How to forget a bad memory. How to kill negative memories

If only it were possible to erase, erase from memory those memories that cause pain, leaving, deep in the soul, an indelible mark. Every person has those moments of the past that they want to forget forever. I agree, it’s not that easy to do...But nothing is impossible!


In addition to today's problems, most modern people burdened with negative memories from the past.

Resentments, fears, hatred, negative events - all this happened once in the past, but a person continues to carry it within himself today.

Over time, the details are erased, but the feelings of discomfort remain.

Nothing can be changed, perhaps the offenders are no longer in this world or such situations can no longer exist, but the person continues to remember this with persistence worthy of another use.

And when some situation reminds them of this, they experience these events within themselves again and again.

They constantly think about how to get rid of negative memories, but they cannot do it.

But all this only leads to a waste of time and effort. When your feelings and emotions are wasted.

And by adulthood, this negative experience accumulates, leading to various diseases, problems in life, development of phobias.

A person turns into a tourist through life, carrying a load of negative memories from the past within himself.

And on the faces of such people you can see the STAMP OF TIME - wrinkles, dull eyes, tension.

Go outside and you will immediately see such people.

Look at the elderly people - some walk briskly and smile, while others are literally bent over and can barely drag themselves along. And undoubtedly a large contribution to this was made by the burden of negative memories from the past.

Look at successful people. All of them have problems too, and there are many more of them than ordinary person, but you won't see it on their faces.

Perhaps you yourself carry the burden of the past within yourself, which prevents you from moving on.

Even if you are now a master of sports in martial arts, and someone bullied you at school, you can’t get it back

Now you are a different person and why carry the burden of the past with you. Drop your backpack and move forward freely.

What difference does it make what happened yesterday? The main thing is that it is today, and the best is of course yet to come.

If there is still an opportunity to correct the situation, then do it. If not, then just forget it.

But this is where most people have problems.

The fact is that in the life of a modern person there are too few emotions, especially positive ones.

Therefore, he tries to replace them with something - and negative memories help with this, giving him the opportunity in his imagination to deal with the offender and gain moral satisfaction, each time coming up with new ways of revenge.

But you need to get rid of this if you want to move forward and achieve success in this life.

I offer you a simple, but very effective method, which will help you find the answer to the question - How to get rid of negative memories.

Take a piece of paper, sit down alone in a calm atmosphere and, so to speak, pour out all your grievances, fears, everything that haunts you. this moment. You need to feel them one last time - most likely tears will come to your eyes - this is even for the better.

Write all this down in detail, and then just burn this piece of paper. Take a piece of paper with your hand and set it on fire from the opposite end and watch how your fears and grievances burn in the fire, while at the same time imagining the same process within yourself.

If it doesn't help the first time, do this several times.

And I assure you, every time emotional coloring will weaken.

And very soon you will lose interest in your grievances and over time the negative experience will dissolve, leaving free space for new impressions and achievements.

And I assure you, they will.

Therefore, if you have a load of negative memories, then use this method next weekend. Don't think about whether it will help or not. Just DO IT.

And very soon fresh colors will appear in your life!

In every person's life there are things or incidents that he would like to forget. But the memory doesn’t want to let go of these bad memories. These memories are so deeply embedded in the brain that my head can’t get rid of them. So how do you forget the past when it doesn’t want to go away? What methods should you use to erase from your head what is not needed? How to clear your head of debris? More on that below!

It is usually said that as long as a person lives in the past, the future is closed to him. And in general, while a person lives in the past or future, he is not in the present, and if a person does not live in the present, then he is not happy. If you are happy now, then you are definitely living in the present. Therefore, it is simply necessary to get rid of past memories, otherwise the door to a happy future is closed for you.

Why do you think a person remembers some events clearly and for a long time, while forgetting others instantly? It's all about emotions. Man is first and foremost an emotional being. And if one event caused a powerful surge of emotions, then this event is fixed in memory for a long time or forever. Those events that do not evoke any emotions are quickly forgotten. And if you can’t forget something now, it means that something has caused strong emotions in you, and negative ones at that. It could be disappointment, resentment, and so on. This is what stuck in your head.

Forgetting the past on purpose is almost impossible. After all, when you consciously try to forget something, you only remind yourself of some situation. Now, if I tell you - don’t think about the pink elephant - what will you think about? Probably about a pink elephant. In this case, the same thing happens. Hence the conclusion: The harder we try to forget something, the better we remember it.

How to forget the past?

It happens that certain things, people, and even familiar places in the city prevent us from forgetting the past. Whatever one may say, as long as all this is nearby, it will be difficult to forget the past. For example, you experienced a difficult breakup with a girlfriend or boyfriend. You really want to forget her or him. But as long as there is something that reminds you of her or his existence, you won’t be able to forget. Therefore, the first and correct step would be getting rid of things that remind you of something negative, which you want to get rid of.

Try to avoid a place in the city where some negative event has occurred. Perhaps your loved one abandoned you at a cafe, or you were robbed on Tverskaya Street, or something else that is better not to remember. Go around these places until you forget the past. Over time, it will become easier and you will again be able to walk calmly where something unpleasant happened to you.

Second tip - just wait. As they say: time heals. This is true. Any emotion, no matter whether it is positive or negative, is still replaced by another. There is no consistency in this case. Time will pass and you will stop remembering any unpleasant event. You just need to survive for a while and everything will calm down on its own.

The next option is rethink the past so that it no longer seems negative. It's no secret that negative experiences are more memorable than positive ones. And many people believe that they are more unlucky than lucky. Actually this is not true. In the case of a negative event, try to make it stop causing you negative emotions and be considered a failure.

For example, you were fired from your job, say seven years ago. You were very worried about this then. But after your dismissal, you were forced to open your own business and start working for yourself. Now you have a luxurious dacha, a car, and so on. What would happen to you today if you had not been fired seven years ago? Now we would go to work with a salary of 20,000 rubles, we would not have such a beautiful car, a dacha and the opportunity to relax. Therefore, that day should be considered successful.

Another example, your boyfriend dumped you! And what? It was as if the world had come together like a wedge on him. By the way, a crowd of other guys have already lined up around you who found out about this. You simply don’t notice them because you are suffering from a breakup. You see how the past interferes with the present, and therefore the future. So, I know many stories when girls did not hide the fact that after a difficult breakup they met the guy of their dreams, whom they later married. They, just like you, believed that they would never meet anyone else and that they would remain alone for the rest of their lives. Hell no! Everything was fine for them afterwards, and now they live happily and in harmony.

I know that now it’s hard for you to see something good when everything seems terrible, but time will pass and you will see for yourself. And now take a piece of paper and start writing positive sides in what happened. Who knows how your life would turn out tomorrow if you had not received this experience today.

What helps most people forget the past is a change of scenery. As I already said, it is better for you to avoid those places that remind you of something. If you take a vacation and fly to another country, you are guaranteed to forget the past. It will be very nice if you can be distracted during your vacation. During your holiday you can have a pleasant and cheerful company, which with its positivity will not let you think about the bad. This happened to me personally, and this can happen to you. A change of environment is almost like starting life from scratch.

The next way is keep yourself busy with something like that. Stop harping on the same thing, it's already over. It's time to think about the future. and start achieving it. In the process, the brain thinks about only one thing -. He doesn't care about the rest. So take advantage of this unique moment.

And now the most powerful way to forget the past. This method is aimed not at forgetting it, but at remembering it. What I mean? There is a science called dianetics. So, her technique is very simple. You need to close your eyes and mentally move and experience that negative event until it stops causing emotions in you. You replay an event in your head from beginning to end many times. In this way, you will erase engrams (such as programs associated with an event) in your head. Give yourself two hours of time and start experiencing that unpleasant event many times. At the end of the session, you will feel much better, and you will simply be too lazy to think about that event (thought it up).

That's all I wanted to say in the article. “How to forget the past?”. And remember, no matter what happens to you, everything in your life will be just great. Good luck to you!

how to forget the past

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A memory is not a one-dimensional thought or idea. It is the sum of impressions from specific events in your past. You remember not a point in time, but many sensory details.

For example, if you try to remember a pleasant day spent at the beach as a child, more than just the image of a river will come to mind. You will remember how warm the sand was, the smell of the wind and the taste of the ice cream you bought at the kiosk across the street.

Any of these sensations can become a trigger. When you buy an ice cream that tastes similar to the one from your childhood, you will be transported back to a hot day on a river beach.

Thus, memories are inseparable from context.

2. How to manage memories?

Context is the most important factor for those who want to learn how to manage their memories. After all, with its help you can consolidate a memory. The wider and brighter the context, the more strongly we remember the event.

Let's go back to the memory of a hot day at the beach. It is advisable that you detail, setting, emotions and feelings. Then the context will be formed.

If you remember the easy flow of river water, the warm sand of the coast, the hot asphalt of the path next to your umbrella and the creamy taste of ice cream, the memory of this day will remain very vivid and complete for a long time. long years. The broader the context, the more varied the experience. This is what we recall when we remember a hot day spent in childhood.

So if we know how to use context to create a memory, can we find a way to erase our memories?

3. How can you erase memories?

A forgetting strategy may be to allow yourself to forget certain details of an event in order to destroy the memory completely.

To test this assumption, scientists conducted a study in which two groups of people took part. They had to learn words from two separate lists while simultaneously looking at photographs of different landscapes to create context for the memory.

One group was told to approach the task very carefully: memorize the first list of words and only then move on to the second. Subjects from the second group were asked to first learn words and then forget them. Then the volunteers had to repeat what they remembered.

The brain activity of the experiment participants was studied using functional MRI. It turned out that the subjects who forgot the learned words had a much lower level of activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for processing images. This group of participants simply let the words and images slip from their minds.

When the brain tries to remember words, facts, images, it is constantly working to create context. When the brain tries to forget something, it initially rejects the context and abstracts itself from it. Therefore, memories are created with difficulty and do not last long.

If we return to the example with the beach, we can say this: in order to forget this day, you would have to specifically try to forget the taste of ice cream and the hot sand under your feet.

4. Is it possible to delete a memory completely?

Does this method always work 100%? Of course not. Saying what scientists have discovered magic way you can’t forget, like in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” We know too little about the brain and do not know how to erase memories.

Forgetting is very useful. We can use it to help us cope with a traumatic experience or painful event. Forgetting is necessary to clear the brain of unnecessary information.

In the experiment, participants remembered and forgot simple things: words and pictures. A real memory consists of dozens of details and sensory impressions, so erasing it is not so easy. But this research is the first step at the beginning of a very intriguing and alluring path.

It looks like we can figure out how to forget unpleasant and unnecessary things. More importantly, we will learn to remember happy Days and moments to last a lifetime.

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 have completed 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 not to rush, 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 as before. They will practically stop disturbing you, and if they return from time to time, you will no longer react so violently to them.

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

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

The first way to forget the past

Reception of NLP. Imagine a wall with photographs from different moments of your life pasted on it. Here you are going to school, here is your first love, here you have earned your first penny, now 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 the photos in color, only the negative event in black and white. Step back and look at the wall of your life from the outside. See how much color there is on it and how small, in scale, this black white photography. Now mentally shrink it to a size of 3 by 4 cm. Next, continue to “glue” photographs 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 boundaries, it is local and now occupies only an insignificant part of the wall of your life. This black and white photo is not your life. Your life is colorful, bright 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

Replay in your imagination a depressing, shocking event from your past that you want to forget. Yes, I encourage you to delve 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 movie and take your seat in the back rows of the theater. Insert laughter from the audience in the audience into your movie. Add hysterical laughter here and there. Play some scenes backwards to make the film funnier. Play your movie until you are no longer afraid of it.

By adding cheerful 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 correct your memory. You will do the same thing you did in school with a deuce in your diary using a blade. You erased it and drew a four in its place. The “diary” of your life will look great after this exercise, 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 doesn't involve playing with your own mind and not only helps you forget disturbing memories, but also changes the way you think about what happened to you in the past.

I will explain it in metaphorical terms. To begin with, imagine that the past that you need to forget is nuclear reactor. Even after years, it emits radiation and poisons everything around it. The lives of people living nearby, that is, yours, are infected. You can no longer smell flowers because your sense of smell gives out all the smells distorted. You can feel the fumes from a burnt-out power plant everywhere, which haunts you even in your sleep. Radiation must 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 just stir up the ashes and blow on them. Memories continue to poison life. In another case, you may want to escape from painful thoughts and sit down in front of the TV. This does not work. This is the same as covering a radioactive source with oilcloth.

Remember to forget the unpleasant past, it must be concreted. How can I do that? Simple - burying the source of the explosion under massive actions. Our memory is limited in its capabilities and cannot retain everything that we have experienced. The more active actions we took, the more we 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 concrete for an exploded reactor. Keep yourself busy with exciting activities. It's very difficult, you know, to worry about the past when you're skiing down the mountain. 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 don't let your past into your present and future. Take bright, bold, proactive actions and your past will remain in the past.