I Try To Remember The Good Memories

As humans, we often tend to remember the bad better than the good. Holding on to negative memories is a deadly trap for our feelings and emotions. The traces of these memories settle deeper and deeper in our minds and throw us off balance.

Our resentments and even our desire for revenge are often undoubtedly based on something that can be justified. However, the truth is that we only hurt ourselves more by harboring these feelings.

Bad memories create a complex instability that becomes deeply rooted in our subconscious. This happens because something inside of us breaks down when we are cheated or hurt, leaving us unable to respond or deal with it appropriately.

In other words, because we are unable or given the opportunity to express what we want, we are forced to think about it way too much. We completely turn the situation upside down in our minds and develop ideas and negative feelings towards the person who hurt us. This takes its toll and makes us see this person as an ‘enemy’.

Over time, these feelings can become more and more intense and create a wide range of problems for us, both psychological and physical. This is because we tie ourselves to that harmful person or situation and carry the memories on our backs everywhere we go.

There is no doubt that when we carry negative memories and feelings with us, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to be happy.

Better to keep the good memories

Continuing to feed our grudges is like living a bitter life and losing our true identity. In any case, as we have already seen, it is a slow and painful process to free ourselves from this habit.

As unpleasant as a situation may be, we can learn something from everything we go through. There is always something positive that can be found in it and come out of it. This does not mean that it is not normal to cry or be angry when something negative happens to us, but quite the opposite. It means that this experience will serve for us as a form of freedom or liberation.

However, it is important not to maintain those negative feelings. When we don’t consider the influence these feelings have on us and give these feelings a place in our minds, we create a vicious circle from which it is difficult to escape.

For that reason, it might be normal to say that we don’t want to bother cleaning our wounds properly. Ideally, we make sure that our selective memory is as efficient as possible and allow ourselves, above all else, to remember the very lessons each experience has taught us.

How to detach ourselves from the bad and remember the good

Our emotional state is largely dependent on the way we organize our lives. Considering this, we can best learn to direct and lock the black hole of our negative feelings.

The idea behind this is to prioritize the good, the beautiful and the positive more. In order to do this, we need to expand on a few emotional aspects:

• If you have the opportunity, talk to the person who hurt you. If this is not possible, write him/her a letter or try to have a mental conversation with him/her. Tell this person what you think and how you feel. Free your body and mind of these pent up feelings. This can have a wonderful healing effect on us.

• It is inevitable to be cheated and hurt in life. We have to accept that sometimes these things can happen to us when we decide to be in a relationship or develop expectations. Therefore, when something negative happens, it is important to be able to express our emotions and feelings in a good, efficient and effective way.
• Don’t judge others and don’t try to think you’re better than that other person. We all make mistakes from time to time and often we don’t pay enough attention when it’s time to show appreciation for the things others do. Be open-minded and try to consider all possibilities. Never cut yourself off.
• Accept that people change. The important thing is not that anyone has hurt you, but that we as humans are all capable of change. Detach yourself from the image you have formed of that person and accept that he or she may have changed in ways that you are not aware of.

• Let go of the negative and let things flow. This step is quite complicated as it involves accepting that life isn’t always fair. Regardless of the fact that it’s good to learn, it’s not always easy to learn a positive lesson from a negative experience. Once we have been able to accept that we have to learn in life, it is best to let go of the negative side of this experience.

It is essential to remember the good memories we have built with others. This is as important to the people who are part of our lives today as it is to the people who were part of our life in the past. We must learn how to organize and direct our feelings at any time.

When we have this knowledge clearly in mind, we will develop the virtue of selective memory: we can let go of the negative and remember only the positive.