If you can forget, and you can cause other people to forget (no matter what), you are in a very powerful position to change yourself. Your complete list of non-useful behaviors and destructive unconscious thought pattern issues can all be solved with a simple skill: forgetting. We usually attach negative meanings to the skill of forgetting.
When we forget, we are conditioned to perceive it as meaning that you didn’t care enough, your brain is not functioning properly, or you did not remember it in the first place.
Most people believe that forgetting something is beyond their control, as if it is a matter of luck or coincidence or simply a lack of neurological resources regarding specific areas of memory. While that can be true at times, it is not usually the real cause. You can forget it on cue. You can remember anything you want to remember for however long you want to remember it, and then forget it again when you choose to.
Forgetting, however, is probably a new conscious skill for you if you are not a very skillful hypnotist by now. How many times have you heard the phrase, “Oh, just forget about it.”? People have instructed you to forget something you were planning to remember. You sometimes complied if it wasn’t important, and sometimes you didn’t if you thought this person thought you weren’t serious about the job.In fact, you can come to this conclusion on your own; you can remember about forgetting. If you can forget little things like your keys or where you put your latest IRS return, one more little thing won’t be that hard to forget either, right? How about if you could forget that your spouse was very annoying yesterday evening? Forget everything about that event. Could it be useful for your relationship? Could it help to alleviate some of the lingering resentment?What if you could forget you had a headache? Do you really think you are not able to do so on cue? Can you recall a time when you had a headache and then suddenly needed to be very focused or occupied with something and you completely forgot about it?In fact, that headache didn’t bother you anymore; it seems like it has dissolved into darkness—or forgetfulness.
The key point to remember is that there is no pain if you can’t remember it. The nervous system is so sensitive that it sends a very nasty message to the brain when something isn’t functioning right or when an organ is hurt. The pain is a response to make sure that you, as a whole, know that something is wrong with your body and you’re going to find a remedy for it. If you didn’t have the pain associated with stomach aches, how would you even know that your body was trying to deal with substances that hurt it? How much damage does your body need to absorb before you notice it? Has it not produced the pain?
Pain is useful. Pain is not your friend, but it is a trusted messenger. Once you have taken all the actions needed to help your body get on the road to healing, you can plan to forget the pain. And when you do, if you can’t remember it, it is not a problem anymore. There are many war stories about soldiers that lose an arm or get hurt by flying bullets—and they do not feel the pain until hours later, when the battle is over. That is the power of being able to forget, whether for a few moments or for a lifetime. It is useful. Obviously, you should use it with care. Some people make it a point to remember every single detail of their lives. I believe, sincerely, that this is a very bad mistake. First, since you already distort reality as you experience it (basic NLP if you haven’t read it yet), How can you make sure you remember your life as it truly is? You cannot. Therefore, by making it a point to remember every single detail, good or bad, you’re actually making choices as to which version of the event you will keep. Since that’s true, isn’t it obvious that who you are today is based on the choices and distortions you have made all of your life, often subconsciously? In hypnotherapy, we call this “living a lie.”
We are all living in some kind of lie. But some of us are simply living a better functioning lie/life. It is a skill worth learning and perfecting to be able to forget those things that are not extremely important but in their current version do disturb and ruin your present chances of succeeding.
Forget the number “365.” Sometimes, when you are really trying very hard to forget something, you actually remember it even better. Forget the number “365.” Forget it now. Many years ago, I did that trick with my niece. She was only 8 years old, but even at that age, she could not forget how many days are in a year. What was it then? You see? You can’t forget it. If you live in the U.S., try to forget the combination of these 3 numbers: 911. Forget it now. That number actually has two distinctive but very powerful and permanent anchors: 911 (police) and 9/11. Is it going to be useful to forget how many days there are in a year? (What was that number again?) Not at all.Is it useful to forget that if you’re in the U.S. and need to dial the police emergency number, that is 911, and if you hear the term “nine eleven,” should you forget what happened on that date?
Certainly not. It is not useful, and that is why people are not forgetting it. If it is important enough, it will stay, usually on its own. If it doesn’t stay on its own (like the thick biochemistry books you need to learn for your next exam), you should make a point of remembering it.
You can plan to forget it. You can make yourself forget something. It is so easy that you don’t have any idea how, within the next hour, you are going to acquire and almost perfect that skill. I considered showing you how you could forget you even read this article, but that might lead to an endless loop. How many times would you read the article, thinking it was for the first time?
Helping Others To Forget
Before you start daydreaming about having all-mighty hypnotic powers, throwing suggestions around and making people forget things, you must adopt an important ethical principle. Unless the person approves, you must not induce forgetting. They must give you permission to engage in this hypnotic communication. This is an ethical matter, because it means that you are placed in a “one-up” position. You can certainly persuade people, change their minds, and influence many aspects of their thought patterns, but to establish that authority, there must be a one-up position. That means that your client has accepted you into a position of trust. That is a position of responsibility. Violation of that trust would be a form of abuse or battery.
Helping others to forget can be useful when:
In some cases, therapists feel that it is in your client’s best interest to forget the content of a certain work so that they will not sabotage the work with their conscious minds. You are a salesman, and you want your client to ignore your competitors. You are a father or a mother, and you want your kid to forget a traumatic episode or some unfortunate argument in the family, so he won’t be influenced to collect non-useful beliefs in the future. “I am bad and that’s why my parents yelled at me.” is not the right frame of mind for a six-year-old to grow up with. Making him forget it and implementing a new useful frame can mean a lifetime difference, literally. You were training a misguided, zealous NLP student, and you want to forget all the crap they taught that person that he or she accepted as the ultimate truth. You are a stage hypnotist and want to demonstrate the power of hypnosis to hundreds of people. By making them forget that they paid you $150 for a one-hour show. The useful examples are endless. Let’s go directly to the juicy stuff. How could you make yourself or others forget whatever you wish?