Some people have asked me to help them get rid of their painful past. They are looking for some tools that can delete what has happened with them in past.
It’s because they cannot handle the pain which those memories bring to them in the present moment.
But what they are looking for cannot be done!
You cannot delete your memories unless your brain gets structurally damaged in those specific areas where your memories are stored. Otherwise the only option that you are left with is to change the way you deal with those memories in the present moment.
You are not your memories; you are the space where the experiences of your memories take place.
Some memories automatically pop up in your awareness. They have their associated emotions which then fill up your awareness.
Negative memories with their negative emotional load make people immobilized and relive what had happened many months or years back.
The only way this pain can be reduced is by raising your awareness about what has happened to you in the past. You cannot do anything with what has already happened, but yes you can surely alter the way you perceive what has happened.
If you were hurt by others, you can choose to forgive. If you feel you had made some mistakes, you can choose to be compassionate for your own self, and let it go. If something had happened beyond your control, you can choose not to resist but accept it.
All these choices are possible. What is required is to learn to disengage from the emotional load of negative memories and then choosing the appropriate way of looking at them.
How is it done?
- Remind yourself that you are not your memories. You are the one who experiences them.
- You experience what you choose to experience. Although your choices might have been made unconsciously, you always have an option in the present moment to consciously choose empowering possibilities.
- Disengage from negative feelings which those memories bring in your awareness by creating a distance from your feelings. This is done by observing them and not resisting, denying and not trying to modify what is happening in your awareness. (It may seem very difficult initially, but let me tell you that it’s possible to do for everyone of us!)
- As you observe your feelings and do not try to suppress, project or deny; you will slowly realize that you have other ways to look at what had happened.
- Choose those empowering ways of looking at your memories, and slowly you will move away from the negative feelings of your past.
- Remind yourself that you cannot control everything that happens to you, but you can always choose how you perceive what’s happening to you.
This is – raising your awareness about your past!
God bless you.
Dr. Sudeep Shroff