Revisionism technique

[smallstar]

Cheers!

When listening to Steve's podcast about subjective reality and the law of attraction, the section about your past only existing inside your memories, I had a flash-like new idea. Actually, I had read about similar things before, but only now did everything come clear at once.

I have many bad childhood memories, even as my childhood was objectively at least average. Traditional psychoterapy and EFT say that I should concentrate on my traumas and understand them. The law of attraction says the exact opposite: by concentrating on your traumas you will get more traumatic situations in your life.

Consider an alternative. I don't believe that you can consciously erase your bad memories by concentrating on them, but what if you could overwhelm your bad memories with a flood of newly created or re-created happy memories? I decided that even now, I have the right for a happy childhood! And so, I started to visualize.

The visualization was actually so easy that I could do it in the bus, right then. Me as a happy child, with my father teaching me to walk (mostly based on a photo that I have, and my godson). At least for the last few days, repeating it has provided me an immediate, huge mood booster.

Is this self-deceit? Ever encountered anything similar? Experiences? Opinions?

[Alvin]

Not self-deceit, smallstar, it's what we'd call a reframe in NLP.

I've done lots of personal history change with clients, where we don't change the memories of what happened, but change the perspectives and beliefs of what happened.

What was a tramautic incident may become an empowering push-on instead.

[JJH]

One of the Paraliminals CDs is for this very purpose.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Hey - this is a great idea! Go for it smallstar! If doing this works for you - great stuff!

Can I just clarify on the EFT? It does ask you to focus on the problem, but only long enough to name it and accept it, then you can tap it away. Often we have to accept that nasty feelings are there to be able to get rid of them. A skilled EFT practitioner will then use the NLP reframe. If the reframe works we know the EFT has done its magic. So even though EFT focusses on problems, it's not like psychotherapy, because we get rid of the problem within a couple of minutes, rather than over several months/years. That's the main benefit of it.

I had an ordinary childhood with some pretty ugly years in it. Once I did EFT on the ugliness, I was able to see the nice bits inbetween, because I wasn't just trying to avoid thinking about the nasty memories.

If you didn't have huge trauma in your childhood, you probably don't need to do the EFT, and your revisionism technique will work fine! If you are using the revisionism to deny that nasty things DID occur, it probably is self-deceit and unhealthy. BUt you know best what's happening there!

More power to you smallstar!!

Joy to you
Hazel

[Adam Sargant]

very nice, smallstar

and maybe, at a later stage, you can revisit the old memories with new resources that enable you to place them firmly where they belong as you reclaim your right to shine

in light and love

[smallstar]

Originally Posted by ReallyGoodIdeas

If you didn't have huge trauma in your childhood, you probably don't need to do the EFT, and your revisionism technique will work fine! If you are using the revisionism to deny that nasty things DID occur, it probably is self-deceit and unhealthy. BUt you know best what's happening there!

Cheers,

A bit of clarification needed. The best thing is that I don't actually try to deny anything - I just concentrate on the better things, even if they were forgotten.

Actually, I have noticed that negative thinking is my way of letting go of things, pushing them back and breaking attachments so that I have a freedom to move forward. But I seem to have forgotten the necessary correction - after the distance has been achieved, I will have to undo the negative thoughts as they start to hinder me, causing grief and mental poisoning. This is also when revisionism will come handy (actually, I should call it re-revisionism then. )

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by purplepower

My thoughts are that sometimes we spend too much time going over past negative events and thereby "lock them in " in some way. It's almost (in my humble opinion!) a self indulgence in a sense. It may not be "fashionable" but I (semi) exploded with one psychotherapist with whom I have had dealings in relation to a family member and told them that I thought beyond a certain point we all have to live our life rather than spend forever dissecting and analysing it.

Sorry, but I guess I'm a Martha rather than a Mary (even in Sunday School, Mary gave me the pip !)

Good for you!

The father of modern hypnotherapy Milton Erickson was adamant about having directing his clients to the future instead of the past.

(This was a half-paralyzed color-blind man who could change clients whom other therapists had given up on! Read the amazing Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D..)

"Insight into the past may be somewhat educational. But insight into the past isn't going to change the past."