The Sins of My Past Have Discovered Me Once More and Im Too Old to Run From Them Again
I used to wonder: Why does my past go along coming back in memories? I would constantly relive the same memories over and over. But then I learned how to alter that.
I learned that nosotros do indeed take the power to alter memories of the past. And in so doing nosotros can create a brighter and happier tomorrow.
Everyone in the world has at to the lowest degree one painful memory from the past. But if y'all're reliving painful past memories repeatedly, it is time to stop the vicious bike. Y'all demand to overcome bad memories and recollect happy ones instead. Otherwise, you will be lost in a perpetual cycle of woe.
But how do yous stop painful memories?
Often it comes down to forgiveness. Perhaps you tin't forgive yourself for something that happened. Or yous tin can't forgive someone else. And then, yous keep reliving information technology over and over. If that'southward the example, please attempt this transformational meditation for forgiveness.
Sometimes at that place are other factors, such as resentment and regret [READ: Meditation for regret].
Ruminating thoughts can have a detrimental impact on mental wellness. [READ: meditation to finish depression]. Indeed, rumination is a significant crusade of anxiety and depression according to Louisa C Michl [Boston Children'south Infirmary, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA.] [ane] [READ: meditation to stop depression].
For mental wellbeing, it is imperative to learn how to overcome past memories that go along coming dorsum all the time.
Why The Past Keeps Coming Back And Cut You Up
Painful reflections (like my memory of my father'southward drinking) tin can gradually wear down your mind. They chip away at you until yous develop a mental health condition, says Dr. Deryn Strange [professor of forensic psychology at John Jay College]. [2].
That'due south why we need to change it.
Still, before we look at how to overcome painful memories of the past, let's investigate why your memories keep coming dorsum.
Why you keep thinking nigh painful memories…
In that location is a reason the past keeps coming back in painful memories. It'south because you're stuck in one way of thinking or feeling.
Considering of neural networking, when nosotros experience a specific manner or think a certain way, we recollect virtually other times nosotros felt and thought the aforementioned mode. Hence, if you experience deplorable, you will think of other times when you felt sad.
If yous are feeling sorry now, y'all volition bring to mind lamentable times from the past.
For instance, if you are sad because someone has passed away, you will likely call up of many sorry experiences that happened with that person. And this can crusade grief (read: meditating on grief )
Same with thoughts. If you are thinking nigh death, for example, you volition recall about all the times you experienced expiry. For example, all the times when relatives passed.
This becomes a perpetual cycle in which y'all are stuck in i style of thinking or feeling. To modify the bike, we must modify our thoughts and our emotions.
Allow me show you how.
How To Overcome Past Memories That Keep Coming Back
Here are five means how to overcome past memories that keep coming back.
1. To overcome by memories, be mindful of them
The key to overcoming your by memories is realising that those memories exist in your listen now. Even though you lot cannot change what happened, you lot tin can change the way y'all feel near information technology. Y'all can choose to remember the past differently.
Buddhism teaches us that our thoughts and memories exist in the present moment(a fact that is obvious, nevertheless oh so easily forgotten). To change memories of the past, yous demand to start seeing them every bit something tangible, something that is real, something that is happening now.
In The Art Of Happiness, the Dalai Lama says: "Information technology's still there [a painful memory]. Only even though that feeling of regret is however there, it isn't associated with a feeling of heaviness or a quality of pulling me back."
To Buddhists, this idea of being "pulled dorsum" means being attached to something from the past. One of the main Buddhist pearls of wisdom is the thought of letting go and accepting things equally they are. When we are also attached to one idea, 1 perspective, or one memory, the mind is hindered.
To overcome painful memories of the past, be mindful of them. Meet them for what they are. Don't judge them. Only accept. Should the painful memory create physiological responses (a tight pharynx, heavy breast etc.) be mindful of that feeling too. Mindfully observing these things helps u.s. to let go.
To overcome bad memories of the past, you must see them as part of the present moment.
- If you remember the past is gone and done, you lot cannot change it.
- When yous think of thepast,the merely thing that exists isthe thought of the past. And the idea of the past existsnow.
- Realise that the past (the ideas, the memories, and thethoughtsof the past) are happening now. And so, nosotros change them.
2: Free your mind by harnessing the nowadays moment.
Yous don't desire to alive in bad memories. You lot want to live in the present moment.
Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control can assist.
Neuroimaging studies evidence that it is possible for the brain to block unwanted memories. Focus on the present moment past practising mindfulness.
Nevertheless, don't ignore your painful memories. Repressed memories can have astringent psychological consequences.
Nor should you lot attempt to preclude yourself from reliving painful memories. Writing for Nature Communications [iii], Justin C. Hulbert, Richard Northward. Henson & Michael C. Anderson says, "If you are motivated to prevent yourself from reliving a flashback, annihilation that you experience around the menstruation of fourth dimension of suppression tends to get sucked up into this black hole as well."
Instead, accept your painful memories of the by and recognise that your memories are aliveat present.
When we realise that our memories are occurringat present,we give them a present-moment reality, and this empowers us to alter them. This is one of the all-time means how to overcome past memories.
If you struggle to finish painful thoughts, schedule thinking time and tell yourself that you will call back near information technology afterwards. Then keep focusing on what you're doing. This volition assist you to end dwelling on the depressing topic. Do not punish yourself by rehashing the past over and over again.
iii: Supervene upon painful past memories
Memories occur to substantiate our personal beliefs. For instance, if you believe y'all are a victim, yous volition continually run into memories of times when you lot were victimised.
The mind stores memories by using proteins to stimulate encephalon cells to grow and form new connections. The worse a time is the more than vividly we recollect it. Hence why victims of kid abuse, domestic abuse, trauma, combat feel, and violence tend to recollect memories more than vividly.
The recollection of bad memories is performed by the orbitofrontal cortex. The more you dwell on a memory the stronger those neuronal connections become.
However, when yous revisit a memory, you have the ability to alter it.
Through a method called reconsolidation, it is possible for the mind to change memories. For example, if you choose to wait at a painful memory in a more casual lite, the memory will change.
Change your perspective.
Yeah, you recall your past. Vividly. But you only recollect specific moments of your history. This occurs due to confirmation bias.
In psychology, confirmation bias is the mental phenomena through which we think, retrieve, and search for things that confirm our beliefs. Hence why women who experience sexual abuse must effort and then difficult to overcome the victim mentality.
You can overcome victim mentality (and other balance bug from painful memories).
Choose to focus on memories that build positive beliefs.
four: Reconnect with former friends
Bad memories skew your perception of the by.
The listen builds associations based on commonalities. Hence, when you lot recall of one memory yous as well recollect of other related memories. This is how a single memory can distort our recollection.
But there's good news: You lot tin can commencement to remember more of the good times by focusing on moments of profound happiness. When you do this, yous will stop painful memories and start to build happy ones instead.
When were you at your happiest? Who were you with at the time? Reconnect with those people.
Only maybe your relationships have changed. Maybe people used to be peachy, simply time has soured your relationships. It is never too late to change your relationships. Exist the bigger person. Make the moves you need to make to rebuild lost relationships.
When you reconnect with the positive people from your past, you volition recall more of the expert memories and less of the bad ones.
five: Restart sometime hobbies
1 mistake people make in life is that they abandon everything. Perchance you were in a relationship in which you were always socialising and did lots of hobbies. But the relationship ended, and with the relationship, you as well abandoned those onetime hobbies that used to make yous and so happy.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Just consideringfunctionof the past turned sour doesn't mean it all did. You tin continue to practise all the things that made you happy. When you do this, y'all volition remember more happy memories and fewer bad memories. Don't allow one little hiccup become a disease. Don't permit one painful memory of the by prevent you from doing what you love.
Get through your past. Ask yourself "What mattered?", "What did I love?", "What fabricated me happy back then?" Pick those things support. Reconnect with the positive aspects of your past. And don't let anything preclude you from doing what makes you happy. This is a surprisingly powerful way how to overcome past memories.
half dozen: If yous accept bad memories of people, tell them, simply exist willing to listen
If you want to finish bad memories of the past that are nearly people, you need to forgive.
Yes, there are legitimate reasons why we take bad memories of people. Bad times happen. Inevitably, we will all get together a few painful memories through the years—like that time the beautiful girl in the year to a higher place me at schoolhouse laughed when I asked her out… sigh…
Yeah, that thing that happened to you probably sucked total balls. It probably made you and so freaking aroused that you lot never want to talk to that person again. That's natural.
Naturally, you accept some bad memories of people. But yous should also have skilful memories of the people in your life too.
To stop the bad memories of people, think more positive memories.
Furthermore, talk to the other person. If people were brave enough to step up and say "You hurt me. And I want to tell yous," anybody would exist happier. Because yous know what? The odds are that the person who hurt you lot isn't a bad person (obviously there are exceptions, just for the virtually part, people are generally decent). If they injure you, and they're an okay person, they will welcome the opportunity to say, "I messed up and I am sorry".
But you lot know what? You lot hurt people besides. Yeah, you did. We all do. That'due south simply part of the raw deal, correct? We hurt each other. So, if that person comes dorsum to yous and says, "You injure me as well," be potent and practise the right thing. Listen to them. Allow them to overcome their bad memories of yous.
Nothing changes a bad retention like openly discussing information technology with the other person. That'south why in Restorative Justice victims of crimes feel meliorate after chatting to the perpetrator. Because information technology puts a fresh perspective on a traumatic issue. And even if no new perspective can be gleaned, the victim gets closure.
Forgive people. Become up to the person that injure you lot. Tell them. And if they say that y'all hurt them as well, take the gonads to listen, own information technology, and apologise. I promise you that if you do this, you volition stop the bad memories of that person and yous will start to retrieve positive, happy memories of them instead.
Y'all know what the beautiful thing about this process is? If the two of yous own your sh*t and admit your wrongs, and you mutually apologise, you're going to end upwards being in a much stronger relationship than ever before.
This is a painful simply cathartic fashion to overcome by memories.
old man looking at old photos from the past
7: Simply don't forget, the past is your best teacher
Nosotros've looked at how to overcome by memories that continue coming dorsum to y'all. But information technology's good to remember the reasons we have bad memories They teach u.s.a. valuable lessons.
We all know that we're supposed to have no regrets, right? Simply if you take no regrets, what are you going to learn from? Instead of pretending that everything is perfect, be brave and admit what was wrong with yesterday. Then, you will know how to be different tomorrow.
Put your easily up correct at present and say with me, "I exercise have regrets in my life". Done it? Great. Because here is the truth. The best way how to be unlike tomorrow is to acknowledge what went incorrect today.
What do you wish you had done differently today?What regrets do you accept from today? Me? Now, I am not perfect. I am a happy person. Very happy, overall. In fact, my friends often tell me I am the happiest person they know. Simply I am most definitely not perfect. And looking back on today, I wish I had done things a little bit differently.
Now yous are probably wondering, what did I do today that I wish my twenty-four hour period had been different? Woke up. Worked. Worked… worked… And at present, at twenty:15, I'm writing this (which… ermmm…. is work, simply with my readers, who are my family unit, so it's good work). Aye, I spent all 24-hour interval working. And I didn't even footstep outside once today. And I do regret it. I regret that the sunday rose, lit up the day with its glory, and then descended, all while I stayed penned up inside, abroad from those gilt rays.
I am going to be different tomorrow.
More Ways To Overcome Past Memories
- Meditation tin help too. I one time used a meditation script for sadness to end a especially bad retentivity of when my father died. I experienced that memory over and over.
- "Forgetting pills"
- Therapy
- Retentiveness suppression
- Exposure therapy (by and large for PTSD)
- Propranolol (a beta-blocker often used for memory suppression).
- Cerebral behavioural therapy exercises
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Source: https://www.thedailymeditation.com/painful-memories
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