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How to forget unpleasant moments. Forgetting methods

These three ways really help to forget the past. For maximum efficiency, I recommend combining them with each other.

To leave the negative past behind and gain complete control over your life - register for the training by Alexander Gerasimenko "" (June 8-9, Moscow).

The first way to forget the past

Reception of NLP. Imagine a wall with pictures from different moments in your life glued to it. Here you go to school, here is your first love, here you have earned your first penny, then a nightmare happens that you are trying to forget ... All significant and even some ordinary moments of your life should be on this wall. Imagine all photographs in color, only the negative event in black and white. Step back and look at the wall of your life from the side. See how much color it has and how small to scale this black and white photograph is. Now mentally squeeze it to the size of 3 by 4 cm. Next, continue to “glue” photos on the wall of your life. Glue the future. Continue filling the wall with paints. Any of your dreams, pleasant moments, vacations, your children, how they go to school ... Images in which you help other people. Pictures where people admire you. As a result, a black and white photo will be surrounded on all sides by color photographs that go far away from it. You look at the wall and realize that the incident you want to forget is just a single event. It has its own boundaries, it is local and now occupies only an insignificant part of your wall of life. This black and white photo is not your life. Your life is colorful, vibrant and desirable.

As a result of this exercise, negative memories were localized, and a life full of happiness and events appeared around them. You have not forgotten the past, you have limited it, and it no longer extends to the present and the future.

The second way to forget the past

Play in your imagination a shocking event from your past that you want to forget. Yes, I urge you to climb into this terrible past that you are so afraid of. But do it in a special way - in the form of a black and white movie with funny music in the background. Turn on the cinema and take your seat in the back of the cinema. Insert the audience's laughter into your movie. Add hysterical laughter in places. Play some scenes backwards to make the movie funnier. Play your movie until you are no longer afraid of it.

By adding funny sounds and distorting the picture, playing it backwards, you can “color” the black and white memories of your past and change your attitude towards them. This technique allows you to fix your memory. You will do the same thing that you did at school with a deuce in your diary with a blade. You erased it and drew a four in its place. The diary of your life after this exercise will look great and you will be able to stop worrying about “bad grades” in the past.

The third way to forget the negative past

This method is very practical. It does not involve any games with your own mind and not only helps to forget disturbing memories, but also changes your attitude towards what happened to you in the past.

I will explain it in terms of metaphors. First, imagine that the past that you need to forget is a nuclear reactor. Even years later, it emits radiation and poisons everything around. The lives of people living nearby, that is, yours, is contaminated. You cannot smell flowers anymore, because your sense of smell gives out all odors distorted. In everything, you can feel the fumes from the burned out power plant, which haunts you even in your sleep. Radiation needs to be eliminated. The reactor must be concreted and the event buried in the past. Yes and please. Concrete!

If your memories bother you, and you sit in the kitchen and think “how to forget them,” then you are just stirring up the ash and blowing on it. Memories continue to poison life. Alternatively, you might want to take your mind off your tormenting thoughts and sit in front of the TV. This does not work. This is the same as covering a radioactive center with oilcloth.

Remember, to forget the unpleasant past, it must be concreted... How can I do that? Simply by burying the center of the explosion under massive action. Our memory is limited in its capabilities and cannot hold in itself all that we have experienced. The more active actions we have taken, the more we have experienced, the more layers of “concrete” will cover the event that you want to forget.

Those. massive actions that require your 100% attention and will be the concrete for the exploded reactor. Get yourself busy. It's very difficult, you know, to worry about the past when you ski downhill. It is unlikely that you will remember the negativity that haunts you at the moment when you speak from the podium in front of a large audience.

You need to start laying layers of concrete that keep your past out of your present and future. Take bright, bold, proactive actions and your past will be a thing of the past.

May 26th, 2018

As a child, each of us had to memorize a lot of new information. Remember how adults advised to sleep after cramming and how simple poem lines popped up in my head in the morning. Repetition and sleep are two main principles of forming strong neural connections in the brain: the more you focus on the subject, the better the new knowledge is consolidated. But there is not so much free space in the head. To learn how to control your memory and develop, you first need to learn how to correctly forget unnecessary information. Fortunately, our brains have something like a dedicated delete button.

Roads of Mind

Memory training develops synaptic connections between neurons: dopamine, serotonin and other neurotransmitters travel along these "paths". Glial cells are responsible for the speed of signal transmission between neurons, which also have their own antagonists - microglial cells. They will be of interest to us today.


I remember here, but I don’t remember here

Microglial cells control synaptic connections and cut off "extra" ends. To be honest, geneticists themselves do not fully understand how a microglial cell recognizes which synaptic connection is already superfluous. There are suggestions that unnecessary elements are marked with a special protein.


Why is it needed

Roughly speaking, by cutting off unnecessary synaptic connections (in the scientific community, the process is called synaptic pruning), the brain controls the state of its "cache", making room for the formation of new connections. There would be no microglial cells and there would be no problems with education: the place in the head is over and you cannot learn anything else.


Short term memory

The study of previously unknown information initiates the formation of new neural connections - the so-called short-term memory. To put it bluntly, your brain hastily creates several fragile pathways for your neurons to run along. To create a reliable information structure, the brain will need a reboot.


Sleep work

Sleep is such a reboot for the body. During deep sleep, brain cells shrink to 60% of their daytime size. This is in order to make room for microglial cells, which are mistaken for the destruction of unnecessary synaptic connections. A clear head and an easy awakening in the morning are a signal that synaptic pruning was successful.


Do not delete

The mind marks the synaptic connections least involved in the day with a special protein. Do you spend most of your time playing computer games, and doing a little English in the evening? Then do not be surprised at the quality and amount of useful information left in your head. Microglial cells will sensibly assess that more time is allocated for important matters and helpfully leave memories of how to complete Supermario 6 in all the details, but English can be deleted.


Brain construction

In general, everything is arranged as simply as possible. What you focus on most of the time will be the priority in developing strong synaptic connections. Try to control your emotions about what is happening around: by the degree of reaction to the environment, you seem to mark important details. This is where waving fists after a fight and other thoughts about how to respond to the offender come from - you focused too much on the situation and the brain decided to form a separate strong synaptic network for it.

Sooner or later, each person is faced with such events that he would like to simply forget about. Fortunately, there are healthy ways to help yourself deal with negative memories, from techniques for getting rid of bad thoughts to methods of suppressing the anxiety that occurs when bad memories come up.

Steps

Part 1

Forming the right way of thinking

    Avoid contact with objects and places that give you unpleasant memories. Have you ever noticed that unpleasant memories roll over you when you visit certain places or are near certain objects? Perhaps you yourself are not even aware that it is they who provoke your thoughts. For example, a bad memory might refer to an incident that happened to you in elementary school, and it pops up in your memory every time you walk past school. But if you take a new route to work that doesn't run past the school you went to, you can be more successful in keeping your mind free of bad thoughts.

    • If you can completely eliminate contact with triggers of bad memories, over time the bad event will fade into your memory. You will have less reason to recall past memories, and life will replace them with more important thoughts.
    • Of course, not all triggers can be completely eliminated, you may simply not want to change your path to work or donate your collection of sci-fi books to someone, or stop listening to songs of your favorite band just because the last time you saw the performers live the night your ex told you to leave. If avoiding triggers is impossible, either because there are too many of them, or because you are unwilling to let the vagaries of your mind affect you so much, there are other ways to deal with your memories.

  1. Think about a bad event until the thoughts disappear by themselves. This step helps a lot. The first few times you remember something bad, negative memories can catch you off guard and leave you feeling anxious and devastated. You will instinctively try to avoid thinking about the event as much as possible, but suppressing memories can make them even more powerful when they do pop up in your memory. Instead of chasing bad thoughts out of your memory, allow yourself to remember what happened. Think about it until the memories stop hurting you. Eventually, you will stop thinking about them in the same volume, and when the memories do arise, they will no longer be painful. If the memories put a lot of stress on you, go for a long walk or engage in vigorous exercise.

    • Try to take into account the fact that the event that is the root cause of the memory is long gone. Whatever happens to you (whether you are ridiculed to your embarrassment or you are in a dangerous situation) is in the past.
    • In some cases, thinking about bad memories can become an obsessive habit. Analyze your own emotions that arise from bad memories. If you find that even after a long time thinking about events, the memories continue to hurt you, try other methods of getting rid of them.

  2. Try the method of changing memories. Each time you remember something, the memories change slightly. The brain tries to fill in small gaps in memories with fictional information. You can take advantage of this feature of the brain and replace bad memories with other information. Eventually, an altered version of the memory will begin to emerge in memory.

    • As an example, let's say that you have a childhood memory of riding with your father on the lake on a boat called Dream. You remember how your father stood aft in red shorts and sunglasses, how he screamed when you leaned too much over the railing and fell overboard into the water. You are sure that you know all this, but years later, looking at the photo of that day, you find that the father was wearing jeans, and the name of the boat was actually "Kingfisher". As you can see, memories are never completely accurate and can change.
    • Try changing the part of the memory that upsets you. Based on the above example, if you remember your fear and loneliness when you fell into a lake, try to re-draw the memory in your mind so that your focus is on how amazing it was to be saved by your father.
    • Each time the memory re-emerges, it will be slightly modified. If you always focus on good feelings instead of bad ones, then the memory will begin to change accordingly. You may not be able to transform it from bad to amazingly good, but in this way you can deprive the memory of its former painfulness.

  3. Concentrate on happy memories. Sometimes the brain starts digging into bad memories so deeply that it becomes difficult to get out of it. If you find yourself thinking too much about the bad, try to learn how to switch to good memories. Don't give bad thoughts time to ruin your mood or make you worry. Instead, when a bad memory re-emerges in your memory, you will forcefully switch to a happier memory. Continue to practice positive thinking until you are automatically sucked into a quagmire of bad memories.

    • Try to match the bad memory with a good pair. For example, if you are unable to stop remembering how you gave a slurred presentation to the class and everyone was laughing at you, supplement that memory with others when you did a good presentation and earned praise. Whenever a bad memory comes up, shift your thoughts to its positive pair. Having a positive memory prepared in advance will save you from having to panic and search for something good in your memory when you feel uncomfortable.

  4. Learn to live in the present. The practice of paying more attention to the present moment in time is called being aware of the present moment. It involves focusing on what is happening here and now, instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Self-awareness is a great way to relieve stress and get more out of life. Instead of wasting time and energy worrying about what cannot be changed, you can take this burden off your shoulders and simply live in the present.

    Part 2

    Creating a positive attitude towards life

    1. Think about what you've learned from an embarrassing moment in the past. Even the worst experience can teach you something. It may take a long time for you to understand what you have learned, especially if the event happened recently. But if you look back at it from the present and see how much wiser you have become since that moment, your bad memory may lose some of its pain. Think about whether there is something positive in that event that you did not notice before?

      • Remember that negative experiences are an unavoidable part of life. Difficulties make a person stronger and help him appreciate pleasant moments more. If there were no bad things happening, it simply would not be possible to fully enjoy the good moments.
      • Try to count everything that you are grateful for in life. Whatever your loss, expressed as a bad memory, make a list of things for which you are currently grateful in life.

    2. Create new happy memories. Over time, the bad memory will gradually fade in your memory. But this process can be accelerated by starting to live life to the fullest and creating new good memories that take over your mind. Do what you enjoy and connect with people who make you happy. In the long term, the more positive the fresh memories are, the less significant the past negative thoughts will become against their background.

      • It will be useful to visit places that you have never been before, so that you have new experiences that are not affected in any way by your past. Buy yourself a ticket and travel to a new city for yourself, or become a tourist in your own city, visiting places where you usually do not appear.
      • If travel isn't your forte, change your routine in some other way. Visit a cafe that you have never been to, cook some complicated dish, or invite all your friends to your dinner party.

    3. Lead a busy lifestyle. Maintain a busy schedule and try to stimulate your brain to be productive so you have less time to think about the bad. If you tend to spend a lot of time alone with yourself, try to start meeting with friends or visiting relatives more often. Take a break from reading a good book or pick a new hobby. The more time you spend sitting and doing nothing, the more likely you will be immersed in negative memories. Below are some distraction activities to keep you occupied.

      Avoid alcohol and drug use. The use of mind-distorting substances can only make things worse, especially if a bad memory makes you feel depressed and anxious. Alcohol can increase depression, irritability and anxiety, especially in those people who already experience similar symptoms. To maintain a positive morale, it is best to completely stop or limit the use of alcohol and drugs.

      Make your health a priority. When you are immersed in your own negative thoughts, it can sometimes be difficult to remember to take care of yourself. But taking care of your own health has a big impact on the way you think. Eating wholesome and nutritious foods, getting enough sleep at night, and exercising several times a week will provide a good foundation for keeping bad memories aside. In addition to meeting the basic needs of your body, take the time to pamper yourself to help ease the symptoms of anxiety associated with your bad memories.

    Part 3

    Overcoming traumatic experiences

      Try to burn out the memory. Acknowledge the negative memory and negative emotions associated with it. It may seem counterproductive, but psychocatarsis (the manifestation of disturbing emotions) is a key component of mental wound healing. Suppressing bad memories will only lead to them re-emerging a little later and possibly becoming more intense. Allow yourself to feel angry, sad, embarrassed, or hurt. If you feel the need to cry or scream, do so. Eventually, you will be able to switch to the other side of your feelings, which will be easier to come to terms with than if you ignore your own pain.

      • Consider joining a support group. Try to find a local support group that is associated with the exact problem you are experiencing. For example, there are many support groups for divorce, relationship termination, chronic illness, and so on.
      • If you are uncomfortable sharing your own story with someone else, write it down in your own journal and keep it in a safe place where no one can find it.
        • PTSD symptoms include vivid memories of past events, nightmares and frightening thoughts.
        • At the same time, a person may feel emotionally drained, depressed, or constantly anxious due to the fact that they feel like they are on pins and needles all the time.

    1. Get specialized medical treatment. If you feel trapped in your own memories of a traumatic event, there are medical treatments that can help you. These techniques are usually used in conjunction with psychotherapy for best results. Make an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss with them if medical treatment can help you get rid of bad memories that are negatively affecting your quality of life.

    • Renaming a memory can trick the brain into forgetting about it more quickly. For example, instead of calling a memory "bad," call it a "past memory." Mentally repeating the word "bad" will make you feel bad.
    • Don't linger too long in the bitterness phase. Some period of sadness is normal after an upsetting event, but you need to understand when it is time to forget about the grief and start living a normal life again.
    • No matter how terrible your memory is, it’s a thing of the past. Don't let it influence your present and future, as you cannot change the past unless you know how to travel in time, so leave the past in the past and cheer up!
    • Think joyful. As bad as your memories are, focus on the future.

Even with tremendous efforts, we cannot always forget certain situations from the past. However, there are a few easy ways you can get rid of bad memories and start life from scratch.

Our life is divided into three categories - past, present and future. In each of these periods, certain moments happen to us that cannot be forgotten. In this article, we will talk about what has already happened to us and what needs to be left in the past forever in order to start living anew.

Memories of the past are moments that we can no longer forget. It doesn't matter whether they are pleasant or not, we will always visualize them in our consciousness, because they are an integral part of ourselves. The past is the foundation of our life. Every day we live can bring something pleasant and new into our life, or it can upset us. Unfortunately, we cannot control our destiny and do not know when something important will happen to us. Because of this, unpleasant moments occur in our life, which leave behind not only consequences, but also negative memories. The experts of the site offer to your attention several ways at once, with the help of which you can let go of the past and start a new life.

Root Causes of Negative Memories

Living in the past is a thankless task. Sometimes a person involuntarily mentally returns to his old life and tries to realize his mistakes. However, to get rid of negative memories, you need to understand the reasons for their occurrence.

Death of a loved one. It is almost impossible to get rid of this memory, you can only come to terms with it. The death of a loved one can not only turn our life upside down, but divide it into "before" and "after". For a long time, a person feels lonely, especially if he has lost a person who has always been his main support and support and with whom he has many pleasant memories.

Parting or cheating. It is very difficult to survive the betrayal of a loved one. Cheating leaves a deep wound in the heart and makes us completely disappointed in the opposite sex. Parting is also one of the greatest upheavals in our lives. As a rule, such memories fade into the background only with the emergence of new love. However, the fear of being abandoned again never leaves us.

Moving. Longing for the old places and old acquaintances - this is what people who have changed their place of residence face. Over time, we get used to a new city, make new friends, but the memories of our familiar places never leave us. In this case, you just need to get used to the new life, find your advantages in it. Try to turn back as little as possible, otherwise the moments of the past will never leave your consciousness.

Wrong choice of profession.Even in childhood, parents try to prove to us that one profession is much better or easier than another. Having enlisted the support of loved ones, we make a choice and do not even think about the consequences. Many years pass, and we remember with bitterness the times when we chose our future profession, and we think that now it not only does not bring us the expected income, but also deprives us of joy. Many people say that it's never too late to change your life, which means that in order to get rid of negative memories and hated work, you just need to make a decision on your own and finally choose the type of activity that you like.

Ways to get rid of negative memories

Before learning about ways to get rid of negative memories, tune in to a positive attitude. Keep in mind that there are many good things in life besides unpleasant moments. Suffering and complaining is not a way out of the situation. In this way, you harm yourself by refusing to let go of the past and start living from scratch.

Analyze your past. Before you get rid of negative memories, you need to understand some moments of your past. At this stage you need:

  • Letting go of the past. Having experienced a series of failures, a person begins to think that one day they will repeat in his life, and thereby attracts them. Whatever mistakes you have made in the past, you must let go of the memories of them. You do not need to put up with the fact that troubles will occur in your life, try to present your future in the best light.
  • Admit your guilt. Everything that happens in our life is partly our fault. You should not blame other people for your problems, because no one decides what to do in a certain situation. To start over, you have to admit that your mistakes are your fault. Thus, you can draw conclusions for yourself and avoid difficulties in the future.
  • Forget your mistakes. Perhaps you once betrayed a loved one or committed another, no less bad act. This does not mean that the memories of him and the feeling of shame should haunt you all your life. At this stage, it is important to understand that you are a person, and it is common for any person to make mistakes. Your task is not to do things in the future that will make you torture yourself.

After analyzing your past, you must draw a conclusion for yourself. If at this stage you got rid of some unpleasant memories and were able to forgive yourself, then you did everything right.

Learn from the past.Everything that happens to us should not disappear without a trace. Even from an unpleasant situation, you can learn a useful lesson that will help you avoid missteps in the future. Our past is an invaluable experience, because all the events that happened directly related to us. Your task is to learn the most important and useful from it and let it go. However, not many people are capable of doing this. Many continue to step on the same rake, clinging to a past life and making mistake after mistake.

Release from negative memories. The most important stage has come, at which you must completely get rid of negative memories. To do this, you will need:

  • Choose the right attitude. Start each morning with the thought that today will bring you new pleasant memories.
  • Psychological reception with water. If negative memories persist, turn on the faucet and pretend they are flowing away with water.
  • Get rid of things that are associated with negative memories. If there are things in the house with which you have negative memories, get rid of them. For example, after parting with a loved one, you do not need to keep gifts and joint photos, no matter how dear they are to you. One glance at them will pull you into the past, not allowing you to move forward.
  • Change the environment. If the atmosphere around you makes you bored and provokes unpleasant memories, make changes to it. In this case, you can do renovations or buy new furniture. If you have long wanted to change your place of residence, then the time has come to take action. Such chores will not only help you distract from negative thoughts, but will also be the first step towards starting a new life.
  • Change the look.To understand your present inner state, you need to look at yourself in the mirror. Most likely, your appearance will cause self-pity even in you. Think, are your memories worth such sacrifices? Head to the beauty salon, fitness center and boutique shopping. Change your appearance so that, looking at your reflection, you feel confident and ready for new victories and achievements.
  • Thank and forgive your offenders. Of course, you don't need to set up a personal meeting with each offender, but mentally you must forgive them, even if it is not easy. Resentment, hatred, anger, desire for revenge - all this is an extra burden that prevents you from starting a new life. Get rid of it and you will feel better.
  • Master meditation. Meditation practices help you relax and free your thoughts from all unnecessary things, including negative memories. With the help of meditation, you will learn to focus your attention only on important and pleasant things, which means that the past itself will recede into the background.
  • Get rid of bad habits. Bad habits litter a person's life. The minutes that you could spend on something more important and useful, you waste to your own detriment. First of all, you need to get rid of alcohol. Alcoholic drinks negatively affect the nervous system, and during their use, people begin to be overcome by past life memories and negative thoughts. By getting rid of addictions, you will be doing a great service to yourself and your body.

Meditation to get rid of unpleasant thoughts and memories

Meditation is the best way to relax and release negative memories. This meditation practice is simple, and you can do it at any time of the day.

First, choose a quiet place and sit comfortably. It is best to do the meditation in nature, but if you do not have this opportunity, you can do it at home, but be sure to retire.

Imagine that you are in a beautiful place, a harmonious, peaceful environment reigns around you, and the only thing that prevents you from taking a step forward is a heavy bag in your hands. In your mind, you must open it and see that there are stones in it. Imagine that each of them is one of your unpleasant memories. Start mentally throwing them out of your life by repeating:

  • i let go of my past;
  • i myself (a) can control my thoughts;
  • i am free (on) from my memories;
  • i am ready to part with my memories and start a new life;
  • i live in the present;
  • i love only myself and my family;
  • i can meet a new love;
  • i will find

Greetings to all my readers and subscribers, and those who have just decided to join a large number of people engaged in self-development and their health. This article will talk about our negative memories, which sometimes like a "snowball" haunt us. We will learn to get rid of them effectively.

Every person in his life makes a lot of mistakes, and this is quite normal. We are not robots to do everything perfectly. But some people learn from them experience, while others engage in self-flagellation, remembering mistakes again and again.

Some, especially strong negative memories make a person feel awkward, shame or fear, and this is very bad from a psychological point of view. This greatly spoils the mood and on this basis it can, and it is very difficult to fight it.

It is common for any person to make mistakes in life, and the main thing is to learn how to extract positive moments from them and not dwell on the past. We hope that the following tips will help you to forget all the bad things in your life.

1 Learn to love yourself

It is necessary in any situation to accept yourself as you are, and not to drive you into a rigid framework imposed by society. If you love yourself and begin to enjoy life, then it will also be favorable to you.

2 Stop obsessing about your problems and past failures

If you are constantly haunted by negative memories from the past and interfere with your normal life, you can try this psychological technique.

Present the problem in full force. You need to experience it again, only in your thoughts. Remember all the details, feelings. Try to make it as vivid and natural as possible. After you have reached the maximum visual perception, imagine the problem in the form of some image that came at that moment.

Observe it from the side, carefully peering into the details and after a while mentally remove it from your head, thinking about something good. You can then fix the result, for example, push-ups from the floor. This technique of replacing the negative with the positive is used in the army. And it works well.

3 Look at future problems and troubles from a philosophical point of view

There is no such thing that everything goes like clockwork. Any person has problems, both in the past and in the future. The difference between successful people and losers is their scale.

When a car breaks down and there is no money for its repair, one person can be completely demoralized, and a professional military man, for example, can fight for his life and be in an almost hopeless situation, but at the same time.

All problems are relative, and mean exactly as much as we attach importance to them.

4 Technique "Draw a problem"

Of course, many of us are not artists, but if negative memories persist, take a piece of blank paper and draw a problem. Draw the first thing that comes into your head. This works in the same way as the previous technique, only with the help of graphics it is possible to work out the image more strongly. After you have drawn it, burn the sheet. After a few sessions, the experience should diminish significantly.

After completing these exercises, think about good things. Life is great if you treat it in a positive way! Good luck to you!