Chances are, we all have memories that people would like to forget. A disturbing incident, an embarrassing situation, humiliation, insults from a loved one - it could be anything. And no matter how hard you try to forget it, the memory resists.
There is no need to suppress all unpleasant thoughts. There are times when you need to reflect on what went wrong so you can learn from your mistakes and move on. But when the only effect of your thoughts is to prolong the pain, you need to get rid of them and move on.
Recent research suggests that people can program themselves to forget things on purpose. Here's how to forget what you don't want to remember.
Forget all the details associated with memories
To get rid of bad memories, forget about the details, people, and emotions associated with them. Details may include smells, sounds or images associated with an event you do not want to remember. For example, if you don't want to think about a traumatic event, remove the details associated with it from your mind. It could be the song playing in the background or the faces that were looking at you at the time.
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Why do housewives break dishes?
How to forget a person who offended you or caused you pain? Generally speaking, it is better not to forget such a person. The brain will try to retain such memories in order to recognize a similar situation in advance and prevent it from happening again.
But it is possible and necessary to make such a memory less painful. First of all, for this you need to clearly and clearly understand what mistake you made in your relationship with this person? What exactly was the cause of your problem? What can you do next time to prevent the situation from happening again? This will help the brain finish analyzing the situation and send the memory of it to long-term memory.
And the next step is to free the memory of the offender from the emotional charge.
One of the easiest ways to forget an offender and at the same time relieve stress was invented by our grandmothers - breaking dishes. You take a plate, mentally draw the face of the offender on it, name it with a name you hate and - with all your might, hit the wall! You can also use a hammer. The main thing is that children and small animals do not get caught in the hail of shrapnel.
By the way, in Japan, where they started fighting stress earlier than in Europe and achieved some success, there is a chain of cafes where you can break dishes. They say that quarreling married couples often come there, have dinner, break dishes and make up. So don't be shy - go for it.
If it helps, very good. If not, then to consolidate the effect, you can use the following simple and effective method.
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Do this daily
Suppressing unpleasant memories is difficult. Any thought that is suppressed tends to ricochet. For example, if you want to block the emotions associated with a car accident, your brain looks for any thought about it to block it. This makes it, so to speak, more accessible. That is, when you don’t block it, the thought rushes back and again haunts you. Thus, you need to block memories on a daily basis. You need to regularly push them out of your consciousness.
Exercise "Mariana Trench"
If we are talking about something more serious than a failed interview or a sarcastic comment on the Internet, then it is better to turn to the Mariana Trench exercise.
“Pack” your memory into a capsule (in the form of a letter, photograph, video file, collage of images) and send it to a depth of 10994 meters. Each time the memory tries to return, imagine:
- sea water gradually seeps into the capsule;
- the container is covered with shells;
- the capsule is covered with bottom sand -
and... the memory will physically cease to exist.
Don't focus too much on blocking thoughts
Blocked thoughts tend to come to life faster and more strongly when you give them too much meaning and attention. Recognize the fact that suppressing thoughts is very difficult, but you must continue to work at it, while trying not to overdo it.
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Memory, let go: seven ways to forget something
Everyone knows that you can’t just stop thinking about a white monkey, but often you still want to evict it from your head. “How to stop thinking about it, forget, forgive, stop loving” - perhaps in a third of cases when turning to psychologists, the questions sound something like this. The general answer is no. The wording of the question needs to be changed. But let's take things in order.
Grandfather Freud discovered thoughts and feelings hidden beyond the limits of consciousness in his patients, for which he is still grateful. However, he thought that these thoughts and feelings were also hidden unconsciously, with the help of defense mechanisms. To which, over time, he and his followers began to object: in order to remove something from consciousness, it must first get there, be censored and, as a result, be excluded. There is still debate about the operation of this mechanism, but in this case it does not matter. Anyone who wants to forget, forgive - and that’s all, is perfectly aware of what he is going to do and with what. However, these attempts, sadly enough, are obviously doomed to failure.
In 1987, Harvard professor Daniel Wegner conducted a fairly simple but very clear experiment. He gathered two groups of subjects and asked them to voice all the thoughts that came to their minds, while at the same time allowing or prohibiting them from thinking about a polar bear. Moreover, in one group, participants were first forbidden to think about the animal, and then allowed, and in the second, it was the other way around. The overall result was quite predictable: the ban on thinking about the bear only increased the number of thoughts about it. But a more interesting detail was revealed. Subjects in the first group thought about clubfoot much more often when they were allowed to do so. Moreover, the better a person was able to suppress these thoughts at the first stage, the more often they surfaced at the second. This phenomenon was called the “ricochet effect.”
Explaining the results of the experiment, Wegner suggested that the ban triggers two parallel cognitive processes: one suppresses the unwanted thought, and the second monitors its reappearance, thereby causing repetition. From this we get the first significant consequence: attempts to “not think” are useless and time-consuming.
The second consequence is dictated by the “ricochet effect.” In situations of multitasking, fatigue or stress, the suppression mechanism weakens and the search continues, which only increases the frequency of unwanted thoughts, feelings and even actions.
And lastly, going back to the beginning, it is safe to say that a goal set through exclusion is not destined to be achieved sustainably. All that remains is to figure out how to finally push the unwanted living creatures out of your head. As usual, there is no general recipe here, but there are methods that everyone can try on themselves.
Method one, “parental”: sometimes it is useless to do anything about a child’s worries, but you can simply distract him. I think many of you have used it on yourself. If you are worried about something that you cannot influence yet, just put it aside and do something fun or just feasible. A variation of the same thing is to move it in time: “I’ll think about it tomorrow,” “I’ll return to the task in a month,” “I’ll decide on a sober head.”
The second method is protective. There can be quite good external reasons for bad feelings and thoughts: various types of losses, financial problems, quarrels, etc. In such cases, it is important to take care of yourself, protect yourself from additional stress, and catch your breath. But not in order to completely eliminate unwanted experiences, but to prevent overwhelm and psychological paralysis.
Method three, reactive. Quite a popular method with a lot of variations. The point is to throw out what is sore or annoying on paper or something else outside. Write it out, draw it, sculpt it, then throw it away, break it, burn it. Out of sight, out of mind. It helps a little with a single use, but it has a cumulative effect. A creative approach and regular use can turn this method into an effective ritual.
Method four, constructive. The Russian language teacher told me: “you don’t need to remember the mistake, you need to remember the correct spelling.” It’s the same here: instead of crowding out what you don’t want, think about what you want to replace it with, what’s more useful or just pleasant. In the brain, like Google, the results depend on the request.
Method five, incentive. Do not underestimate the power of your influence on the nature of your own thinking. “Negative” emotions support themselves without requiring any additional effort. But with the “positive” ones the story is different: in order to consolidate them, you need to try. It is a big misconception to think that they somehow have to arise on their own. You did the job, coped with it, overcame it - allow yourself joy, a little “hooliganism”, rest. Yes, sometimes it’s enough just to note: hey, I’m great! The same applies to the outside world: nasty things will reveal themselves, but what is reasonable, good, and eternal must be found. It's a skill.
Method six, philosophical. Well, I have cockroaches in my head and that’s okay. As in that joke - I’ll give them crayons and let them draw. Accepting one's own characteristics and shortcomings helps to reduce their significance and even find their adaptive meaning. Anxiety helps you prepare better for important events, fear helps you be cautious, anger helps you be assertive, uncertainty helps you be reasonable... Yes, all of this has unwanted side effects. What doesn't? It’s better to use what you have than to procrastinate in search of the ideal.
You try not to think about the white monkey, and then Sekiro comes out
Method seven, paradoxical: try to hold onto unwanted thoughts and experiences for as long as possible. You can even try to intensify the experience (if you are sure that you are ready to withstand it) or thought. Or you can systematically call them on a schedule, turning them into a household routine. Here, too, you can invent a lot of options, but the mechanisms will remain the same: firstly, at the physiological level we cannot experience the same emotion for a long time if the stimulus does not change; secondly, we hate monotony. But, as in the third method, regularity is required to obtain sustainable results.
It is obvious that all of these methods can and should be combined, transformed and adjusted to suit yourself. The main thing in this matter is not the extermination of unpleasant fauna, but the maintenance of balance in the ecosystem.
About the author: Alexander Alov is a practicing psychologist and teacher of psychology, uses CBT and ORCT approaches in counseling, worked in a kindergarten, college and the Center for Emergency Psychological Assistance of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, taught psychological counseling at the Russian State University for the Humanities and the Moscow Medical Academy.
Become aware of the memory
Another theory suggests that becoming fully aware of the memory and the negative emotions associated with it will help you cope with painful emotions. Feel angry, sad, or hurt. Squeal, scream, cry. Let go of your emotions to reduce their power over you.
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Say Yes
Give yourself a day called “Yes to everything new.” Try saying “yes” to everything new one day. Whatever is offered to you, agree (of course, if it is reasonable and safe). Did this day pass more vividly for you? Did you feel happier? Have you experienced fear? At the end of the day, write down everything you feel in a journal.
Based on materials from the books “The Book of the Lazy Guru”, “Essentialism”, “Kiss the Frog”, “Silence”, “The Magic of the Morning”, “One Habit a Week”.
Source: Blog of the publishing house "MYTH"
Use a release ritual to erase your memory
This is a mental exercise, a kind of ritual to free yourself from negative emotions or memories that have settled in your mind. Write down every detail of the memory that you want to forget. Allow yourself to write openly, knowing that no one will read it. Then you need to burn the sheet of paper. When you see that the paper is on fire, you mentally release the memory. Alternatively, you can also tear or shred the paper into small pieces, this also helps a lot.
Play eraser
You feel that a lot of emotional junk has accumulated in your memory:
- snippets of dialogue;
- words of a tired song;
- the image of a rude cashier.
Play eraser. Imagine all this drawn in a school notebook. Go over it with an elastic band - methodically, carefully, until there are holes. An imaginary eraser will work well with annoying little memories.
Practice mindfulness
Learn to focus on the present moment instead of thinking and worrying about your past, which cannot be changed or predicted in the future. Don't go through your day on autopilot. Notice and pay attention to small details, sights, smells and sounds. Regular meditation practice will help you to be mindful and appreciate every moment of life.
Automate familiar actions
Try to accustom yourself to automaticity in performing current tasks and responsibilities. Then you won't have to remember them and will complete them when needed. For example, get into the habit of paying your household bills online. Or enter all the birthdays into your smartphone so that it reminds you of them at least a week before the event. Plan a week in advance for dinners with friends, clothes, necessary housework, etc. The more clearly everything is planned, the less stress you will have to feel.
