Comment by Phara on Memory reconsolidation for self-affection · 2020-10-28T21:20:19.336Z · LW · GW

There is a memory reconsolidation technique in the book Embrace The Unlovable by Amyra Mah (a book recommended by PJEby a long time ago) that does exactly that :

• Pick a memory, or an aspect of yourself that you consider problematic
• As you breath out (and pull in your belly), focus on that memory / aspect of you while mentally saying "I see you" (this activate the schema)
• As you breath in (and relax you belly), imagine breathing love while mentally saying "I love you" or "I send you love" (so you're flooding this schema with love)
• You keep looping on that for as many breath as necessary. At some point the memory will not feel like a problem anymore, it will even feel pretty good in most cases.

I find this very effective. More effective than the way it's done in IFS, because you keep alternating between activating the schema and "mismatching it with love", so it really forces the brain to update.

The only difficult part for someone who's not used to things like Metta meditation is to actually create the feeling of love. She has other exercices in the book to train on that particular aspect. I wouldn't recommend reading the whole thing though as there is a lot of non-sense outside of that particular technique.