How to Stop Painful Memories from Haunting You
If we’re lucky, we only experience a few deep wounds and even bague or blanc sans diamant fewer “my life changed in a second” moments.
I’m not trying to be a downer, but I’m here to tell you to expect pain as part of life. Big pain. bague femme teeshirt licorne bague argent It’s normal. Don’t be too surprised when it shows up. bracelet homme Enduring the loss of a child, surviving a bout with cancer, going through a messy divorce, or being the victim of violent crime prix bague or occasion are all too common. coque samsung You can’t have the good without the bad.
After taking care of my brother as he wasted away and died of AIDs, the end of bracelet homme taille s my 18 year marriage to my high school sweetheart in an ugly divorce, and years bague en or jaune pour femme pas cher of things not working out, and being flat out disappointed with life, I tried to kill myself by swallowing pills. Because I wasn’t found in time, the drugs went all the estimation bague en or way through my system. goed hoesje I woke up from a coma a week later seriously brain injured. Then, my ex husband sued me for custody of our sons, won and immediately moved out of state with them. (You can read the full story here.)
While healing from the suicide attempt, I realized that I’d been torturing myself with all of bague en or avec une pierre the painful memories from my past. coque samsung I was amazed to see that I was doing it to prix bracelet homme myself! While this point may be apparent to some, it was a huge “aha” moment for me. coque huawei I also realized that if I was doing it, I could stop it.
I’m not suggesting that you can magically make the pain bague or rose losange go away or the horrible memories disappear. coque huawei coque samsung coque samsung I’m suggesting that you can choose not to torture yourself and make the pain grow stronger until it swallows you like I did and so many others do. It really came down bracelet homme achat to me making the decision not to do this to myself anymore.
A Memory Is Changed Each Time You Remember It
Because of neuroplasticity, the ability of our brains to change both form and function based on repeated behaviors, emotions, and even thoughts, the more I dwelled on the sad memories, the more I reinforced them in my brain. iphone hoesje Synapses, the connections between neurons, get more sensitive and new neurons grow when activated repeatedly together as happens when recalling a memory over and over.
Your brain also adds a subjective tint to your memories by subconsciously factoring in who you are and what you believe and feel at the time of recollection. kawaii licorne coque samsung At the most basic level, a memory is made up of the slight shifts in certain bijoux bague en or synapses within a specific sequence which incorporate the longue bague or various elements that make up that memory. coque samsung coque huawei Every time you recall it, your brain reconsolidates this process incorporating and filtering it through who you are at the time of remembering. coque huawei Each time you call up a memory, it is changed and grows more charged.
So, like the fish tale that grows with each telling, our memories mutate and take on more emotional charge each time we recall them. coque iphone In his book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer writes:
Our memories are not like fiction. bijoux bague They bague or blanc diamant et rubis are fiction.
So, the more depressed I got, the darker my memories became.
Pairing Painful Memories with Positive
The good news is that the reverse is also true. coque iphone Neural connections that are relatively inactive wither away. You can consciously influence the process comment ressouder une bague en or in reverse in a positive way so that the memories become less negatively charged. coque samsung coque iphone coque huawei I made the memories stronger and sadder, and I could make them bracelet homme ancre personnalisé weaker and more loving.
Through mindfulness and meditation, I learned to become aware versace bague en or of and take control of my bracelet homme cuir celio thoughts and mind. coque huawei bijoux personnalise By realizing and working with my subconscious influences and consciously choosing which ones I allowed to impact me and intentionally inserting new ones, I changed my past.
Not literally, of course. bijoux pas cher coque huawei But by pairing more positive thoughts and emotions bracelet homme la redoute with negative memories and feelings and modifying my perspective about past events, I changed the way I experienced them in the present. coque iphone coque samsung With repetition, this practice altered the memories and neuronal paths in my brain.
The goal here is not to resist painful memories and grasp at positive ones instead. That’s almost impossible and leads to its own kind of suffering. The goal is to feel your emotions and acknowledge a painful memory, but then to consciously pair it with a more positive thought, memory, or feeling. This way, when your brain stores the memory, positive material gets associated with it.
Research shows that negative memories are especially vulnerable to being changed after they’re recalled. Over time, through neuroplasticity, this practice will weaken the negative charge of the memories.
In his book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, Rick Hanson writes:
To gradually replace negative implicit memories with positive ones, bague or jaune avec grenat just make the positive aspects prominent and relatively intense in the foreground of your awareness while simultaneously placing the negative material in the background.
Because of all the ways your brain changes its structure, your experience matters beyond its momentary, subjective impact. coque iphone It makes bague or 18k avec saphir enduring changes in bague or blanc topaze coeur the physical tissues of your brain which affect your well being, functioning and relationships.
You Can Stop The Pain
If your head is filled bague or rose ceramique with painful memories, I want you to know that you can change this. coque samsung coque iphone I did.
In any life, there’s always going to be pain, joy, and bague or chaumet everything in between. Past, present, and future. coque huawei coque iphone Your experience of your life and your brain are shaped by what you choose to focus on. coque samsung You can torture yourself with pain and anxiety or choose better feeling thoughts and memories.
It really is that simple. Simple, but not easy.
Hi there. I like this. Can you provide an example I recently had a breakup and I am really ruminating on the two times I most regret. One was I had him over the first bague or et onyx noir time and my home was not guest ready I had a sick cat, and it smelled bad. And I was also very emotional bague or jaune 24 carats one time and I have morphed that to him thinking I am insane. How do I forgive myself I think about it over and over and feel hopeless about deserving love. chaussons pokemon I make so many mistakes, I must be unlovable.
