How to forget something bad forever. How to forget the past: three ways. Forget unhappy love

Most likely, everyone has memories that people would like to forget. A disturbing incident, an embarrassing situation, humiliation, insults from a loved one - it can be anything. And no matter how hard you try to forget it, the memory resists.

No need to suppress all unpleasant thoughts. There are times when you need to reflect on what went wrong so that you can learn from your mistakes and move on. But when the only result of your thoughts is to prolong the pain, you need to get rid of them and move on.

According to recent research, people can program themselves to forget everything on purpose. Here's how to forget what you don't want to remember.

Drive bad thoughts away

A conscious decision not to think about bad memories can help erase them forever. When you are reminded of something you don't want to think about, don't let your mind think about it.

Forget all the details associated with memories

To get rid of bad memories, forget about the details, people, emotions associated with them. Details may include smells, sounds, or images associated with the event that you don't want to remember. For example, if you don't want to think about a traumatic event, put the details of it out of your mind. It could be a song playing in the background, or the faces that were looking at you at the time.

Do it daily

Suppressing bad memories is difficult. Any thought that is suppressed tends to ricochet. For example, if you want to block out the emotions associated with a car accident, your brain looks for any thought about it to block it out. This makes it, so to speak, more accessible. That is, when you do not block it, the thought rushes back, again haunts you. Thus, you need to block memories daily. You need to regularly push them out of your consciousness.

Don't Focus Too Much on Blocking Thoughts

Blocked thoughts tend to come alive faster and stronger when you attach too much importance to them, pay attention to it. Recognize the fact that it is very difficult to suppress thoughts, but you must continue to work on it, while trying not to overdo it.

Avoid Triggers

Certain images, objects, smells, or places can trigger bad memories for you. Throw objects or images that prevent you from forgetting what you don't want to remember from your mind. Avoid places or people that remind you of your painful past.

Distract your mind

Another strategy you can try is to replace a bad memory with a good one. If the thought of past failure continues to haunt you, try thinking about how you succeeded at something in the past. Don't let bad memories affect your mood. As soon as they flood over you, start thinking about something good.

Associate something positive with a bad memory

Learn to associate negative thoughts with positive ones. This will help you overcome bad feelings. For example, think about your bad moment while enjoying a good movie, or doing something that makes you happy. A positive association will make your negative memory less painful.

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 deal with the painful emotions. Feel angry, sad, or hurt. Scream, scream, cry. Let go of your emotions to lessen their influence on you.

Use the release ritual to erase the memory

This is a mental exercise, a kind of ritual for releasing negative emotions or memories that have settled in your mind. Write down every detail of the memories that you want to forget. Allow yourself to write openly, knowing that no one will read it. Then you need to burn a sheet of paper. When you see the paper on fire, you mentally release the memory. In addition, you can also tear or shred the paper into small pieces, this also helps a lot.

Practice Mindfulness

Learn to focus on the present moment instead of thinking and worrying about your past, which cannot be changed or foreseen in the future. Don't live your day on autopilot. Notice and pay attention to small details, sights, smells and sounds. Regular meditation practice will help you be mindful and appreciate every moment of life.

Live your life to the fullest and create good memories

Always be around people who make you happy. If possible, travel and meet new people. Communicate as much as possible. This will help you form new good memories that will naturally make your bad memories disappear.

Don't sit idle

Think of a new hobby or physical activity. Devote yourself to creativity and take part in arts and crafts activities. Spend your energy creating something new, or try your hand at volunteering. You will be constantly busy with business, and you will have less time to spend it thinking about bad memories.

Talk to someone about it

Talking to a friend or family member you trust can help. Their advice, opinions, and similar stories can give you a different perspective on things and help you forget what you don't want to remember.

By following all these tips, you can erase bad memories from your memory and gain complete control over your life.

For many people, the problem of developing memory and skills memorization and assimilation of texts is more relevant than the ability to forget the past and get rid of unnecessary information.

Today you can find a large number of advertisements in newspapers, on television and on the Internet, the headlines and announcements of which are full of promises to improve and restore memory. Anyone today can independently and easily find a lot of useful information about how to develop memory. But after all, for the effective operation of our memory, it is necessary not only the ability to reliably memorize, store and, if necessary, reproduce the necessary information. It is also important to be able to forget it.

In mnemonics (methods and techniques that facilitate memorization), there are special techniques designed for deliberate forgetting. And indeed, why, if there is involuntary and voluntary memorization, can forgetting be only involuntary?

So, the totality of methods and techniques of the ability to forget is called flying technology. The origin of this word originates in Greek mythology. Leta is the river of oblivion located in the underworld of Hades. The souls that arrived in the kingdom of the dead, having tasted the water from this river, received oblivion and no longer remembered their earthly existence. From here came the expression - to sink into oblivion, meaning disappearance without a trace and oblivion.

What is the use of flying technology and its laws of forgetting? In what cases are they needed?

First of all, answering these questions, it should be said that forgetting is not a definitely negative quality of human memory, since the functioning of mnemonic processes without forgetting processes will be inadequate. It would be appropriate to recall the words of the outstanding Soviet psychologist Alexander Romanovich Luria - “ Many are working on how to find ways to remember better? But no one even thinks about the question: how best to forget?»

In this article, we will consider the most effective ways that help a person forget the past, which has a traumatic effect on his psyche, and learn how to forget information that has lost its relevance.

Forgetting methods can be used in at least two cases:

• To suppress unpleasant memories, especially those that have become compulsively repetitive.
• In order to erase unnecessary information from memory, which simply clutters up our brain.

Forgetting Method #1 - Suppression

This flying technique has a psychotherapeutic orientation, with its help you can forget the memories that traumatize the psyche.

Often the memory of unpleasant events does not give people peace, and they begin to fear that these traumatic memories will again begin to “emerge” and the more they are afraid of this, the more these fears are getting stronger. To relieve obsessions (involuntarily intrusive thoughts), you can use an exercise called "burning letter":

• Memories that make you suffer and experience discomfort, describe in detail and transfer them to a piece of paper. Then take this sheet, crumple it and place it in some kind of refractory dish, set it on fire. Watching the paper burn, think about how your experiences are burned, how they crumble and turn into ashes. All negative memories burned away! Throw the ashes out the window and scatter them in the wind!

The meaning of the “burning letter” exercise is that it helps not only to forget information, but to become the master of your memories. A person experiencing discomfort from past events can thus forget them. Of course this forgetting process can be unpleasant, but often it gives the desired effect: a person does not turn on defense mechanisms, does not suppress memories, but on the contrary, by describing these events, he gets rid of the memories associated with them.

Since ancient times, fire has played the role of the first for a human psychotherapist: looking at the flame, a person, in fact, was undergoing a psychotherapy session, clearing himself of heavy thoughts and throwing off the burden of primitive stresses from his shoulders. And if a person has a good imagination, and he is able to vividly imagine that not just paper, but also memories that traumatize his psyche are burning in the fire, then even if he wants, he will not be able to reproduce them.

" TV"Is another exercise often used by psychologists and psychotherapists in their practice to rid the patient of his burdensome memories:

• Try to transfer your negative experiences as vividly as possible on the big TV screen. Remember everything down to the smallest detail. Then take the remote, and mentally turn off the sound, view the "silent movie". Further, in a similar way, deprive the visualization of clarity, contrast, and, finally, brightness. Eventually, the image dims and disappears completely. The main thing is not to rush! To give the process of forgetting more effect, you can mentally unplug the cord from the outlet or throw the TV out the window. If the negative memories are not so tragic (say, just unpleasant), then with the help of this exercise you can translate them into a comedy genre. Imagine these events recorded on a video camera. Mentally reverse the recording, scroll it at high speed, use slow motion, put funny music on the picture, put a comedian in the “movie”, etc. If you learn to direct your memories, then it will be easier for you to manage them. Besides, where there is humor, there is no place for neurosis.

These exercises may not help you completely get rid of memories, but they will teach you not to be afraid of them. And this is very important, because by eliminating the fear of negative memories, we eliminate the cause of their involuntary appearance.

Forgetting Method #2 - Deletion

Other forgetting technique is designed to remove unnecessary information from memory that has lost its relevance and clutters up the “archive” of memory. For example, mnemonic matrices can be released from already used information material in order to fill them with new content.

Simplest forgetting method called " summer technical rag».

• For example, we filled the memory matrix with a number of images created from words. Then, focusing on the first cell of the matrix, we take a wet rag and erase the image (figurative group) in it. The first cell remains, we continue to see it clearly, but now it is empty, the place is free and now new associative compositions can be placed on it. Next, we sequentially, cell by cell, go through the entire matrix and erase all the remaining images in a similar way.

It should be noted that this method is not very convenient if the mnemonic matrices are large. After all, it will take a lot of time and effort to consistently erase information from each individual cell. In such cases, it is appropriate to apply the laws of forgetting Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky, a Russian-Soviet journalist and professional mnemonist, who, speaking with intellectual numbers in front of a huge audience, was forced not only to memorize large sequences of numbers, words, incoherent syllables, etc., but also to erase everything it's out of memory before the next view.

• « Worried that the individual sessions would not get mixed up with each other, I mentally erase the board and, as it were, cover it with a film that is completely hopeless and impenetrable. When the session ends, I mentally take it off ... I'm still talking to the audience, and at this time I kind of crush this film with my hands, hearing how it crunches.”- Shereshevsky shared secrets. So he deleted information immediately from the entire field of the mnemonic matrix, and not from each of its individual cells. In the event that such a method did not help to effectively forget the information, Solomon Veniaminovich resorted at first glance to paradoxical ways of forgetting: “ In order to remember, people write down ... It seemed ridiculous to me, and I decided to do it my own way: since they write down, therefore, they do not need to remember. So, if I write it down, I will know that I don’t need to remember it ... And I began to apply this law of forgetting in small things: in any assignments, in surnames, in telephones».

In an effort to remember important information, most people tend to write it down. And the more often we write down what we want to remember, the less we use our memory. This is a direct path to memory atrophy, because without getting enough load, it works less and less. As a result, people come to the sad conclusion that they have a bad memory, although they themselves are often to blame for this.

Try not to use notepads and notebooks, trust your memory, load it so that it can fully work ( memory development exercises), and then it will stop letting you down. Mark something on paper only in case you need to forget it!

The process of mastering the skills of forgetting (as well as memorization) proceeds in accordance with the laws of Hegel's dialectics. At a certain point, the experience of voluntary forgetting leads to a qualitative leap, which makes it possible to forget unnecessary information only at the expense of willpower without the use of special methods of forgetting.

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In the life of every person there were periods that I would like to erase from memory. Some, despite all the difficulties, pull themselves together and move to a new stage, only occasionally remembering the shocks that have occurred, others cannot help but think about the past, thereby depriving themselves of the chance to be happy in the present and future. No matter what burden of the past haunts you: parting with a loved one, missed opportunities, death of loved ones, betrayal of friends, guilt ... Now is the time to forget the past forever and start living in the present. How to stop living in the past?

Do not think about the past: why does it not let us go?

Many people wonder: why do some people, having experienced very serious shocks and trials, quickly recover and start a new life, while others fall into many years of depression and cannot stop living in the past after the unsuccessful completion of a two-month romance?

Psychology can give answers to this, much depends on age, the atmosphere in which a person lived in childhood, on the type of character and personality. And, even if you consider yourself a weak type, taking any life trials to heart, it does not mean at all that you are not able to cope on your own and not think about the past.

Most often, we cannot forget the past and live in the present, as we feel guilty for the current situation, we are tormented by thoughts that we could have done otherwise - and thereby change the ending ...

... Sometimes the past does not allow us to forget about itself, since we do not let go of past grievances, we believe that we were treated unfairly.

Our bad memories are like a suitcase full of useless rubbish that we habitually carry everywhere with us… Do you need such a load?

… And sometimes it’s impossible to forget the past and live in the present because we like this state of self-pity, we are not ready to change, grow, we are comfortable sitting in our shell, cherishing our grief, closing ourselves off from the whole world around us. This is such masochism. How to change the situation and start enjoying life again?

How to forget the past and start living in the present: 5 steps to a happy life

Healing from old wounds is a complex and often long process, but whatever lies behind our shoulders, each of us can stop living in the past. Here are some steps that will help to part with feelings forever:

1. First step- realize that the past is past, that it is thoughts about it that prevent you from fully living in the present, planning the future. Of course, this is not easy to do, but do you really want to breathe deeply again?

2. step two- Sorry. Now it does not matter who is to blame for what happened in the past, and who offended: you or offended you. It is impossible to turn back time, everything has already been done, and your suffering today will not change the fait accompli. Mentally ask for forgiveness or forgive, you can go to church. If you offended a person and know how to contact him, you can call and apologize. And that's all. Turn the page. People have the right to make mistakes: you and your loved ones are no exception. If you think that what you have done earlier is too serious or you have no one to apologize to, switch to caring for others. You cannot change what happened, but you can help others and make their lives better. Volunteer in orphanages, nursing homes or animal shelters – think along those lines.

3. Step three- don't be sorry. Regret about missed opportunities, wasted time, broken relationships is a road to nowhere. Regrets, as well as self-pity, are generally extremely destructive feelings. Try to look at the situation from a different point of view: you have gained experience, you have learned from your mistakes, you will no longer allow this situation to repeat in your life. And you know what else? Suffering and constantly pitying yourself, you destroy not only your own life, but also the lives of those close to you, who find it hard to see you in such a state. Do you feel sorry for them?

4. Step Four- reboot. If the pain is still fresh, negative emotions are bursting inside you, do not try to be strong, allow yourself to scream, cry, break a cup in the end for one day. You can go to the gym and frantically beat a punching bag. Throw out the pain outward - it will be easier to forget the past and start living in the present.

5. Step Five is the substitution rule. Think about how much time and effort you spend on nothing - not letting go of past grievances and feeling sorry for yourself. Instead, you could change for the better. For starters, you can go to the salon, change the color of your hair, get a manicure, radically change your image, or do a search in the end. Sign up for driving courses, learning a foreign language, needlework. And most importantly, go in for sports. Perfectly eliminates unnecessary thoughts yoga. If you have new interests and hobbies in your life, there simply will not be room for regret and thoughts about the burden of the past.

In general, it seems to me that one of the most effective ways to forget the past- to clear the physical space around you: to spend (read where p led me), to organize little things like books and ... Having let go of things from a past life, you really physically feel how life is changing!

Getting rid of the burden of the past and letting go of past grievances is much easier than you think now, the main thing is to start acting right now. In less than a few days, you will be drawn into a new, happy and interesting life.

Any person has a past, and often it gives him pain or unpleasant memories. I want to forget them quickly. It often seems that this is impossible. Well, how to forget the past, if it constantly reminds of itself and does not want to leave today's life? If a person lives yesterday, then the "door" to the future will be closed for him. But there are methods, and even several.

Things and memories

For example, you can get rid of those things that constantly remind you of what you want to forget. Or from those who are connected with this past. You can give them away, donate them, or just throw them away. The main thing is that they do not catch your eye and do not evoke memories. Things are easier, but there are cities, places that remind of something. In this case, you should avoid visiting those places, or even move to another city. Even if it's temporary, until the past is behind you. Then when you return it will no longer matter. The same can be said about people. If you need to forget a person, you must avoid meetings and communication.

Time

You can wait for time to heal. Any emotions gradually change to others, there is no constancy here. You just need to wait for time, and then the past will no longer disturb. It's not easy, it takes patience. It will be difficult, but you need to try to distract yourself with something while time heals. To work, friends, some hobbies. The main thing while it heals is not to withdraw into yourself.

Rethinking

A more difficult option is rethinking. Any negative situation always brings positive consequences. The world is harmonious, therefore, taking something away, it gives back more or better. If you lost your job, it means you will find a better job, or you can even start working for yourself and earn much more. In addition, it will be possible to travel the world, in the end, sleep and relax. To understand what was gained in exchange for what was lost, you need to take a pen and a piece of paper, and then describe in detail all the positive aspects of your current situation.

A change of scenery

Change of scenery is another effective way. Change everything you want to forget, change it. You can just go on vacation, live in a tent on the shore, settle in a country house, and if you want to forget a person, start a new relationship. A change of scenery is not necessarily an escape. Moreover, not everyone has such an opportunity. But you can make repairs, change the interior.

Goals

Another way to forget the past is to keep yourself busy. You need to set a goal for yourself. And even if it is difficult, so much the better. For example, organize your own successful business, albeit a small one. Or start a family. This will take a lot of time and effort, and therefore there will simply be no time to think about the past.

Dianetics

You can also use another method. This is Dianetics. The essence of this method is that you need to find free time, get comfortable, relax, and mentally constantly scroll through what torments you. And so several times. At least ten. At the same time, it is necessary to remember and experience exactly what needs to be forgotten. And will be forgotten. Just because you get tired of thinking about the same thing.

How to forgive the past

How to forget and forgive the past, if it is constantly remembered, and resentment seems to eat from the inside. Perhaps it was the person or situation that caused the pain, but in any case, the first step is to find the time and carefully reconstruct the events. Reflect on what caused the conflict. Discuss the situation, if this is not possible, talk to a psychologist. Try to look at the situation from a different angle, as if to "get into the skin" from the other side. Try to understand the motives if it was a person. It is quite possible that you yourself are involved in this, maybe by inadvertently offending someone, and caused that negativity.

You can just throw out your resentment, but not on people and work. For example, sports are great. Or you can selflessly help someone who is in trouble. And remember that by forgiving someone, you first of all help yourself, as you free your future life from negative attachment to the past.

How to forget love

It often happens that a person does not know how to forget past love, well, it doesn’t work out. It is clear that in one moment she is not forgotten, otherwise it was not love.

Past Relationships

Often the question arises: "How to forget past relationships?" First of all, you can not be alone with your feelings. But attempts to constantly blame the other half for the breakup will not lead to good either, since negative feelings are evoked. It's best to just reflect on the mistakes you've made in the relationship. And accept the gap, henceforth not allowing this.

How to forget a past ex love? What to do?

You can not suppress your feelings, this is not an option. You can recognize and experience them, but not resist. The latter will only increase the heartache and will be accompanied by constant memories. After a breakup, anger and anger often ensue. If you leave them in yourself, do not let them come out, then there is a high probability that the relationship will not be forgotten for a long time. Therefore, you need to find a way to throw them out, but not on others.

New attitudes and views

The ideal way to forget the past is to start another relationship. Feelings are constantly updated, fresh ones will be superimposed on the old ones. At the same time, new relationships are different, already pleasant experiences, they will also be updated, and gradually the old relationships will be forgotten. The main thing is not to look back and not try to strive to return what has already passed, since you cannot glue a broken glass, and if you glue it together, then it will definitely not be without flaws.

It happens that the question often arises of how to forget the past life. Everyone who strives for this has their own reasons. But you should always remember that you need to live in the present, life goes on, and events, people, values ​​are constantly changing, new desires and needs appear. It's good when there is something to remember, everyone has their own story. Just don't overuse it. From the past life, it is worth doing only work on the mistakes. And look back only to not make them again. The new cannot be built on the old foundation.

Find a compromise

You can't forget the past, you can only let it go. The difficulty often lies in the fact that a person does not want to change anything. Some people are afraid to start a new life. Initially, you need to decide what exactly is missing for happiness. If you need positive emotions, you can create them yourself for yourself. Buy your favorite book, watch a new movie, finally go on a long-awaited tour, move, change jobs, just come up with a small but pleasant holiday.

How to forget the past? There is a wonderful rule: "here and now." It is easy to decipher. Here is the right place to live. Now is the time to do it. We need to concentrate on what is happening now, as this is much more important at the moment. The past - it will not return, and nothing can be changed there. But the future can be laid out now, brick by brick. But the past will not distract either, since right now there is just a lot of work to build a new one.

What can the past give

It must be remembered that every minute of life is an additional opportunity to do something useful. And if you do not use it, perhaps someday it will not be enough. You need to live for today. What can the past give? Nothing, you can only look into it. Like a bag from which you can take something. For example, a good lesson.

Remembering the past, a person steals from himself not only the future, but even the present. And he does not notice that in life there is so much new and unknown, beautiful. Our century is generally short, every passing day cannot be returned. It is deposited in the past, which, like a piggy bank, simply collects memories. Therefore, it is better to fill this piggy bank with pleasant memories than to push sadness and tears into it.

It happens that girls in love often wonder how to forget a guy's past. First of all, you need to learn to respect both your past and what the other person had before meeting you. If it is the past, then it has already passed, it does not exist. But the person who is nearby is the real one. And possibly the future. You don’t need to cling to the past, it doesn’t exist, you need to learn from it, and it’s better to live today.

Life is full of events, and they are not always joyful: some of them you just want to erase from memory. However, often a person mentally plays a negative situation in his head, returning to it again and again. However, you can get rid of this habit, and the tips described below will help with this.

How to forget an unpleasant event?

Thinking about how to forget something forever, you should resort to the following method. You will be required to relive the negative event again, without changing the plot. It is important that you feel emotionally what happened in the past. Think of all the little things you can.

Then imagine that all this happened not to you, but to someone else. What advice would you give this person? Surely you would see the situation from a different angle. Enter the position of the people who participated in it. What emotions are you feeling now? Most likely, you will not be so offended by everything that happened. After that, imagine how the picture fades, and then disappears from your field of vision. You can even mentally drown it in sulfuric acid. She is no more, she disappeared, died, which means you can let go of everything. Understand that the past is dead and will never return. Once you figure this out for yourself, the pain will go away.

How can you forget something terrible?

You can erase a terrible event from your memory by switching your brain to a completely different one. It can be a job, a new hobby, dating. Also, do not be alone, otherwise thoughts about what happened will simply haunt you. It is better to spend some time with friends and relatives. Of course, from time to time memories of a negative event will pop up in your memory, but every day it will hurt you less and less.

Some people are disturbed by nightmares in which they return to that terrible reality and experience it again. In this case, it is necessary to think only about the good before going to bed. For example, thank the Higher Powers for the positive things that happened over the past day. It could be:

• meeting with an old friend;
• your child's smile or first words;
• a pleasant memory - a cute kitten or puppy, a beautiful butterfly.

Also, before going to bed, you can watch a comedy, a concert of your favorite artist, listen to a new album. It is important that you take your mind off what is oppressing you. As a result, you will go to sleep in high spirits, which means that you will only have pleasant dreams.

How to forget something bad in your life?

Bad events often happen in a person's life, and most often he blames a relative, friend, acquaintance for them. As a result, hatred appears, but it does not allow you to live in peace. It is very important in this case to forgive the person who harmed you and let him go. Meditation will help you with this. Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down on a bed, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths in and out. Once you are completely relaxed, you can begin to meditate. Imagine a place where you will be as comfortable as possible, and call your abuser there. Look into his eyes, look at his features, look at his clothes.

Now tell him what you think of him. You must have accumulated a lot. You can not be shy in expressions. Once you tell your abuser how you feel, you will feel better.

The next step is forgiveness. Take the person by the hand, look into their eyes and say you forgive them. This must be done sincerely. Say the words "I forgive you" so many times until you believe it. After this, the offender can be released: look after him, wish him happiness and surround him with love.

You should feel lightness, it will be a sign that you have let go of the situation. If not, you need to do this exercise every evening. It may take you a month or a week to do this, do not spare the time, as it will become easier for you. As a result, a bad event will not dominate in your mind, the brain will simply forget it.

How to forget a negative event forever?

Forgetting something forever will help the following exercise. For him, you need to find a piece of paper, a saucer, matches and a pen. Sit down at the table and describe a negative event that happened to you. Remember all the details. As soon as you realize that you have nothing more to add, reread what you have written and tear up the paper, imagining how the negative situation is erased from your memory.

Then take a saucer, put scraps of paper in it and set them on fire. Look carefully at the flame, imagine how all your grievances and memories burn in it. Once the paper is completely burned, wash off the ashes with water. Everything, this memory is no more, it has no power over your mind. Remember this and enjoy today without going back to the past.

More tips on consigning memories to oblivion can be found in our article -.