- It may be simple to become serene.

This site is about a simple way to get rid of remaining negative emotions stemming from bad experiences in the past. The technique in itself is very simple and only takes a few minutes to use. I’ve seen the basic idea described in various places online. What I’ve mainly done different, and what I’ve found to be very effective is to seek out the actual places where the unpleasant events took place in order to more easily reconnect with the original negative emotions I’ve wanted to get rid of.

During a number of months I’ve tried using this method to get rid of the emotional charge of various negative events in my past, and as a consequence I’ve been relieved of quite a bit of useless old anger and resentment. Following this I’ve also enjoyed a generally better mood, feeling happier and more at peace. This isn’t something one has to work with or spend time on every day. Personally, I’ve mostly used the technique in some new place occasionally, usually with at least one to two weeks in-between. Since my personal experience has been that it hasn’t required much effort and the results have been very good, I wanted to share it with others.

Important! The information given is only intended for informational purposes and is not to be interpreted as counselling in any way. For more on this, please se the disclaimer.

The Method

The basic idea of the technique is this. You focus your attention on a feeling in the body, discover how it rotates, then pretend to move it out of the body, switch the direction of the rotation and finally put it back in the same place again. The point with this trick is that the feeling cannot be entirely still – it must move in some way or it would attenuate. But since it can’t rotate in two opposite directions at once, the old pattern is interrupted and the feeling disappears.

I’m not entirely sure who came up with this idea to begin with, but I’ve seen descriptions in similar terms in various places. The ones I encountered first and the ones I still think are the best are those by Richard Bandler. The other parts and details in the description below are mostly what I’ve arrived at from my own experience. So the following is a step by step description of the method I’ve used. 

• Seek out the bad experience.
  • Go to a place that you associate with a bad experience or unpleasant person, or perhaps a place where you spent a lot of time during a generally rough period in life, such as a place you lived, worked or went to school.
  • If you find it difficult to get back to the old bad feelings, you may try to remember some specific bad events. You may also try to relive them in your mind as you experienced them when they first occurred, i.e. as if you were actually there again.
• Now you will likely experience an unpleasant feeling somewhere in your body. Close your eyes and focus on that feeling.
  • Often it feels like a knot in your stomach or a lump in your throat.
  • After a while you will most likely notice that the feeling is moving around in some cyclical fashion, as if rotating along a path.
  • If it is difficult to find the direction in which it is rotating, you may try to very gently spin it in various directions and try to notice if one of them seems right, as if the feeling will tend to keep spinning in that direction even if you stop nudging it.
• Reverse the rotation:
  • Once you’ve found a rotational cycle that seems stable, imagine moving it out of the body.
  • Now flip the plane of rotation half way around so that the feeling spins in the opposite direction.
  • When you’ve got it spinning in the other direction, put it back in the same place in your body again.
• The pattern is broken.
  • Since the feeling can’t spin both ways simultaneously, the pattern is broken and the feeling disappears.
  • Sometimes after dissolving the first rotating feeling, you may discover another place in the body where there is another one. Then repeat the process.
• The memories become more positive.
  • When you are finished with the technique, open your eyes and remain still for a while.
  • If you now think back upon the event you’ve worked on you will likely notice that your feelings are entirely different, less unpleasant. Often one remembers more positive circumstances and details that were previously overshadowed by the dominating bad feeling.
  • I’ve often found that in this situation it is relatively easy to forgive what someone has done, that life or the world in general has been awful or perhaps yourself for having done something stupid. 

A few details

When one tries to detect how the rotational pattern of the feeling is shaped and how it is moving, one might sometimes notice that it is a bit uneven in shape, and that the tempo varies in different parts of the cycle and so on. When I’ve changed the direction of movement in those cases, I have usually tried to not only flip the rotational plane. I’ve also tried to reshape the new pattern a bit so that it is mainly the direction of the rotation that has changed, while the rotational cycle and tempo in its various parts are still fairly maintained. Please note, though, that it should not primarily be a visual representation one is working with, but an actual feeling of something moving. That is, even though it may easily also become visual if one is prone to using inner images, it is the feeling that is the important part, so make sure you get that right.

During several of the first times I did these things, I usually found one particular direction of movement to be quite common for me; so on the rare occasions when a spin in a different direction occurred, it was often harder for me to figure out just how the feeling was moving. On such occasions it may be helpful to remind one self of the different directions that are possible. Usually the feeling moves in one of three planes; a vertical plane going either forward-backward or left-right through the body; or a horizontal plane. Of course, the spin may be in both directions in those planes, and sometimes the plane may even be a bit slanted. Sometimes, it may initially seem to move all over the place, but if one is patient and waits a bit, I’ve found that it usually stabilises into one fairly simple cycle after a short while.

As mentioned one might sometimes discover more places where there is a small feeling after taking care of the first main one. For my part, I’ve usually only found one or a couple more for each separate thing I’ve been thinking back on and working with.

To avoid unnecessary distractions it is probably good to – if possible – try to be fairly undisturbed. One might for example try to choose a time of day when the place one is going to isn’t crowded, or perhaps move away a bit, while not going so far away as to loose the emotional connection with the past experience one is trying to work on.

I’ve also tried to make sure in advance to be well rested and alert, and not to have eaten just prior, since if one is full of food and digestion is in full swing, it may become difficult to distinguish the often quite subtle feelings one is looking for.

I suspect that when one uses this technique, one might tend to enter a slight hypnotic state or something like a light trance. As far as I understand, while in such a state, one looses some of ones faculties of critical thinking and may become more susceptible to impressions. Therefore, I assume that it could be a good idea to avoid impressions for a while afterwards, perhaps take an undisturbed walk or get a snack, while it wears off.

 

A bit about my experiences

I had used the technique a few times without going anywhere in particular first. But while taking a walk during early summer, I happened to pass the hospital where my father passed away due to cancer about 15 years ago. Since such a long time had passed, I thought that I had gotten over it by now. But this time I felt noticeably down, bothered and a bit sad, and it was almost as if a veil came before my eyes. When I got home, for some reason I decided to go back again and try the spinning technique in that particular place.

A week or two later I got away to do it. I sat down outside the hospital and did something similar to what is described above. I found it easy to detect the feeling. It was like an obvious rotation forward in my chest, but it was easy to dissolve using the technique. After a while I found a few more minor feelings to deal with. After that I remained there for a while, thinking about all the things that had happened there, but now without the negative feelings. Going home I felt very relieved and peaceful. I was also very happy that it had worked so well, and thought that I should try it out in a few more places. By now I’ve done it quite a number of times during a period of several months, with very good results.

When it concerns a specific location, such as a small hospital or a house where one has lived, it’s easy to know where to go. But I’ve also for example gone to a college campus. Such a place, of course, has a lot of spread out areas where one may have spent a lot of time during some years of studying. In these cases I went there two to three times, with a week or more in-between. On each occasion, I would walk around for an hour or two, sitting down here and there, trying to remember some negative events to handle. On occasion, I would literally in passing discover negative emotions that I at first couldn’t associate with any particular memory, but after dealing with them I realised what might have been the cause. These were relatively minor things and happened long ago, but still carried some remaining negative charge – until now.

Most times that I’ve made these small excursions the results have been positive right away, and in these cases it has been an entirely positive experience to finally be able to really put various things behind me. Occasionally, though, I’ve felt blue for a few days or a week or so. After all, even if the old emotions are handled, it may be saddening to be reminded of factual circumstances about things that didn’t go as one wanted, or when something one had worked hard on for a long time didn’t work out, things that might still affect one’s life. And even if one doesn’t experience temporarily worse mood due to something like that, I suspect that there may surface some things to process and reconsider. Therefore I have usually let at least a week, often two, pass between sessions. I’ve also usually tried to get a lot of sleep, especially the first few days afterwards.

In the beginning it was sometimes hard for me to get out and do these things when I had planned to, especially if it was some place that I felt uncomfortable going to. But then I would bribe myself into going, by treating myself to some nice food or some other reward afterwards. Over time it has become easier though, partly because I’m already done with the hardest things, and partly because I’ve really learned to appreciate the positive results.

Comments are welcome, especially if there is something that is unclear or hard to understand in the text.