Divorce - How to Get Past The Painful Memories
- By Trevor Emdon
- Published Tuesday 24th 2008
- Divorce
- Unrated
Trevor Emdon
Trevor Emdon is a personal development author and coach. If you want to begin to restore your trust in relationships, Trevor's self help program, "How To Love Again When Your Heart's Been Broken" has many more powerful emotion healing ideas.
View all articles by Trevor Emdon
If you are looking to try and forget the memories of your life that you had before your divorce, if you will excuse my pun, forget it!
You may believe there's no way of getting past this type of issue. You do not want to forget the good times that you have endured especially if those memories included children, of course, but there IS a way, not to forget, but to neutralise the way you feel about the painful ones.
Just as you can look back and laugh at an event that was, at the time, acutely embarrassing, you can harness that natural mental skill that changes feelings, and exchange hurt for a shrug and what was once painful even into a giggle!
Memories are something that we will have for a lifetime. These are sometimes good and other times they are hard to hold onto. There are some instances when all we really want to do is forget about the world and move on with our lives.
This is true for anyone that is going through a divorce. This can be the most difficult time of your life and you will have to make the necessary arrangements to keep the good memories and not forget the old, but CHANGE them!
Even if you have many bad memories, perhaps after a long marriage, you can still make changes.
I am not talking about re-writing history. I'd agree with you that that is impossible. What you must realize is that memories are happening in your head now - like a repeat of an old TV show - and since it is a present event, you can change it, just as you can change your mind.
You may be getting divorced after many long years of marriage. You will have had your share of ups and downs and it is important for you to hold onto the good memories so that you can keep a positive attitude towards life.
When you are going through a divorce, it will seem like everything will bring up a familiar memory to you. You will want to make sure that you are going to be able to deal with those times and all the feelings that come along with it.
You may have to find a way to cope with them and to get past the things that remind you of the good old days. In these moments, it's useful to have an "anchor" to hold onto.
/>
You may believe there's no way of getting past this type of issue. You do not want to forget the good times that you have endured especially if those memories included children, of course, but there IS a way, not to forget, but to neutralise the way you feel about the painful ones.
Just as you can look back and laugh at an event that was, at the time, acutely embarrassing, you can harness that natural mental skill that changes feelings, and exchange hurt for a shrug and what was once painful even into a giggle!
Memories are something that we will have for a lifetime. These are sometimes good and other times they are hard to hold onto. There are some instances when all we really want to do is forget about the world and move on with our lives.
This is true for anyone that is going through a divorce. This can be the most difficult time of your life and you will have to make the necessary arrangements to keep the good memories and not forget the old, but CHANGE them!
Even if you have many bad memories, perhaps after a long marriage, you can still make changes.
I am not talking about re-writing history. I'd agree with you that that is impossible. What you must realize is that memories are happening in your head now - like a repeat of an old TV show - and since it is a present event, you can change it, just as you can change your mind.
You may be getting divorced after many long years of marriage. You will have had your share of ups and downs and it is important for you to hold onto the good memories so that you can keep a positive attitude towards life.
When you are going through a divorce, it will seem like everything will bring up a familiar memory to you. You will want to make sure that you are going to be able to deal with those times and all the feelings that come along with it.
You may have to find a way to cope with them and to get past the things that remind you of the good old days. In these moments, it's useful to have an "anchor" to hold onto.
Think of something that makes you laugh out loud - maybe a good friend who always gets your funny bone, or a favourite comedy moment that always cracks you up - and replay that in your mind over and over again.
Each time you feel the giggles coming on, just squeeze your thumb and finger together, (doesn't matter which ones, as long as it's the same one every time). After a dozen or so times, just the squeezing action will bring on a mini-giggling fit!
Now, when something unexpectedly brings up a painful memory, use your finger squeeze to over-ride it, and you'll begin to get the notion that far from being at the mercy of your feelings, your feelings are in fact under your control.
One of the worst aspects of grief and anger is the feeling that they're out of your control. Now they don't have to be!
Sometimes it is ok to have the fond memories come back. There are many times when you are going to have these feelings of old memories come rushing back. You will have the comfort of these memories as long as you are able to control the way that they make you feel.
You want to be able to keep these memories in the back of your mind but you also want to be able to get past the bad feelings that some of these memories can leave for you. These simple yet powerful techniques will help you to do just that.
You should remember that you will still have many new memories to make for yourself and your family. You want to take comfort in the fact that you still have a life to live and you want to make the most of the life that you have now. You want to go on and continue to enjoy the good things in life as much as you can.
The worst thing that you can do is to try to shut out the memories that you have created with someone that you loved even if now you are no longer in love with that person. Trying to shut out pain will only make you focus on it more, and shutting out the pleasant memories is to cause yourself more pain!
As you use these techniques, you will find more ways to accept the fact that the past is gone and that you now have to live for the future and what it holds in store for you.
A divorce is not the end of the world - it's also, like all endings, a new beginning - and you will want to find ways to move past the hurt and get to the good stuff that lies ahead.