How to Forget Things (& Finally Move On With Life)

Do you ever find unwanted memories replaying in your mind, like a song stuck on a loop? 

Whether these memories are awkward and cringey or painful and traumatic, there are ways to make them appear less often. 

In this post, we’ll explore practical and creative ways to deal with painful memories. 

Before diving in, please note that the content on this website is not to be considered professional medical advice. If you’re struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic memory, it can help to consult a licensed therapist. You can check out Psychology Today for a good resource to find a counselor.

With that said, let’s get into some tips you can try to see if you can soothe your painful memory.

Process the Feelings Around the Memory

Painful memories are painful because they are filled with unprocessed feelings. If we only try to push the memories away, we’ll never resolve these underlying feelings and traumas. 

Often, if you can work through the emotional pain underpinning the memory, then the memory will lose its sting and its grip on you. You won’t be forgetting the memory, but making it less painful and healing yourself.

Psychologist and Ph.D. James Pennebaker offers one approach to working through feelings with what he calls Expressive Writing. This is where you sit down for 20 minutes and write about your emotional pain. 

When research scientists^{1https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6357577/} asked a group of 66 healthcare professionals to do expressive writing for 20 minutes straight three days in a row, these participants showed more positive and fewer negative emotions during the study and one month out.   

Action Step: Give expressive writing a shot!

• Write for 20 minutes straight.
• Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, style, or structure.
• Write about your deepest feelings and thoughts about traumatic, emotional, or stressful memories that have affected you. See if you can write about something you wouldn’t discuss in detail with anyone.
• If it gets too intense, pause and consider contacting a professional for support.

If you’d like more tips on journaling, check out this post.

Track Your Memory Triggers

One effective way to manage painful memories is by identifying what triggers them. 

You might notice patterns if you can keep a detailed journal to track the moments when the painful memory surfaces. 

Understanding these triggers can empower you to anticipate and prepare for potential emotional responses or to avoid specific triggers if necessary. 

Action Step: Every week, write down every time a painful memory comes up. Do your best to notice what exactly sparked the memory. Was it something you saw? A smell? Another thought?

Get Rid of Unnecessary Triggers

Sometimes, objects closely associated with a painful memory can be constant reminders, reigniting emotions and thoughts we’re trying to heal from. 

For instance, if a ukelele in your apartment corner continually brings back distressing memories of a fight with an ex-partner, it might be time to donate it to Goodwill.

By consciously altering your surroundings, you’re taking an active role in your healing process, creating a space that nurtures positivity and growth instead of pain and nostalgia.

Action Step: Are there any triggers to painful memories you control? For such items, consider giving them to a friend, donating them, turning them into an art project, or even burning them. 

Create New Associations with These Triggers

If you can’t get rid of your memory triggers, you could also attach new associations^{2https://www.hhmi.org/news/changing-emotional-association-memories} to them.

For example, imagine that every time you smell cinnamon, it reminds you of a terrible experience when you were younger while your mom had cinnamon rolls in the oven. 

You can create new associations with the smell of cinnamon. You could invite a friend to make cinnamon pancakes or watch people try the cinnamon challenge. 

Action Step: What’s one trigger that reminds you of your painful memory? Can you create a new, positive memory with this trigger?

Bring Positivity Into Your Memory

This fascinating study^{3https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26906-4} found that when people recalled the positive aspects of painful memories, it changed how their brains responded to the memories.

Memory is not a fixed thing. Researchers^{4https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-our-brains-make-memories-14466850/?no-ist=&story=fullstory&page=1} have found that each time you recall an event, you pick up the memory and reshape it. Each time you remember an event, it’s slightly different than the last time. For example, if you recall a memory of a happy event while you are feeling sad, you may remember the event as being less happy than it was.

You can use this knowledge to bring positive associations to your unpleasant memory. So, each time you pick it up, you add a little warmth to it.

Action Step: For the next few days, each time a painful memory comes up, see if you can pause and bring forth a positive aspect of that memory you wouldn’t normally focus on.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy^{5https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(16)30934-4.pdf}, a form of behavioral therapy, is particularly effective for confronting and managing emotionally charged, emotional memories. 

It has been shown to help with PTSD^{6https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006570/} symptoms as well as with anxiety disorders^{7https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4525733/}.  

It involves gradually facing the source of your fear in a controlled, safe environment. This allows you to break the cycle of fear and avoidance. Exposure therapy involves climbing a ‘fear ladder’ step by step. 

For example, imagine someone who has a traumatic memory from a car accident. In exposure therapy, she might first talk about cars and driving, activities she has been avoiding since the accident. As she becomes more comfortable, she may visualize driving, a process known as imaginal exposure. She might move on to watching safe driving videos and, eventually, sit in a stationary car, a method known as in vivo exposure. 

Here’s a video of a doctor using exposure therapy toward his fear of bees.

Action Step: Is your painful memory causing fear or anxiety about certain situations or experiences?

Try to break down the memory and your response to it into smaller, more manageable parts. Try these steps:

• Identify Specific Triggers: Begin by pinpointing what aspects of your memory trigger fear or anxiety. Is it a particular place, a certain time of day, a specific type of interaction, or even certain sounds or smells?
• Create a Fear Hierarchy: Once you’ve identified these triggers, arrange them in order of how much anxiety they cause you, starting from the least frightening to the most.
• Develop a Gradual Exposure Plan: Start with the least anxiety-inducing trigger. Plan to expose yourself to this trigger in a controlled and safe manner. For instance, if your fear is related to driving after a car accident, you might start by simply looking at pictures of cars.
• Implement Relaxation Techniques: Before and during your exposure, practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation. This will help you manage your anxiety levels.
• Gradually Increase Exposure: As you become more comfortable with lower levels of exposure, move progressively up your hierarchy, facing more challenging triggers. Make sure you feel ready for each step, and don’t rush the process.
• Reflect and Journal Your Experiences: Reflect on your experience after each exposure. Write down how you felt, what worked, what didn’t, and how you might approach it differently next time.

This can be a lot to bite off, so if you’d like professional support with exposure therapy, either in-person or online therapy, check out this resource.

Turn Your Pain into a Project to Help Others

Turning a negative memory into an art project or a creative endeavor can be a cathartic process. It can help you process the experience, and it’s a way to help others in their lives.

When you work creatively with this painful memory, it will start to take on new associations. No longer just a source of pain, it symbolizes resilience and purpose. 

Sharing your work can be equally powerful. It’s an act of vulnerability that invites connection, offering solace to others navigating their struggles.  

Action Step: Can you turn your painful memory into a blog post, painting, song, or any other creative form? Or maybe you could try a new hobby. Bonus points if you have an audience or group to share it with. 

Art therapy is based on the ability to use creativity to transmute our suffering and has been shown to help with depression^{8https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8397377/} and improve mental health. If you’d like the support of a professional art therapist, check out this online repository. 

Practice Mindfulness

Studies^{9https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8500672/} suggest that attention to the present moment can help people work with painful memories. It can help people accept their past experiences and stay current through emotions. 

Mindfulness is a simple but powerful tool where you notice what’s happening (both internally and externally) without trying to change anything you see.

Practicing mindfulness teaches you to observe your thoughts and feelings about the memory without getting overwhelmed. This approach helps create a space between you and the memory, allowing you to respond to it rather than react impulsively. 

It can lead to a greater sense of control and peace and reduce the intensity of the emotional response associated with the memory.

You can practice mindfulness in meditation or while you go through your day.

Action Step: Check out this article to learn some mindfulness activities you can try daily.

Additionally, there’s a guided meditation that uses a mindfulness technique.

How Human Memory Works

In your efforts to work with your memories, it might be helpful to understand how memories form in your brain. Let’s check out the different types of memory and the stages of memory formation.

1. Encoding: The First Step in Memory Formation

Encoding is the initial process of transforming what we perceive into a memory. It’s akin to taking a picture with a camera, capturing a moment in time to be stored in our brain.

There are different types of encoding, such as visual (what we see), auditory (what we hear), and semantic (the meaning of what we experience).

But consider “encoding” to be the first imprint of an event into short-term memory.

2. Consolidation: Stabilizing Memory

Consolidation is the process of stabilizing a memory after its initial input. During this phase, the brain essentially organizes and puts the memory into long-term storage.

Not all of our short-term encoded memories get consolidated into long-term memories. That’s why you can’t remember the barista’s name from the Starbucks you visited 2015!

3. Reconsolidation: The Malleability of Memory

Reconsolidation refers to the process that happens when a stored memory is recalled and held again.

Each time a memory is revisited, it becomes malleable—it can be slightly altered or influenced by current emotions, perspectives, or misinformation.

This is the trippiest part about memories—they aren’t stable or static. Memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus^{10https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/} says remembering is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.” And sometimes we don’t find all the pieces or put them back in the same way.

This is why eye-witness testimonials are notoriously unreliable^{11https://www.science.org/content/article/how-reliable-eyewitness-testimony-scientists-weigh}.

This malleability of memories can be both a challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, it can lead to distorted memories over time. On the other, it presents a chance to lessen the emotional sting of a memory.

FAQs on How to Forget Something

Takeaways on How to Forget Something

Best of luck with whatever memories are giving you trouble. Just remember the following tips:

• Process the Feelings Around the Memory: Write about the feelings associated with your memory.
• Track Your Memory Triggers: Pinpoint exactly what triggers your painful memories.
• Get Rid of Unnecessary Triggers: Get rid of anything that triggers the painful memory into your consciousness.
• Create New Associations with These Triggers: If you can’t eliminate the triggers, build new memories with those triggers.
• Bring Positivity Into Your Memory: Recall the positive aspects of painful memories to change the associations of the memory.
• Exposure Therapy: Gradually confront emotionally charged memories in a safe environment, breaking the cycle of fear and avoidance.
• Turn Your Pain into a Project to Help Others: Use your experience to create something that helps others.

If you experienced an intense trauma and could use some tools on how to move forward and grow, you might appreciate this article.