to time, you will no longer react to them so violently.
Every person has had things happen in their life that they don’t want to remember. Numerous betrayals and disappointments, illnesses and deaths of loved ones, complete failure in a career, shame and misunderstanding - you want to throw all this out of your head and never remember it again.
But our brain is designed in such a way that some particularly vivid memories, often of a negative nature, remain and constantly remind us of ourselves. This can have a negative impact on the present and prevent you from moving on.
In this case, you want to forget the past forever and start thinking about the future. It’s interesting that it’s impossible to predict which memories will fade over time and which ones will torment you for a long time.
Consciously forgetting the past
To get rid of unpleasant memories, it is first important to “ don't get hung up" On this. The more we try to forget something, the more we think about it. Therefore, to get rid of bad memories, you should simply not think about them.
If events are associated with certain people and places, then it is important to change your place of residence and limit communication with certain people. In other words, it is important to protect yourself from everything that may remind you of the troubles that happened.
If we are talking about a difficult breakup between lovers, then it is important to hide or throw away all joint photographs and gifts. Try not to visit places where spending time together was especially frequent. Don’t think that because of this you will have to limit yourself to such things for the rest of your life.
Restrictions are needed only for the first time, while the memories are still reflected by the aching pain in the chest. Over time, when emotional feelings about this give way to indifference, you can safely take out the hidden things and visit the above public institutions.
When it hurts a lot, we distort memories
How to forget your bad past forever? The answer may be disappointing, but it is impossible. It is possible to completely forget your past life only in case of amnesia, but this option is unlikely to suit an adequate person. If memories persist, it may be worth rethinking them to understand what exactly is causing the resentment and bitterness of disappointment.
But in order not to go deeper into a depressive state, it is important to look for positive or neutral moments in these memories, and try to concentrate all possible attention on them. This will allow you to turn unpleasant memories into positive emotions in the future.
Memories are all that remains to us from the past. Two different people can remember the same event to the point of being completely different. It all depends on the emotions that a person experiences at the time of the incident.
And if you constantly remember certain things, slightly distorting them, then over time it will seem that the distorted version was actually real. This feature of our brain is worth taking advantage of if you want a certain event to be positive in the future.
Coolness as endurance training
How to forget your negative past forever or turn it into a positive future? To resolve this issue, you can try using composure. That is, mentally experience an exciting situation, but see yourself as an indifferent third party. This is the only way to calmly look at it from the outside and try to reduce the negative aspects that haunt you.
If the experiences are so strong that even mentally thinking about the current incident causes unbearable pain, then you can safely praise yourself. Forcing yourself to relive the memories again is a very important step towards eliminating negativity.
This is a kind of subconscious training to sharpen willpower and perseverance. Over time, grieving during mental experiences will get boring, and the brain will push the exciting situation into the background.
Forgetting unrequited love
All people are capable of experiencing sincere feelings, and many open up to each other in these feelings. Accordingly, any person at least once in his life experienced a sad feeling of betrayal on the part of those people to whom he opened up.
How to forget a past and such an unhappy love? If the emotions were not strong, then the person is almost immediately distracted by extraneous things in the form of work, hobbies and entertainment. Some even manage to build new relationships right away.
But what to do when the attachment to the betrayed person is so strong that there is no desire to move on?
The following steps for removing the “needle” from the heart are more suitable for the female half of the population, although some men can also use them:
- Firstly, you can mope for several days, drown in depression and memories, look at photos together and shed tears over gifts (girls love to strangle toys given by former friends with bitter hugs - after all, they are not to blame for anything);
- Secondly, when you get tired of crying about your own worthlessness and uselessness to anyone, the time will come for especially persistent self-care. Masks, gels, creams, manicures, pedicures, makeup and hairstyles - all this will help you remember who is really the victim of the situation, and who urgently needs a comforting hug. But in order to find a willing chosen one, it is important to look the part.
The bad past doesn't leave you alone
It happens that in the past actions were committed that led to catastrophic consequences in the form of a nervous breakdown, loss of friends or the affection of loved ones. Deeds have already been done, and the past cannot be changed. But how can you forget significant mistakes from your past if they don’t leave you alone for many years?
It is important to reconsider the situation and understand your mistakes so as not to make them in the future. Then you need to try to change yourself, if this is important for the location of loved ones and important people. At the same time, we must not forget about our own psychological state.
It is not uncommon when, as a result of such mistakes and subconscious changes in oneself for the better, self-confidence disappears and is replaced by numerous complexes.
If in the past there were serious problems in society, then in the future a complex of isolation may remain. This is a common protective reaction of the body - to protect itself from communication so that there is no risk of repeating the mistake.
You can’t reproach yourself too much for your actions. You need to calmly consider the shortcomings that led to negative consequences and carefully replace them with other behavioral traits. You shouldn’t completely give up communicating with people, because man is a social being, and without communication with the public it will be very difficult.
Life is full of events, and they are not always joyful: some of them you simply want to erase from your memory. However, often a person mentally plays out a negative situation in his head, returning to it again and again. However, you can get rid of this habit, and the tips described below will help with this.
How to forget an unpleasant event?
When thinking about how to forget something forever, you should resort to the following method. You will be required to relive the negative event without changing the plot. It is important that you feel emotionally what happened in the past. Remember all the little things you can.
Then imagine that all this happened not to you, but to someone else. What advice would you give to this person? Surely you would see the situation from a different angle. Put yourself in the shoes of the people who participated in it. What emotions are you feeling now? Most likely, you will not be so offended by everything that happened. After this, imagine how the picture fades and then disappears from your field of vision. You can even mentally drown her in sulfuric acid. She is no more, she has disappeared, she has died, which means you can let everything go. Understand that the past is dead and will never come back. Once you understand this, the pain will go away.
How can you forget something terrible?
You can erase a terrible event from your memory by switching your brain to something completely different. This could be work, a new hobby, dating. Also, you shouldn’t be alone, otherwise thoughts about what happened will simply haunt you. It’s better to spend some time with friends and relatives. Of course, from time to time, memories of a negative event will pop up in your memory, but every day it will hurt you less and less.
Some people have nightmares in which they return to that terrible reality and relive it. In this case, you need to think only about good things before going to bed. For example, thank your Higher Power for the positive things that happened over the past day. It could be:
- meeting with an old friend;
- your baby's smile or first words;
- a pleasant memory - a cute kitten or puppy, a beautiful butterfly.
You can also watch a comedy, a concert of your favorite artist, or listen to a new album before going to bed. It is important that you take your mind off what is weighing you down. As a result, you will go to bed in high spirits, which means you will only have pleasant dreams.
How to forget something bad in your life?
Bad events often happen in a person’s life, and most often he blames a relative, friend, or acquaintance for them. As a result, hatred appears, but it does not allow you to live in peace. In this case, it is very important to forgive the person who harmed you and let him go. Meditation will help you with this. Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down on your bed, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Once you are completely relaxed, you can begin to meditate. Imagine a place where you will be as comfortable as possible, and invite your offender there. Look into his eyes, look at his facial features, look at his clothes.
Now tell him everything you think about him. Surely you have accumulated a lot. You don't have to be shy in your expressions. Once you tell your abuser how you feel, you will feel better.
The next stage will be forgiveness. Take the person by the hands, look into his eyes and tell him that you forgive him. This must be done sincerely. Say the words “I forgive you” as many times as you want until you believe it. After this, you can let the offender go: look after him, wish him happiness and surround him with love.
You should feel lightness, it will be a sign that you have let go of the situation. If not, you need to do this exercise every evening. It may take you a month or a week, take your time, as it will become easier for you. As a result, the bad event will not dominate your mind; your brain will simply forget it.
How to forget a negative event forever?
The following exercise will help you forget something forever. For it you will need to find a sheet of paper, a saucer, matches and a pen. Sit down at the table and describe a negative event that happened to you. Remember all the details. Once you realize that you have nothing more to add, reread what you wrote and tear the paper, imagining how the negative situation is erased from your memory.
Then take a saucer, put scraps of paper in it and set them on fire. Look carefully at the flame, imagine how all your grievances and memories burn in it. Once the paper is completely burned, wash off the ash with water. That's it, this memory is no longer there, it has no power over your mind. Remember this and enjoy today without going back to the past.
You can read more tips on consigning memories to oblivion in our article -.
For many people, the problem of developing memory and skills memorization and assimilation of texts is more relevant than the ability to forget the past and get rid of unnecessary information.
Today you can find a large number of advertisements in newspapers, on television and on the Internet, the headlines and announcements of which are full of promises to improve and restore memory. Anyone today can independently and easily find a lot of useful information about how to develop memory. But for the effective functioning of our memory, it is necessary not only the ability to reliably remember, store and, if necessary, reproduce the necessary information. The ability to forget it is also important.
In mnemonics (methods and techniques that facilitate memorization) there are special techniques designed for deliberate forgetting. And indeed, why, if there is involuntary and voluntary memorization, can forgetting only be involuntary?
So, the set of methods and techniques for learning to forget is called flying technology. The origin of this word dates back to Greek mythology. Lethe is a river of oblivion located in the underground kingdom of Hades. The souls who arrived in the kingdom of the dead, having tasted the water from this river, received oblivion and no longer remembered their earthly existence. This is where the expression comes from - to sink into oblivion, meaning disappearance and oblivion without a trace.
What is the use of flying technology and its laws of forgetting? In what cases are they necessary?
First of all, answering these questions, it should be said that forgetting is not a definitely negative quality of human memory, since the functioning of mnemonic processes without forgetting processes will be inferior. It would be appropriate to recall the words of the outstanding Soviet psychologist Alexander Romanovich Luria - “ Many people are working on how to find ways to remember better? But no one even thinks about the question: how best to forget?»
In this article, we will look at the most effective ways that help a person forget the past, which has a traumatic effect on his psyche, and learn how to forget information that has lost its relevance.
Forgetting techniques can be used in at least two cases:
- In order to suppress unpleasant memories, especially those that have become obsessively repetitive.
- In order to erase from memory unnecessary information that simply clutters our brain.
Forgetting method #1 - Suppression
This flying technique has a psychotherapeutic orientation; with its help, you can forget memories that are traumatic to the psyche.
Often the memory of unpleasant events haunts people, and they begin to fear that these traumatic memories will begin to “pop up” again, and the more they fear this, the more fears become more intrusive. To relieve obsession (involuntarily obsessive thoughts), you can use an exercise called “burning letter":
- Memories that make you suffer and experience unpleasant sensations, describe them in detail and transfer them to a piece of paper. Then take this sheet, crumple it up and place it in some fireproof container, set it on fire. As you watch the paper burn, think about how your experiences burn, how they crumble and turn into ashes. All negative memories burned away! Throw the ashes out the window and scatter them to the wind!
The point of the “burning letter” exercise is that it helps not only to forget information, but to become the master of your memories. A person experiencing unpleasant feelings from past events can thus forget them. Of course this one forgetting process may be unpleasant, but often it gives the desired effect: a person does not turn on defense mechanisms, does not suppress memories, but, on the contrary, by describing these events, he gets rid of the memories associated with them.
Since ancient times, fire has played the role of the first psychotherapist for humans: looking at the flame, a person, in fact, underwent a psychotherapy session, cleansing himself of heavy thoughts and throwing off the weight of primitive stresses from his shoulders. And if a person has a good imagination, and he is able to vividly imagine that not just paper is burning in a fire, but also memories that traumatize his psyche, then even if he wanted to, he will not be able to reproduce them.
“TV” is another exercise often used by psychologists and psychotherapists in their practice to rid the patient of memories that weigh on him:
- Try to transfer your negative experiences as vividly as possible onto the big TV screen. Remember everything down to the smallest detail. Then take the remote control, and mentally turn off the sound, watch a “silent movie”. Then, in a similar way, deprive the visualization of clarity, contrast, and, finally, brightness. Eventually, the image fades and disappears completely. The main thing is not to rush! To make the process of forgetting more effective, you can mentally unplug the cord from the socket or throw the TV out the window. If the negative memories are not so tragic (let's say, just unpleasant), then with the help of this exercise you can translate them into the genre of comedy. Imagine these events recorded on video camera. Mentally play the recording in reverse, play it at high speed, use slow motion, put funny music on the picture, introduce a comedian into the “film,” etc. If you learn to direct your memories, it will be easier for you to manage them. Moreover, where there is humor, there is no place for neurosis.
These exercises may not help you completely get rid of memories, but they will teach you not to be afraid of them. And this is very important, because by eliminating the fear of negative memories, we eliminate the cause of their involuntary appearance.
Forgetting method #2 - Deletion
Other forgetting technique is designed to remove unnecessary information from memory that has lost its relevance and clutters up the “archive” of memory. For example, you can free mnemonic matrices from already applied information material in order to fill them with new content.
Simplest forgetting method called " flight technical cloth».
- For example, we filled a memory matrix with a series of images created from words. Then, focusing our attention on the first cell of the matrix, we take a wet rag and erase the image (shaped group) located in it. The first cell remains, we continue to see it clearly, but now it is empty, the space is free and now new associative compositions can be placed on it. Next, we sequentially, cell by cell, go through the entire matrix and, using a similar method, erase all the remaining images.
It should be noted that this method is not entirely convenient if the mnemonic matrices are large. After all, it will take a lot of time and effort to consistently erase information from each individual cell. In such cases, it is appropriate to apply the laws of forgetting by Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky, a Russian-Soviet journalist and professional mnemonist, who, speaking with intellectual numbers in front of a huge audience, was forced not only to remember large sequences of numbers, words, incoherent syllables, etc., but also to erase everything this is from memory before the next performance.
- « Worried that the individual sessions do not get mixed up with each other, I mentally erase the board and, as it were, cover it with a film that is completely hopeless and impenetrable. When the session ends, I mentally remove it... I’m still talking to the audience, and at this time I kind of crush this film with my hands, hearing how it crunches.“- Shereshevsky shared his secrets. So he deleted information immediately from the entire field of the mnemonic matrix, and not from each individual cell. If such a method did not help to effectively forget information, Solomon Veniaminovich resorted to seemingly paradoxical methods of forgetting: “ In order to remember, people write down... It seemed funny to me, and I decided to do it my way: since they write down, therefore, they do not need to remember. This means that if I write it down, I will know that I don’t need to remember it... And I began to apply this law of forgetting in small things: in some errands, in surnames, in telephone numbers».
In an effort to remember important information, most people tend to write it down. And the more often we write down what we want to remember, the less we use our memory. This is a direct path to memory atrophy, because without receiving enough load, it works less and less. As a result, people come to the sad conclusion that they have a bad memory, although they themselves are often to blame for this.
Try not to use notepads and notebooks, trust your memory, load it so that it can work fully ( exercises for memory development), and then she will stop letting you down. Only mark something on paper if you need to forget it!
The process of mastering the skills of forgetting (as well as memorizing) proceeds in a manner consistent with the laws of Hegelian dialectics. At a certain point, the experience of voluntary forgetting leads to a qualitative leap, allowing one to forget unnecessary information only through willpower without the use of special forgetting methods.
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Hello, dear readers! Our whole life is a series of events. Some are forgotten instantly, while others can cause pain for a considerable time. They spoil your mood, cause negative feelings and complicate the future.
Today we will talk about how to forget unpleasant memories. You will learn how they are formed, how they actually affect your life, why you concentrate on them and how the previous life once and for all.
Where do memories come from?
As a rule, memories do not come out of nowhere. They are caused by other people's words, new events, some objects with which you have a connection. They can be destroyed and created. At one time we constantly think about rest, another we devote to relationships with a person, and a third to an unpleasant episode.
Your brain tries to keep close information that is important to you, but it is not able to judge its “importance” itself. Therefore, if you often think about a certain moment, the brain assigns this situation the category “significant” and deliberately resumes the process at every opportunity.
In addition to frequency, intensity and emotionality also matter to the brain. We devote more time to some thoughts, while we consider others to be “thought out far and wide.” These events fade into the background.
A person is not able to influence his own brain and change the category of significance of an event, but he can contribute to the fact that the memory fades into the background. To do this, you need to try to devote as little time as possible to unpleasant thoughts from the past. You cannot get rid of a sudden impulse of thought, but you calmly control the discussion: it’s up to you to devote an hour to it or just a few minutes.
You will not find anything new if you constantly pour the problem from empty to empty. Perhaps you like to share your emotions and the state that this event causes. Remember that the longer you continue to do this, the longer the damage to your psyche will continue.
You need to remove your emotional attachment. Make it real.
Emotionality
More than once I have come across articles from the Internet on psychology on this topic, in which people are advised to avoid places and events that evoke unpleasant memories. I don't entirely agree with this recommendation. Firstly, because most often it is quite difficult to do, and, secondly, it is not entirely correct.
Let's talk a little about something pleasant. The process is the same. Think back to your last vacation. When you were just returning from it, a program on TV or the word “travel” from the lips of a friend evoked a wave of emotions, memories of the beach, sea, cities and museums, as well as a long story about a recent trip. Time passed, and the story became shorter and less emotional.
By avoiding, you replace some unpleasant emotions with others and continue. You increase the time to overcome. You carry a burden within yourself, deliberately try to avoid certain places, and drown out the pain. At the same time, notice that you do not stop thinking about the incident.
Sooner or later, you will have to face something that will cause a relapse, but if in a normal rhythm by this time it would no longer cause so many feelings, then if it lasts for a long time it will become much brighter. You run the risk of not just encountering an object that evokes unpleasant memories, but of looking into the eyes of real fear.
Imagine you have a child and he is afraid of clowns. You try in every possible way to protect him from the object: do not go to toy stores, avoid circuses and public events. At age 12, when he returns from school, he finally encounters a clown. Do you think he will forget about his phobia or will he run home pale and in shock? Wouldn't it be better to slowly teach him that there is nothing demonic about clowns?
Don’t be afraid to face what revives in you, but try to talk and think about them less and less.
One frank conversation
First of all, you should discuss in detail an event from the past that evokes emotions in you. Ideally, it would be nice to discuss it with a psychologist, but you can also talk to a friend.
Discuss to your heart's content, don't be afraid to share. You must speak out and achieve maximum results. You should not have unspoken thoughts that will continue to torment your soul. Decide everything so as not to continue to look for new conclusions.
I can also recommend you a book Jose Silva "Mind Control", in which you will find real techniques to reduce the pressure of an event on the psyche, as well as many other valuable recommendations for improving your life.
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