Occasionally we ask ourselves: why do we forget at all? What if we could remember things forever? Apparently forgetting things helps us to deal with traumas. One of the best ways to deal with traumatic experience is rewriting the traumatic memory.
Some courage is required, so do not attempt this if you do not have social support or are depressed. Focus on the traumatic memory you want to rewrite. Typically you can reframe a negative experience into a positive one. Before you relive the experience think of the best strategy to approach and on how you want to feel with what happened. Try to remember the traumatic experience. Now in the middle of the experience try to detach and look at the whole situation from totally different perspective: if this is humiliating and funny – laugh, if it is heroic – experience strong sense of pride and respect, if it motivated you to become stronger – focus on lessons you have learnt and the person you are now. if you cannot find anything better – focus on how all people suffer and need empathy of each other. Feel the new experience in small details. It will not replace the old feel all in once – you will need to build up from details to the core of what happened.
“Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.”
Nelson Mandela
Everyone has something to remember and something to forget. The things we want to forget do bind us together. As we learn new ways to remember new things, we should be thankful for the gift of forgetting.
