I often get emails and calls from people who want to know if they can come to me for hypnosis to forget bad memories.
Most of the time those memories are about past relationships.
Here’s why I don’t suggest using hypnosis to forget an experience
First of all, you can’t. The subconscious part of your mind stores the memory of every experience you have had in your life. Therefore, a memory can be suppressed but not forgotten. And what if a suppressed memory comes back to the surface in the future?
Secondly, experience helps you keep from repeating the same mistakes. I really like the following quote from Confucius:
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
Here is what you can do instead
Instead of using hypnosis to forget a bad memory, we can help you change how you feel about it.
The feeling you had during an experience determines whether a memory is good or bad.
Hypnosis can help you change the feelings around that event. And changing that feeling around an experience can help you avoid a similar experience in the future or manage an experience if you can’t avoid it.