Memory Healing – Heal and Live
Many people live with hurtful memories, maybe childhood incidents from parents, schoolmates or difficulties in your upbringing. Adolescence brings its own problems, including peer pressure, college and deciding what career path to choose. Even simple bodily changes such as pimples breaking out on a first date, or rejection for some other reason. Adulthood has even more hurtful events such as partner challenges, work and a host of other hurts large and small.
Old age can be a time when you dwell on past difficult memories, and new ones which continue to occur. Death of partners, friends or sometimes children and grandchildren. Life is a learning curve for sure, and painful memories are unfortunately part of being alive.
They say that time heals, but I know from personal experience through the loss of a child it’s often not the case. But memories can be lessened and even healed through using techniques and cognitive thinking.
Facing up to painful memories can help. Like Doctor Phil often says “you have to acknowledge events in order to change them.” You may find that you lock bad memories in a box inside your mind, never opening the box because of fear of being hurt. But suppressing horrible thoughts can cause stress and illness through the tension building up in your body. It’s much better to let them out one by one and use a healing technique to lessen or erase them over a period of time.
Traumatic memories are best talked over with a licensed therapist, but other smaller hurts you can heal over time. Here are some ways you can help yourself deal with them.
HOW TO HEAL
Relax, and bring the memory to mind. Imagine the scene unfolding in your mind’s eye. As you reach the moment when someone may have said or acted in a hurtful way, pause. Now, pick up an imaginary paintbrush and paint over the entire scene, then reinvent the scene with kind words or actions you would prefer. You may have to do this several times until the new memory overwrites the old.
Another way of coming to terms with raw memories is to imagine yourself as a lawyer, looking at the situation as an outsider. Try to think of the words or actions from the other person’s point of view. What hurt do they have that causes them to lash out at you? Often parents make mistakes because they are young and inexperienced, or are acting in the same way that their parents treated them. Is this the reason they hurt you? They may have had no idea that the way they raised you was hurtful. Can you find it in your heart to forgive?
As the lawyer, ask yourself if you would have acted in the same way in their shoes? What part, if any, did you play which perhaps caused them to retaliate, triggering their bad behavior? Could you have said or done something differently? Even if attacked for no reason, you can still make the choice to forgive and let go. People hurt others because they’re hurt or angry themselves, and usually it has nothing at all to do with you.
If you had a choice of pressing a button that would cause the person who hurt you to disappear off the face of the Earth without being found out, would you do it? You may be thinking – “Yes in a heartbeat.” But would you? Everyone has their own problems and hurts, because we are all human. You don’t know the situations in the past which prompted the person to act in the way they did.
You can still press that button, but with another objective in mind. Simply imagine that it erases that person and painful event from your mind and emotional center. This is a much better choice!
Losing a loved one is a harder memory to replace. Firstly, you don’t want to forget them, and secondly it’s impossible to fade such a memory completely. My own ten-year-old youngest son was killed instantly when a car hit his bike. I still see him lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the road. When I do, I allow the memory to last a few moments, then turn my mind to a happier time, such as collecting him from school, when his face lit up when he saw me, or holiday times, and love and laughter playing together as a family with his brothers.
Prayer is a way of asking God or your Creator to heal your memories. If you don’t believe in a higher power, ask your higher self for healing. Imagine waves of healing light surround your body, soothing your fears and then let go of the negative.
LIFE IS SHORT
Whatever your beliefs, we all die one day. Many believe we go to a happier place, others that life ends completely, but either way, it also ends all suffering. Why waste your time reliving bad memories? Life is short, so take the time to live and let go of as many painful thoughts as you can. One by one you can reduce the hurt and begin to improve your health and enjoy life.
