How to get rid of bad childhood memories. Ways to get rid of negative memories

So where do these memories come from and where do they start? And it all starts with one tiny thought, negligible, that you do not pay attention to it. But over time, you plunge into it unobtrusively, and it begins to grow, like a snowball, and with each immersion in it, it becomes more and more, acquiring disturbing emotions, feelings and fears. But the memories of past relationships are special, they bite into the memory strongly, and it is sometimes very difficult to forget about them. Especially when it comes to parting with a loved one. But this period is the most difficult test for a person. According to most psychologists, people do not want to part with each other, even if they have the worst relationship, because they are afraid to return to childhood. It's like breaking up with your parents again.

It also happens that parting lasts quite a long time because of empty and vain hopes, which only make things worse. At this moment, depression, sadness and other negative emotions. And nothing in this life gives joy, and I don’t want to do anything. There are often times when unresolved issues create a sense of unfinished business. In this case, you just need to talk to your ex-lover (lover) in a calm tone and once and for all dot the i's in your relationship.

But still, how to get rid of memories of past relationships? Often, a hidden resentment imprisons one's own feelings in a dungeon for a long period of time. But even if we take into account that the offender (offender) is forgiven (forgiven), the feeling of resentment can still return after a few days or months. But as they say, time heals any wounds, you just have to wait. The only question is: for how long? And the answer is: everyone is different. Someone is ready to forget everything after a week, and someone will need years. The decisive factors here are the duration of the relationship and the nature of the person. TIME is one way to forget about past relationships and get rid of memories once and for all.

Another option is to carry out some symbolic act of farewell. For example: take a pebble and a heavier one and then throw it away, imagining how all memories of the past go with it. Or light a candle and looking at it, imagine how, together with melted wax, former feelings also melt. A good effect is the damage to common photos: tear, burn, or simply throw in the trash.

There is another possibility to forget past relationships. You need to try to make sure that nothing in your environment reminds you of former lover. First of all, get rid of his things, all his contacts on the phone and on the computer, photos, gifts. Try to avoid places of common pastime. And, ultimately, minimize contact with the very object of separation. And the freed time is better to take some business to your liking. It would be nice to do some kind of sport, as exercise helps to unload an already loaded brain and improves mood. In addition, new impressions and acquaintances are guaranteed to distract from past memories.

Among psychologists there are very interesting fact: you can get rid of any bad habit or addiction in 21 days! That is how much time, as they assure, the brain needs to adjust to a new mode of operation. You can also help him in this, avoiding negative thoughts such as: “no one needs (needs) me”, “no one will love me anymore”. On the contrary, you need to think positively as much as possible, no matter how unpromising it may look. And think like this: “I will soon meet a loved one!”. After all, as you know, thoughts can materialize, and maybe the very next day happiness will come to you. You need to be open and not miss any new opportunity.

In a new relationship, try not to sacrifice everything, and maintain self-esteem, otherwise this can only scare away your chosen one (chosen one) and lose those good qualities by which he (she) was (was) attracted (attracted). But, as a rule, this applies to women, by virtue of their nature. And most importantly: you must never regret the past, do not renounce the thought that this was exactly the person with whom you wanted to live your whole life. And set yourself up for the thought that everything is still ahead.

Each person decides for himself how to get rid of memories of past relationships. If there is a will, there will always be a solution. And it doesn't matter which method he chooses, the main thing is that he helps. And one thing should be remembered: the past is for that and the past, in order to leave it behind, even if it was good, and even more so if it was bad, live in the present and believe in a brighter future!

Instruction

Before you drive away the “ghosts of the past” with a filthy broom, you need to accept them and come to terms with them. In the end, this is your experience, and experience, as you know, is "the son of difficult mistakes." Trying to suppress difficult memories in yourself, one way or another you still return to them, reliving again what once struck you so unpleasantly.

Talk about what's bothering you with someone you trust. Perhaps this will help you not only understand yourself better, but also look at what is happening from the other side, get some advice, a hint. In any case, you will no longer be alone with your problem and will surely experience relief.

Once you've let go of all your emotions about the situation that's bothering you, slowly begin to "let go" of your anxiety. Think about what useful lessons you can learn from the experience, what to warn yourself against in the future. Let this not be an endless memory that prevents you from living a peaceful life, but a lesson that, having learned which, you can move on. Thus, you will not allow the "burden of the past" to bind you hand and foot.

Your imagination will help you push the unpleasant memory out of your head. Identify the state that causes anxiety in you, clearly imagine this situation. Fix for yourself what specifically in this situation triggers your unwanted emotions - it can be some kind of image, sound, bodily sensation, smell. Outline it in every detail.

Next, create an image that embodies the state that you would like to come to instead of your fear or anxiety. Clearly imagine the result that causes you joy, pleasant inner feelings and a desire to bring it to life. The created "picture" should be very attractive to you.

Now imagine first the first picture, triggering an unpleasant memory or fear, and then place a second, joyful and pleasant one next to it. Let the first picture fade, blur and give way to the second, which will grow and fill the entire space. "Anchor" the change of pictures with some change in sounds, bodily sensations, images, and repeat the procedure several times. Ultimately, the disturbing memory should be perceived by you as completely neutral.

note

Finding someone you can trust with your secret can be difficult. The Internet can help you here: anonymously sharing your pain on thematic forums, you can alleviate your condition and even get some advice. However, with the use of the latter, you need to be careful, because someone's individual experience can be not only useless for you, but also harmful.

Helpful advice

If you find it difficult to talk to people about your problem, try to put your thoughts in writing - write a letter addressed to a real or even fictional person. This can serve as a worthy alternative to a confidential conversation with someone.

Every survivor of a breakup knows how hard it is to release the emotional burden of a past connection and the consequences of its end. This article is written for everyone whose heart is hurt by similar feelings. Next Tips they will tell you how to cut the fetters of ties with a past partner and form the right attitude in order to heal the soul and enjoy life again.

Steps

Parting

Do not hurry. Sadness and feelings of separation are quite natural. And people who have lived together for several months, and who have shared years of living together, people have the same right to experiences. Let yourself cry and reflect on what happened in order to accept the breakup with all consciousness.

• Use this time for introspection. Write down your feelings in a diary and try to get to the bottom of the reasons for their appearance, subtly separating the different shades of experiences.
• Do not force the nature of feelings so that the experiences end faster. Some people tend to designate an "end day of mourning" without regard to natural processes. You need to understand that the onset of the deadline means that you will begin to take some concrete steps for future changes, and not the actual disappearance of emotions due to separation.

1. Don't push your feelings in. If you want to cry all day, cry. Do not be shy if you want to scream or open up in your grief to a close friend. It is better to let the emotional wave reach the end, and not strive to stop in a week. new novel to annoy your ex-partner.

   Remind yourself of the reason for the breakup. After a long relationship, there is often a lack of intimacy of the former partner, with whom so much time has been lived that his absence disrupts habitual thinking. Therefore, you need to strain your will and show strength of mind, reminding yourself of what led to the break.

   • Although memories of painful moments hurt, take the time to recreate the most difficult situation when you were deeply unhappy. Write it down on a piece of cardboard and carry it with you like a business card (or send a text message to your phone). Read this text when the desire to return your partner stirs in your soul.

2. Learn to recognize patterns of negative thinking. A mixture of resentment, guilt and regret is a nuclear mixture that can destroy even the strongest psyche. Learn to recognize the emotional patterns that plague you after a breakup. Write down your feelings and you will discover emotional triggers i.e. triggers involving being filled with bitter thoughts. Knowing about them, a person can stay away from emotional pits that suck thoughts into the quagmire of negative emotions.

   • Reread the diary entries as if they belong to another person. Can you identify what throws his personality off balance? How can advice be offered? What should be avoided?
   • Circle the repeated words and phrases. The next time a pattern pops up (for example, the name of an ex-partner or a repeated phrase/situation), interrupt the flow of thoughts in that direction. Prepare yourself ahead of time with a positive mantra, song, or some kind of chants to start repeating these words instead of negative thoughts.

3. Avoid self-destructive behavior patterns. Smoking cigarettes because you feel angry at someone will not bring anything positive and will not improve your mood at all. It makes no sense to hate yourself by devoting your time to drinking or using drugs. This will only prolong the process of grief, and, in the end, you will have to start everything almost from scratch, because at the same time much valuable is destroyed.

   • If negative habits are being used as a distraction, a healthy alternative can be found. How about cycling instead of smoking? Or maybe it's worth dusting off musical instrument and express feelings in melody?

4. Take yourself a mini vacation. With the exception of a few lucky ones, you may not be able to pack all your belongings and go to Hawaii on the day of the breakup, but you can certainly afford to visit relatives or visit some new place. Such a trip will expand your world a little, and in some cases will allow you to look at the situation from the outside and from a much greater perspective. In addition, this approach is very good for starting a new life, because there you will find new experiences and joys, and no one bothers to arrange your own life the way you personally want.

Return to the joys of life

Spend more time with friends. Feeling inner readiness, return to a fun time together and long-term communication with friends in an intensive mode. Use the free time to reconnect with former friends, make new acquaintances or get close to existing acquaintances (who can be turned into a friend).

• Do things that weren't possible in previous relationships. For example, a former partner did not like sushi, but now no one will stop you from organizing a group lunch at a local sushi bar. Or your partner hated rock, then the release opens the door for you to the mosh pit center at a heavy metal concert.

1. Spend time with relatives. Family is especially important when former relationship consumed all your time, and you did not have opportunities for sufficient communication even with your closest relatives. They are definitely in your team, and among the family, someone will definitely give you a helping hand to relieve tension. Can you offer to pay for the inconvenience to perform some homework eg cook food during your visit. Another advantage of moving to the city of childhood is the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and wander around familiar places that bring only positive memories.

2. Find new hobbies. Change the habitual routine that was established during the relationship with an ex-partner. Find an activity that you enjoy doing. You can also try something completely new, knocking you out of your usual rut and comfort zone.

   • Explore your creative potential. Try writing a song or a poem, or immerse yourself in painting or graphics. Everyone has such dreams that they always wanted to try, but there was not enough time or opportunities to realize their aspirations.
   • Try a new set of exercises, such as yoga or the Zumba dance fitness program. Exercise relieves stress and restores balance, and besides, it is in the classroom that you can meet a new passion.
   • Do something out of the ordinary that is far outside of your comfort zone. Try some new food, go hiking or hitchhiking (even if you're a homebody by nature), or work up the courage to try sky diving and parachuting.
   • Find a new hobby - sewing, numismatics, bird watching. The main thing is that this activity calms you down and takes all your attention.

3. Find inner peace. In the chores among active friends, it is easier to free yourself from thoughts about a former partner, but in order to really clean your soul from the remnants of a former connection, you need to learn to feel comfortable with yourself. Sometimes a person even finds a special taste in living alone for a while.

   • Several walks weekly. Feel your connection to nature as you explore local parks and lakes. Hiking does not require much physical fitness and is a great opportunity for reflection.
   • Reading. Immerse yourself in the events of the novel, secluded with a cup of tea.
   • Write. Keep a diary or try writing a short story. Be curious about what you can write about yourself.

Often, unpleasant moments of the past remain a heavy burden on our hearts. They periodically remind of themselves, spoil the mood, prevent us from developing and moving on.

Therefore, each of us should know how to get rid of bad memories. What's more, it's actually possible.

Is it always necessary to try to get rid of bad memories and what are the ways to do this.

Our memory is arranged in such a way that many important, and sometimes not very important events permanently fixed in it. Some of these events are pleasant, others are not. Over time, our defense mechanism helps us get rid of many bad memories, but some of them remain in our memory, continuing to upset us.

Every time we remember unpleasant events from the past, we relive them. All our energy goes into overcoming all these feelings again. And there is no strength left to just live for today.

Why do bad memories stay in our memory for so long?

Firstly, the painful events that we experience especially emotionally leave a rather deep mark, which is not easy to get rid of.

Secondly, our body keeps them in memory as a warning. It is enough for us to get burned once in order to remember in the future that it is not worth touching the hot. For the same reason, we store memories of other situations when we experienced fear, anxiety, or pain.

Effective ways to get rid of bad memories

And although getting rid of painful memories is not easy, there are several methods that will help you achieve what you want.

1. substitution. If you are bothered by unpleasant memories, try to replace them with new, happy ones. Let them relate to similar places or events, but at the same time carry completely different emotions. So, for example, if you and your family go on a picnic to the park where you once quarreled with your husband, now you will associate this park with a pleasant pastime and certainly not with a quarrel.
2. cleansing. If you have some things that remind you of the bad, then it is better to get rid of them immediately. Too bad to throw it away? Then resell, give to friends, donate to charity.
3. replay. Often we remember situations when we were offended, they laughed at us, outperformed us in some business. There is nothing surprising in the fact that such memories prevent us from moving on, constantly reminding us of what happened. When unpleasant thoughts return once again, imagine that everything went according to a completely different scenario. Over and over again, play in your head how you emerged victorious from difficult situation. Over time, your brain will begin to perceive this fantasy as what really happened, and soon the bad memory will no longer spoil your mood.
4. Full life. Try to come up with as busy and interesting schedule as possible for yourself. If you are constantly busy with exciting and pleasant things for you, then you simply will not have time for bad memories.
5. Meditation. If all the methods described above do not help, then you can try such a sure method of getting rid of bad memories as meditation. Accept comfortable posture close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Remember that event from the past that gnaws at you, and then imagine it in the form of a drop of water that mixes with thousands of exactly the same drops and disappears in a stormy whirlpool. After that, draw a quiet calm sea in your head and open your eyes at this thought. Such a meditation will take you no more than a few minutes, but upon its completion you will feel like a completely different person.

It is not for nothing that the memory of bad events is stored in our head for so long. We are arranged in such a way as to remember those events that can become a useful lesson for us in the future. And therefore, even from bad and intrusive memories that can upset and spoil the mood, there is a certain benefit.

By remembering our mistakes, we learn not to repeat them. Remembering how we were deceived, we try to be more critical of unfamiliar and untrustworthy people. Having got into trouble because of our ignorance, we begin to carefully prepare for important points In my life. This is why some bad memories are important to us and have full right and continue to be in our memory.

In addition, sometimes it is thanks to them that we feel the whole range of human emotions. Life is not only joy and fun. It is also anger, resentment, remorse. And no matter how unpleasant all these feelings are, they are what allow us to feel alive.

As we can see, getting rid of bad memories is really possible. But the main thing is to figure out for yourself whether they really bring us only harm.

Happy memories and good mood!

Video: How to get rid of negative thoughts

The mechanism of memory is complex and largely incomprehensible even to scientists who study it. But the mental mechanisms on which survival depends bad memories, are known. The images of people and events that are associated with strong emotions are preserved as long as possible and firmly. It is the emotional coloring that makes us return again and again to what we would like to forget.

It would seem that already forgotten unpleasant events pop up in the memory again and again, it is worth at least some thing to be reminded of them. It can be an object, a setting, a photograph, music, and even a smell.

Our memory works on the principle of associations: what we see or hear causes images in our minds, like hooks pulling the most vivid memories from memory

Psychologists know how to outwit the insidious memory, and can offer several recipes for getting rid of unpleasant memories. Most of them are simple, although they require willpower and determination from a person.

1. Get out of the zone of the past. In order to stop living in past problems and troubles, one must step over the line and move into the future. Start new life, removing from your environment everything that reminds you of the past. Change your image, lifestyle, work, apartment, city. Leave no room in the new being for what is gone. He is no more.

2. Reframing (frame change). This is a psychotherapeutic technique based on changing attitudes to the situation. We are not able to cancel the past, but we can form a different attitude towards it. Try to look at an unpleasant situation from a different angle, to see in it positive points Or at least distance yourself from it. Convince yourself that it could have been worse, you are still lucky.

The most important thing is to understand that you live here and now, and that which weighs you down is long gone. But when you can’t cope with your memory, it’s better to turn to a psychologist, because painful intrusive memories can lead to depression.

How to get rid of past relationships

And if the memories of parting with a loved one, about the betrayal of a loved one interfere with living? After all, he is alive, healthy and enjoying life, but you cannot forget him and suffer.

1. First, conduct a simple psychological training. Close your eyes and imagining the image of once upon a time loved one, start remembering all his shortcomings, and translate his virtues into negative (thrifty - greedy, girls like - a womanizer, etc.). Then, with hostility and contempt, cross out the image of a person with a bold cross. You don't need him like that.

2. Get rid of everything that reminds you of past relationships: remove (or rather, throw away, burn) photos, remove your ex from friends on social networks, change furniture, and even an apartment, avoid places of previous meetings.

3. Fill your existence with new content: have fun, go to clubs, meet friends, make your life as active and busy as possible. Then there will be no time for memories.

However, do not forget that memory is not only a burden of painful memories, but also an invaluable experience necessary in order not to repeat previous mistakes. Therefore, it is not always worth completely getting rid of even an unpleasant past.