Reply To: How to REALLY try to hold on to the negative memory/feeling with click tracks
Peter BunyanHi Matthew
Great questions! I would expect most of us make some small adjustments to our faces when concentrating on memories without even realising we are doing it. That is, it is a natural reaction to the effort of focussing or the memory, not recreating the face in an attempt to recreate the emotion. If I understand you, then you are on the more extreme end of the scale.
The Click Tracks are on one level simple to do, but as you have learnt not actually easy to follow. They are not meant to be easy, if they were they would not work. Nobody can hold onto one memory or emotion all the way through the tracks. You can only really do one thing at a time and Tim is asking you to do two, focus on an emotion/memory and tap in synch with the clicks and tones while being talked to. This means your attention flips between things and shifts. This is normal, what is important is that you keep on going back to that memory/emotion time and time again. Your hands my lose synch or something Tim says may draw you away, just keep on going back.
Mostly the emotions tied to the memories are not simple or easy to put a one word name to, they are complex. The memory is the thing to try and hang on to, your subconscious knows what the feelings are to de-link from the memory. Where many associated memories are blended together then this is fine as long as they carry the same emotional baggage. Where you have a sentence or a name for a memory, “that event” or “that person” and you know what or who they are with that verbal shortcut then again, fine! Use that shortcut to keep on going back to the memory if helps to bring it back and help re-live it.
The Click Tracks do not remove the memory, what happened happened. They remove the associated feelings so that you do not re-live the feelings when you re-live the memory. This allows you to “move on” rather than repeat past events in your mind and to forgive others who caused you grief and pain.
So… “Is it OK?” Yes if it helps you to keep re-focussing. The “trying” is a mental thing the physical effort is a reflection of that. The persistance of keeping on attempting to go back, even if you do not succeed is important, it is pehaps what is telling your subconcsious that it important to let go of the emotions. I had not thought of it this way before but pehaps it is a “measure of sincerity” or a level of “how much do I want this gone”. I will ask Tim!
Peter