Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.

~Unknown
A long time ago now, but once I was in a relationship that was full of great passion and hot
.desire, but it was also addictive, distracting, and destructive
When I noticed that it was ultimately bad for me, I knew I had to get out. So, I went cold
.turkey, as they say, and broke up, thinking I would be able to handle it
Unfortunately, it was much harder than I thought it would be. Every morning I woke up and
found myself in the midst of some sort of insanity; my mind and body were filled with
.thoughts about him
My mind just wouldnt stop racing about all that had happened, what I could have said
differently, what I could have done differently, what could have happened differently. I
.lived with this for months and it was a daily dose of hell
It was at this time, however, that I enrolled to study as a hypnotherapist. When you train to
.become a therapist, you learn to treat different conditions
Usually, we had our teacher describing and explaining a therapeutic technique, and then he
demonstrated the technique on one of us, which was followed by each of us practicing on
.each other
By the time we had finished the degree, we cured all of each others phobias and bad )
(!habits, until none was left. This was quite a journey of self-development
Soon the day came when the topic was Suggested Amnesia, a technique to erase
.unwanted memories. I volunteered immediately, ready to let go of all it all
The experience was nothing like you would imagine as some cold-war brainwash type of
.hypnosis
During the whole procedure, I didnt lose any of my awareness. At the end, I didnt lose any
of my factual memories, either. But the memory of my tormenting relationship, previously so
eminently on my mind, became a dim and vague residue memory as a result of the
.procedure
The amnesia worked on the emotional level. The edge of my thinking, which made my
!life so hellish, was gone. Actually, it taught my brain to fall out of love

The scientifically interesting background of this experience is about the nature of memory.
Since the age of information technology, we tend to think of memory as a kind of data in our
.brain, which is either stored (remembered) or not (forgotten)
Information is stored in our brain like on a computer, which can be kept on file or erased.
Interestingly enough, however, newest psychological experiments show that the analogy for
.memory as a data bank is not quite accurate
Memory is not a piece of information from the past simply stored in our brain. Rather, all past
events have created imprints on our mind, but those imprints are not static. Our mind
constantly works with them and constantly changes memories as its current thinking
.changes
Memory is formable. You can change past memories by changing your present state
.of mind
How is this possible? Memories are formed as neurological connections in the brain: a
.certain sequence of connections is fired when the event is happening and later recalled
The same happens during imagination. When you close your eyes and visualize whatever
you want, youre actually creating new neurological pathways. This means that memory and
imagination are created on the same neurological level and therefore one can override the
.other
You can try a little experiment. Close your eyes for a minute and think of a person you
.had a bad experience with
With your eyes shut, recall the memory of that negative experience. Make it as real as you
can: see it like a colorful movie on your mind. See what you saw, hear what you heard, feel
.what you felt at that time
Dont make it too long, just long enough that you can open your eyes and notice the
.negative feeling coming up with the memory
After that, close your eyes again. Bring back the last scene of the same movie on your mind,
but this time turn the colors black and white, play it backward, and start to shrink the size of
the whole picture, until its nothing but a tiny dot that disappears into the vast blackness
.behind your eyelids. Gone
After that, start to make a new movie, completely out of your imagination, in which the
.same situation with the same person has a positive outcome

Maybe the person says something different, or you do, as long as at the end you can see the
enemy person smiling at you, shaking hands, perhaps even giving you a hug (if thats
.within your comfort zone)
After you have effectively created the movie, open your eyes and observe how you feel. You
.should feel less negative toward this person, neutral, or perhaps even positive
The difference between your emotions following the first (memory) and the second movie
.(imagination) is due to new neurological pathways you have created in your mind
After my experience at the hypnotherapy course, my whole obsession with being in
.love completely changed
I no longer had those morning thoughts that had previously tormented me for hours after
.awakening. I no longer had those memories flushing into my life seemingly out of control
It is sobering to think how much of what is happening to us is actually a product of our own
mind. How often do we say, Oh, I cant help it Im like this Im like that, while it is our
own mind that is responsible for our emotional reactionswhether we are conscious of that
.or not
I felt great relief. For a moment, I also felt disillusionment. My story was about a broken
?relationship, but what about good relationships
Programming our minds to fall in and out of love, would that not deprive relationships of all
poetry and beauty? Are those happy, loving, and promising relationships also nothing more
?than connections in our brain
Of course not, I reminded myself. True love is not generated by our brain; it is a matter of our
.heart. Luckily, no amount of research, science, and therapy will ever change that