The brain easily forgets a password for an email or a PIN card, but at the same time it often flatly refuses to forget unpleasant memories that are of absolutely no use. The brain clearly experiences a subtle pleasure in reminding us of unpleasant events and making us return to them again and again. Most of all, he likes to torment us with such memories in the evenings, before going to bed, and in the mornings, when we are just starting to wake up. Why does the brain forget necessary information and store unnecessary information?
The main task of the brain is our safety. The brain collects all our troubles, problems, griefs and disappointments - in order to recognize and avoid them in advance in the future.
The brain loves its collection of troubles very much and stores it carefully. And... he never shows it to us. The brain stores the vast majority of memories about unpleasant and painful events outside of our access, in the passive part of long-term memory.
And there is only a very small part of negative memories that the brain allows itself to bother us with. These are the memories that the brain cannot transfer for storage because in each of them there is some kind of inconsistency, some kind of contradiction that the brain cannot resolve.
What are memories made of?
A memory is not a one-dimensional thought or idea.
It is the sum of impressions from specific events in your past. You remember not a point in time, but many sensory details. For example, if you try to remember a pleasant day spent at the beach as a child, more than just the image of a river will come to mind. You will remember how warm the sand was, the smell of the wind and the taste of the ice cream you bought at the kiosk across the street.
Any of these sensations can become a trigger. When you buy an ice cream that tastes similar to the one from your childhood, you will be transported back to a hot day on a river beach.
Thus, memories are inseparable from context.
End of love
Why doesn't love leave a relationship because of one quarrel or resentment? The fading of feelings is a too smooth process, which sometimes happens unnoticed by one of the partners.
The feeling of distance can occur during ordinary quarrels, but it is too short-lived. Did your loved one hurt? You have forgiven and continue to love each other.
It is very rare for two lovers to lose their mutual feelings at the same time. Usually the step towards separation is taken by the one who is more disappointed.
This role is less painful in terms of consequences, which is why you can often hear from divorced people: “In fact, it was I who abandoned him/her.”
But no matter how advantageous your position is when breaking up, both you and your partner will feel suffering and longing for all the good things that happened between you.
You can't easily forget the person you love, but time and effort can overcome the pain of a broken heart. So, how to forget your loved one and start a new life?
Accept and forgive
There is no point in holding grudges against your ex, because even if you hate, you do not let him out of your thoughts. The best thing you can do is to forgive all your partner's sins and accept him for who he is.
If you broke up with a guy, try to remember all his mistakes and misdeeds. Don't try to justify him or get angry about such stupid behavior. Recognize that these mistakes are part of his personality.
You're not offended by the cactus for its prickly needles, are you? He is who he is. If you are afraid of injuring your fingers, get yourself a less thorny plant, and the cactus will find another owner. Do you think you still need advice from a psychologist?
Expand your horizons
A loved one was the whole world for us because of which we did not pay attention to what was going on around us. Do you know about the number of people on the globe? Until you get to know everyone, you can't say that your ex-boyfriend was ideal.
How to forget love? Communicate and be open to new acquaintances, travel, attend master classes and clubs on various hobbies. Don’t tell yourself “I can’t”; try to find solace in other joys of life.
By discovering a few new hobbies, driving along the roads of new cities or countries and making several hundred new acquaintances, you will change your perspective on the past. The old life will seem like a blink of an eye compared to what you still have to do.
We would also like to share with you a comprehensive commentary from our expert - psychologist, sexologist, psychotherapist, author and presenter of educational programs for psychologists Tatyana Slavina:
When you break up with your loved one, it feels like your whole world has collapsed. You cannot imagine your future and start living in the past because your present is painful.
There are several tips you can use to get out of this state.
First, accept and realize: the relationship is over, and the old life will never be again. This is a good way to understand that you will have to build it again.
Second, remove all items from your life and home that are associated with past relationships. Go around the places of your romantic walks and avoid any reminders of your ex-lover.
Thirdly, life and consciousness change radically: you have a lot of free time - don’t spend it alone, feeling sorry for yourself and sinking into depression.
On the contrary: this is the best moment to take up exactly those hobbies that you have always put off. Sports, drawing, learning French, finally!
Fill your time with what you have long dreamed of. After all, a new relationship may soon begin, but you still won’t learn how to dance bachata! And most importantly: realize that you have become free! Free from those attitudes with which you limited yourself and your desires in the name of your relationship.
Write down on paper everything you sacrificed and everything you made mistakes in. This will become your experience.
After all, it is important not just to forget a person, but to live on, and right now you can choose for yourself the life in which you will be truly happy.
And believe me: a new round of development, a new circle of friends, and, of course, new and happy relationships awaits you!
How to manage memories?
Context is the most important factor for anyone who wants to learn how to manage their memories. After all, with its help you can consolidate a memory. The wider and brighter the context, the more strongly we remember the event.
Let's go back to the memory of a hot day at the beach. It is advisable that you remember details, settings, emotions and feelings. Then the context will be formed.
If you remember the easy flow of river water, the warm sand of the coast, the hot asphalt of the path next to your umbrella and the creamy taste of ice cream, the memory of this day will remain very vivid and full for many years. The broader the context, the more varied the experience. This is what we recall when we remember a hot day spent in childhood.
So if we know how to use context to create a memory, can we find a way to erase our memories?
Automate familiar actions
Try to accustom yourself to automaticity in performing current tasks and responsibilities. Then you won't have to remember them and will complete them when needed. For example, get into the habit of paying your household bills online. Or enter all the birthdays into your smartphone so that it reminds you of them at least a week before the event. Plan a week in advance for dinners with friends, clothes, necessary housework, etc. The more clearly everything is planned, the less stress you will have to feel.
How can you erase memories?
A forgetting strategy may be to allow yourself to forget certain details of an event in order to destroy the memory completely.
To test this assumption, scientists conducted a study in which two groups of people took part. They had to learn words from two separate lists while simultaneously looking at photographs of different landscapes to create context for the memory.
One group was told to approach the task very carefully: memorize the first list of words and only then move on to the second. Subjects from the second group were asked to first learn words and then forget them. Then the volunteers had to repeat what they remembered.
The brain activity of the experiment participants was studied using functional MRI. It turned out that the subjects who forgot the learned words had a much lower level of activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for processing images. This group of participants simply let the words and images slip from their minds.
When the brain tries to remember words, facts, images, it is constantly working to create context. When the brain tries to forget something, it initially rejects the context and abstracts itself from it. Therefore, memories are created with difficulty and do not last long.
If we return to the example with the beach, we can say this: in order to forget this day, you would have to specifically try to forget the taste of ice cream and the hot sand under your feet.
Don't focus too much on blocking thoughts
Blocked thoughts tend to come to life faster and more strongly when you give them too much meaning and attention. Recognize the fact that suppressing thoughts is very difficult, but you must continue to work at it, while trying not to overdo it.
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Is it possible to delete a memory completely?
Does this method always work 100%? Of course not. It’s impossible to say that scientists have discovered a magical way to forget, like in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” We know too little about the brain and memory and do not know how to erase memories.
Forgetting is very useful. We can use it to help us cope with a traumatic experience or painful event. Forgetting is necessary to clear the brain of unnecessary information.
In the experiment, participants remembered and forgot simple things: words and pictures. A real memory consists of dozens of details and sensory impressions, so erasing it is not so easy. But this research is the first step in the beginning of a very intriguing and alluring path.
It looks like we can figure out how to forget unpleasant and unnecessary things. More importantly, we will learn to remember happy days and moments for the rest of our lives.
Tip 3: Get rid of reminders
Forgetting a loved one is not easy, but not thinking about him is even more difficult, just as old wounds ache in bad weather, so your heart will sometimes “bleed.” To make the process less frequent and painful, get rid of reminders. What you can throw away, put it in the garbage chute; what you can’t, donate it to someone. Is this ring, mug or teddy bear really a pity? Pack in a tight bag or box, remove the darkest and farthest corner of the closet.
This applies not only to things, but also to lifestyle:
- Every morning we drank coffee together in bed - change the place and drink, drink green tea in the kitchen, looking out the window.
- In the evenings you watched a series together - refuse to watch it, even if you are very interested in what will happen next.
In general, try to do everything differently so that nothing goes back to the past.
Exercise "Mariana Trench"
If we are talking about something more serious than a failed interview or a sarcastic comment on the Internet, then it is better to turn to the Mariana Trench exercise.
“Pack” your memory into a capsule (in the form of a letter, photograph, video file, collage of images) and send it to a depth of 10994 meters. Each time the memory tries to return, imagine:
- sea water gradually seeps into the capsule;
- the container is covered with shells;
- the capsule is covered with bottom sand -
and... the memory will physically cease to exist.
Low self-esteem: run after me
Low self-esteem leads to the fact that you love when people run after you, because it gives you the feeling that you are needed, desired and valuable.
A person with healthy self-esteem does not need people to run after him. He does not have a lack of attention, love and care, which he is trying to compensate for through an inadequate amount of attention from a new boyfriend. He is able to give this care, attention and love to himself.
Therefore, when so much attention begins to pour on his head, he perceives it not as an opportunity to satisfy his inadequate emotional needs, but as an unnecessary excess.
At first, excessive attention may touch him, but very soon it will bore him. It begins to choke him.
On the other hand, a person with low self-esteem needs just this. And this makes such a person more susceptible to various manipulative tactics.
