9 tips on how to forget the past, forgive and let go of resentment

“He who controls the past controls the future,” says the famous dystopia. This is true not only of political regimes, but also of the destinies of individuals. The way you perceive your past affects your present and, as a result, the path you choose to take.

Often people cannot cope with sad thoughts about the humiliations and insults that they had to endure years ago. If they can't control these memories, they won't be able to move on.

Here are some ways to gain control over your thoughts about past troubles.

Why the past won't let you go

Family psychologist and coach Tatyana Brain identifies several reasons:

Resentment. Hidden grievances do not allow us to live peacefully here and now. The words and actions of our offenders constantly come to mind. Mentally we are trying to prove something to them, explain something, and conduct dialogues. We continue to reopen old wounds that take away a lot of our strength and joy from living in the present.

To overcome resentment you need to get rid of its four components:

• A hurt sense of justice.
• Self-pity.
• Anger towards the offender.
• Unjustified expectations.

Guilt. We constantly remember our mistakes for which we are responsible or burn with shame for the past. But self-flagellation is the road to nowhere. Consider mistakes made or missed opportunities as good life experiences that taught you a lot. If you have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness from those who have suffered misfortune, ask.

Pity for yourself or other people. Being in a state of victim, a person constantly whines, complains about an unhappy life and injustice. The victim's position is to attract attention to oneself or to shift responsibility for one's misfortunes onto others.

Fear of an unknown future. A person is scared that in the future he will need to adapt to something new, change his habits, his life. Therefore, he lives in the memories of the past, where everything is known and familiar.

Fix what can be fixed

The past exists only in its consequences. If you can eliminate most of them, you will be able to forget that you ever did the things you regret.

Have you lost several years of your life that could have been spent on professional growth? Achieve more in the years you have! Most of the omissions made earlier can be compensated for by new achievements.

If you see that, despite all the difficulties, you managed to climb out of the hole in which you found yourself, the burden of the past will no longer pull you back.

How to let go of the past and start living in the present

Everyone has memories that they want to erase. But the more you try to forget them, the more memory refuses to obey you. What to do?

Research by Roland Benoit and Michael Anderson has shown that people can train themselves to intentionally forget or erase certain events.

To erase bad events you need to do 6 things.

1. Take a shield from bad thoughts. Don't think about past events consciously. If you are reminded of them, do not let your mind focus on it.
2. Avoid triggers that can bring back bad memories. It could be smells, sounds, faces, things, films, places. Get rid of things and don't visit places or spend time with people who remind you of past mistakes.
3. Connect positive lessons to bad memories. Try to associate unpleasant memories with useful lessons you learned from those events. Positive associations will make your past less painful and, over time, help you forget bad memories forever.
4. Release your emotions to reduce their power over you. Alone with yourself, scream, cry, or write an angry letter with all your feelings, grievances, and then burn it. The purpose of these manipulations is to free your feelings from bad memories or shame about the past.
5. Don't live your days on autopilot. Notice little things, sounds, smells, sights. Be in the company of people who make you happy, make new acquaintances, travel. This will help you be more attentive to the present.
6. Diversify your life. Take up new interests, hobbies, fitness or sports. This will keep you busy, which means you can avoid remembering the past and forget it.

Why is it important to get rid of bad memories?

Because it affects your health and ability to live a satisfying life. For example, past grievances cause:

• Inability to abstract from the present and plan for the future.
• Anxiety.
• Insomnia, general malaise.
• Depression.
• Revenge, anger.
• Joyless life.

Conclusion

It is easier to get advice from a psychologist on how to forget the past than to actually do it. Because the hardest struggle takes place within us. Even if we really want to let go of bad memories, they continue to creep up like a plague when we are not ready for it.

But the psychological methods we have discussed help you get rid of bad memories from the past. To do this you need to: accept the past, learn from it, stop blaming others and not pretend to be a victim. Change your environment, thinking and space, forgive the offense and create new memories for yourself.

Share your opinion, how do you cope with unpleasant memories? How do you manage to forget your past?

Become fatalistic about the past

Fixated on past mistakes, people often blame themselves for not being insightful or strong enough to change jobs, move to another city, or break up with an old relationship. As a result, they missed a lot of opportunities that fate offered them and wasted years.

You can get rid of such self-recrimination by changing your attitude towards your role in past failures. Understand that your behavior was the result of a unique combination of circumstances, your beliefs about the world, and the character traits you possessed at the time.

It’s easier to think that then you couldn’t change anything, because now the past really cannot be corrected. You will see that you were not the master of the situation, but to some extent its hostage: everything happened as it should have happened. Start thinking about the past in this way and sooner or later you will feel relief.

#5: Don’t provoke thoughts about her past in order to forget faster

Pay attention at what point you begin to worry and overthink yourself. If this happens during your separation, create conditions so that the two of you have fun together and spend more time usefully, and not just because of your jealousy. If you suspect her of commercialism, try not to give large gifts for a while, not to pay the bill for her in a cafe, citing financial difficulties. Just minimize situations that remind you of unpleasant moments in order to forget faster.

#1: Think about the future

The more you delve into the past, the worse your present is. You need to look forward and not try to change what you can no longer influence. Here are a few techniques to help you shift your mind from thinking about the past:

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1. Remember 5 positive moments in your relationship.
2. Talk through your feelings.
3. Use affirmations, self-hypnosis through repetition of positive attitudes, such as “I am not jealous”, “Her past should not concern me.”

The past is the teacher

Everything that the Universe sends to us should be perceived as a test, a test of strength, and not as punishment. Any situation, especially an unpleasant one, is sent to us for a specific purpose - to learn something. For example, after breaking up with your loved one due to a wrong decision, you learned to appreciate dear people. After spending several years indulging in your bad habits, you realized that time needs to be valued, and you also realized which addictions you need to get rid of.

Of course, you have made mistakes in the past. Perhaps the wrong decisions had fatal consequences. But would you be where you are today if you hadn't made mistakes? Alas, it is the wrong decisions that make us better and wiser.

Accept reality

Don't deny or push away painful memories. You can't focus on a problem and find a solution. Because the solution is always not where the problem is.

Try to switch. To do this, first accept reality. Don't argue with your thoughts and feelings. Don't resist. Don't push them away. Instead, allow them to exist.

For example, to come to terms with your guilt, tell yourself: “Yes, I am guilty.” If you cannot forgive the offense caused to you, say: “Yes, I cannot forgive this person.”

This doesn't mean it's all true. It's simply a way to control negative thoughts and emotions so they don't control you. By agreeing with them, you stop fighting. And if there is nothing else to argue about, then negative thoughts and memories lose their power. 1:0 in your favor.

Why is it difficult to forgive yourself

We know ourselves better than anyone. Subjectivity and awareness of all the reasons for an action prevent you from forgiving yourself. It could have been committed out of envy, revenge or hatred. And these, as you know, are bad qualities. But no one wants to be bad. A person does not want to believe that he is bad. His psyche resists this. Therefore, he comes up with other explanations for his actions or tries to pretend that nothing happened. But at the unconscious level it continues to influence.

This is what prevents you from forgiving and accepting yourself, and getting rid of guilt for the past:

• excessive demands;
• self-hatred and the “I’m bad” attitude;
• tendency to self-destruction, self-punishment;
• lack of understanding of the value of mistakes (they are lessons, without them you cannot develop, become better);
• the role of the victim (unforgiveness has hidden benefits - attention, compassion from other people).

All these features, as a rule, are formed in childhood. At first, the parents demanded a lot from the child, scolded and punished him for every offense, and told him that he was bad. And then the child himself began to treat himself this way. Often, forgiving yourself goes hand in hand with forgiving parents and other people from the past.

Meditation

Meditation is one of the most effective ways to get rid of your past life. It's simple, accessible, and doesn't require any special skills. The main thing is to devote at least a few minutes to meditation every day. This is done as follows:

• Choose a quiet and peaceful place where you will feel comfortable and where no one will disturb you.
• Take a comfortable position. It is not necessary to sit in the lotus position like yoga. You can sit, lie, stand.
• Close your eyes and try to completely relax.
• Imagine that you are surrounded by endless and beautiful nature. But you have a heavy bag in your hands, which prevents you from running towards the world around you.
• Mentally open the bag, revealing a pile of stones. Throw them out of the bag one by one, giving each stone some meaning - an event from the past.
• When the stones “run out,” lie quietly for a few more minutes, then take a refreshing shower to wash away any remaining negativity.

Get rid of excess

A surefire way to get rid of past connections and events is to clear your personal space of everything that reminds you of old times. Hoarding is human nature. Photos, souvenirs, clothes, interior items, dishes - every thing in your home probably has some memories associated with it. And they are not always pleasant.

Set a goal to complete a complete audit of everything stored in your home within a month. Looking at each thing, listen to your inner feelings and the voice of memory. If there is negativity, feel free to get rid of this item (throw it away, give it away, sell it). Gradually surround yourself with new “clean” things that will gradually be filled with positive meaning.

Help yourself readjust

By letting go of the past, you create space for a new future. And by clinging to the old negativity, you will most likely repeat the same mistakes. I understand that in reality all this is more difficult than in words. Especially when you have just recovered from pain or are still trying to survive the storm in your own life. Therefore, I will give some tips that help me:

• Learn to be grateful. This won't solve all problems, but it will help change your mindset. You will notice the good things in life that you usually take for granted.
• Change your environment. It greatly influences feelings and behavior. It is not necessary to burn everything connected with the past (although sometimes you would like to) . Let your environment represent everything you want to become, not what you used to be.
• Talk to a therapist. I think this should be done at least once in your life. A psychotherapist is a coach, only not for the body, but for the mind. It will help you notice repeating patterns in your life. He is also objective, you can tell him everything, knowing that he will not judge.
• Take care of yourself. Treat yourself to something pleasant to close one chapter of life and begin another. And regularly take care of your mental balance. For example, play sports, travel, start new hobbies.

Recommendations from a psychologist: how to learn to forgive yourself

How to forgive yourself for past mistakes - advice from a psychologist:

1. Realize that you are the only person you will spend your entire life with. You are the only one you can always rely on. Any other person can leave your life. Make friends with yourself. And for this you need to forgive, love and accept yourself.
2. Replace self-flagellation with healthy introspection. Instead of drowning in guilt and shame and simply reliving the past over and over again, learn to analyze traumatic situations and learn from them.
3. Learn to love yourself unconditionally. You are valuable and deserving of love for the mere fact of your existence. Stop trying to earn good treatment for yourself. You deserve it for nothing.
4. Study the life stories of famous people. In interviews, media personalities willingly share their problems and methods for solving them. Many openly tell what they were once ashamed of, what they scolded themselves for and how they eventually forgave. For example, the famous actress and TV presenter Larisa Guzeeva for a long time could not forgive herself for her cold attitude towards her own children, as well as for alcoholism, indecent behavior, disruption of performances, etc. But the woman found the strength to take the path of correction, let go of the past and prove to herself and others that she could live differently.
5. Consult books. For example, read the book by M. Mikhailova and M. Arkhipova “Forgiveness. How to make peace with yourself and others.”

Group psychotherapy is very helpful in forgiving yourself. If you cannot yet contact a psychologist, then find a support group on the Internet. For example, on psychological forums people actively share their experiences of forgiveness. And some psychologists conduct free consultations via chat and answer user questions.

Important! Understand that everyone makes mistakes. This is fine. And life doesn't end there.