Do you sometimes wish there was a magic pill to erase bad memories, so you could finally let go of that negative event in your past? Hypnosis is not that pill. But it is an effective way to stop dwelling on the past.

Can hypnosis erase bad memories?

Many people have the false assumption that hypnosis can be used to erase memories. In reality, the only thing hypnosis can help remove from your mind is negative thinking.

In the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, Jim Carrey undergoes an invasive and very questionable treatment to wipe an ex-girlfriend from his memory. This woman had such a strong impact on him that he was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to rid his mind of her. Ultimately, the treatment backfires. The truth is that he didn’t need to forget his relationship; he needed to process it.

It is crazy how far some of us are willing to go simply to get rid of something that hurt us, or avoid dealing with a situation. Maybe it was a terrible breakup that left your life in ruins…Or it might have been an insurmountable failure at a critical moment in your career, from which you still haven’t recovered…Or perhaps it was something you learned about your spouse’s past that is now haunting your relationship. Whatever the case, we all have things from our past that we wish we could forget, or at least learn how to deal better with them.

How can hypnosis help?

Hypnosis cannot help you make these things disappear from your mind, but it can assist you in processing the things that seem impossible to handle. How does this work? For one, hypnosis helps you deal with the stress these memories cause. Ultimately, it can help you move on.

Hypnosis for stress management

Hypnosis helps with stress by getting you into a state of deep relaxation that releases tension. Additionally, it can help you adopt a healthy lifestyle that will lessen the effects of stress on your well-being. Learn about how you can adopt a healthy lifestyle with hypnosis in this post on building good habits in the new year.

Getting over the past with hypnosis

Hypnosis may not be able to get rid of what happened to you in the past, but it can give you the confidence to get over it. It’s natural for memories to fade over time. Do you still remember what you ate for lunch three weeks ago? Probably not. However, we unfortunately often hold onto bad memories such as things that have hurt or traumatized us, things we obsess over, or simply things that we don’t know how to handle. And that’s where hypnosis comes in: It can make these bad memories more manageable, and help you think about them less often. Or in the case where you do think about them and get stressed, hypnosis can assist you in relaxing and even building back your self-confidence.

Success Stories

Here’s an interesting anecdote: I once helped a 72-year-old woman who had been smoking for 60 years, to finally quit cigarettes. In the area where this woman grew up, smoking from an early age was common. However even after a lifelong habit, she was able to quit with hypnosis. Eight months later, she gave me a call to follow-up. She told me that she still had the cravings to smoke…but for the first time in her life, those cravings were manageable. She hadn’t touched a single cigarette in those eight months, despite the fact that her triggers were still there. This was quite a celebration, as she had no memory of ever going that long without smoking.

That being said, hypnosis impacts everyone differently. For some who are trying to quit their habits, their cravings may disappear entirely. For others, hypnosis may help them to simply learn to see or handle their habits in a different way.

Another client, who suffered from a constant ringing in her ears (she was diagnosed with Tinnitus), explained to me that hypnosis had rewired how she processed the ringing. She told me, “The ringing is still there. The difference is that with hypnosis, I now don’t obsess about it like I used to, and I’ve learned to just let it go.” The ringing used to cause her a lot of stress, which in turn would make the ringing even worse. But once she learned a new way to process it, the stress disappeared, and she was able to live in peace with her condition.

Hypnosis cannot erase bad memories or make your problems disappear. But it can help you process these issues effectively, assist you in getting rid of stress and negativity, and start moving your life in a positive direction. Hypnosis is also very effective to help you quit smoking, lose weight, reduce your stress, or stop a bad habit.

At Greater Toronto Hypnosis Centre, we offer a free screening to assess whether hypnosis will be good for you or not. Don’t wait until you are feeling worse and worse. Please call us today at (647) 210-8842, and see if hypnosis is right for you.