Remember Who They Are

💠 REMEMBER THE PERSON YOU CARED ABOUT 💠

One of the reasons forgiveness can be so hard, is that our anger at the guilty party leads us to believe that they don't deserve good things.

The Remember Who They Are tool is designed to help you connect to the person you cared about - before they became the person you are angry at.

Remember Who They Are

In these exercises, we're going to help you put your relationship with this person into perspective, and hopefully change the way you feel about them: at least, enough to get you to the point of forgiveness.

We only fight with people we care about.

Don't believe me? Name someone you don't have a relationship with, that you don't care about, that you're having an ongoing fight with.

In order for someone to matter enough for us to have an ongoing fight with them now, they usually had to have mattered to us (positively) at some point in the past.

In order for them to have mattered to us, we need have had some level of relationship with them, and usually a period of time where things were good between us.

However, when the one event that needs forgiving happens, it tends to jump put front & center in our minds, and it eclipses the rest of the relationship - even if they majority of the relationship was good.

So now, when we look at the person, we only 'see' the person we're angry at; the person who committed this infraction that needs to be forgiven.

But, we're angry at this person, and a side effect of our anger is that we don't believe that they deserve our forgiveness.

In order to forgive this person, we need to believe that they do deserve our forgiveness - and in order to do that, we need to remember the person we cared about; the person we had the relationship with.

In these three Remember Who They Are tools, we're going to tackle this concept.

We'll start by putting the relationship into perspective first; reminding you of the whole big picture.

Then we're going to spend some time reframing your internal picture of the person, and change the way you feel about them a little bit.

Then lastly, you'll find some healing & coaching questions that will help you focus back on the time when the relationship with the person was good, and bring it more clearly to mind for you.

At the end of this process, you'll find that your feelings towards the person have softened - especially if you do the exercises properly, and with intent.

Put Your Relationship In Perspective

In the Put Your Relationship In Perspective tool, we're going to remind you of the big picture of the relationship you have with this person, and help you reduce the relevance & importance of the infraction that needs to be forgiven.

Below you'll see a whole bunch of buttons to upload pictures for this tool.

You don't need to upload pictures in all 16 spots, but it's a pretty impressive illustration if you do upload all of the pictures - and it's VERY powerful as a healing experience.

📸 1. A Picture of Yourself 📸 2. A Picture Representing the Infraction 📸 3. A Picture of the Guilty Party 📸 4. A Picture from Around the Time You Met 📸 5. A Picture from a Happy Memory You Shared 📸 6. A Picture of Another Happy Memory You Shared 📸 7. A Picture of Something You Two Would Laugh About 📸 8. A Picture Representing Something You Liked or Loved about the Guilty Party 📸 9. A Picture Representing an Activity that You Enjoyed Together 📸 10. A Picture Representing Plans You Had for the Future 📸 11. A Picture Representing the Hopes You Had for this Relationship 📸 12. A Picture Representing an Inside Joke You Two Shared 📸 13. A Picture Representing What You Most Often Spent Time Together Doing 📸 14. A Picture of a Third Paty Linked to this Relationship 📸 15. A Picture of Someone Who is Impacted or Influenced by this Relationship 📸 16. A Picture of the Guilty Party Back when You First Met Them

The type of picture that is suggested to upload is just that: a SUGGESTION.

You can just upload 16 pictures of the other person and yourself, if you just want a simple way to do this.

You can find pictures of the person online or on social media, or you can even go look online and find pictures that REPRESENT memories & experiences that you shared with this person.

There is never a right or wrong picture for you to use with this kind of tool.

What actually matters is what each picture means to you... that's what's going to create the healing experience for you.

So don't rush through the process of choosing pictures. Rather take your time & find individual pictures that truly represent that person, experience or memory for you.

The more effort that you put into choosing these pictures you use, the more powerful your healing experience will be.

The pictures you choose to use will turn this gimmicky digital tool into a personalized healing experience.

If you only have a limited amount of pictures however, don't worry - you can still use the tool even if you don't fill all the picture spots.

Try to load at least a picture of yourself, of the other other person, older pictures from back when you met, and a picture representing the infraction, or what they did wrong.

Once you've uploaded your pictures, follow the instructions & prompts you'll find in the little speech bubbles.

Take a minute or two to just sit and watch the pictures you've uploaded.

Do you notice how they all pop in & out of existence, appearing & disappearing at different times?

This is how your mind works.

Think about it...

You have a thought, but it only stays for a few seconds and then something else takes over.

Even if you're 'thinking about something all the time', the thought is still popping in & out of your mind.

So you might be 'thinking about it all the time', but it's really all mixed up with other thoughts.

Thoughts like 'I'm hungry', 'I need to go to the loo', 'I'm sleepy.'

Nothing ever takes up your whole mind.

Now try to click on a few of the moving pictures in the display.

Do you notice how hard is to 'catch' some of them?

Isn't this just like how it 'slips away' when you try to hold onto something in your mind?

Did you notice that when you clicked on a picture successfully, that it became a large display picture?

And when you clicked on other pictures, did you observe how they replaced the other large display picture?

When thoughts pop in & out of our minds, sometimes we grab onto them; putting them into the area of focus.

But we can only focus on one aspect like this at a time, so the other thoughts fall into the background, becoming less important.

And even though the other thoughts & memories are still floating around there, your eye is still drawn to the big picture.

This is exactly what your mind does: it takes one thought, idea or piece of information, and places it in a priority position.

The result for you is that you land up thinking that this one piece of information is more important than anything else - and you forget about everything else.

You also focus on this point to the exclusion of everything else.

This is how certain factors become a personal issue for us - or 'personalized'.

This is also why multiple people in the same situation will have different priorities or areas that they focus in on.

Now try to close the focus area, by pressing on the text that appears behind it as it animates.

It's not always easy to close that area is it?

You have to sit still & wait for the right moment to be able to close it.

The same thing happens in real life... once you've put something into that area of focus, it's not always easy to close it, or make it go away.

If you wait a little time however, an opportunity to get rid of it will arise.

If you're not patient enough for that though, you can click on another picture & 'replace' that thought immediately.

Sometimes the easiest thing to do is just replace that one thought with another - or distract yourself.

Click on the picture you uploaded that represents the forgiveness challenge you're having.

Do you observe how that negative memory also jumps to the foreground when you focus in on it?

Can you see how this one memory is eclispsing & overshadowing all the other aspects of the relationship?

Close that focus area.

Can you now see how that one incident is just a PART of the relationship?

Click on that negative image again to put it in the foreground.

Can you see that you have a choice to start focusing on that thought again, whenever you want to?

Close the picture again.

Can you see that you have a choice to stop focusing on this thought?

In fact you can think - or NOT think - about whichever part of the relationship you choose.

Click on the negative image again & bring it to the foreground.

Can you see how it is 'blown out of proportion' compared to the other images?

Are you blowing anything out of proportion in this situation?

Click on another positive image to replace the negative image in the focus space.

Can you see how this is also blown out of proportion, even though it's positive?

It's possible to blow positve & negative aspects up too much.

What positive aspects of this person have you blown out of proportion?

Did you give them too much credit?

Were your expectations of them too high?

What aspects of this person did you blow out of proportion?

Did this give you unrealistic expectations?

Are you angry because this incident challenged or disappointed your expectations?

For example, did you expect to spend the rest of your life with this person & then you caught them cheating?

In this kind of example, your hope for the 'rest of your life' future plans, were based on the expectation that this person wanted to be there with you as well.

This person may never have been a monogamous relationship type of person, but you may have credited them with that characteristic based on a few individual memories.

Was your expectation realistic or based on a memory you'd blown out of proportion?

For example, a memory of a fun afternoon where you spoke jokingly about spending your life together, or even an offhand comment the person made.

Did you take little incidents & warp them in your mind, to see the outcome you desired?

Is your disappointment partly based on the fact that your hopes & desires can now no longer be fulfilled?

Are you willing to accept that this person may never have been who you thought they were to begin with?

Can you accept the part you played in this?

Which positive characteristics of this person did you blow out of proportion?

What did you want to see in them - or from them?

What did you choose to ignore about them?

Looking back now, which parts of the realtionship were you focusing on?

Which parts of the relationship were you prioritizing?

What did you ignore that you regret ignoring now?

Where do you do this in other relationships?

Who else has disappointed you in this way?

Who else do you need to forgive?

Was there an incident in your past that reminds you of this situation?

Does the guilty party remind you of anyone else?

Has this incident been an ongoing theme in your life?

What do you need to 'get real' about when you look at this relationship?

What have you blown out of proportion that needs to be seen in context?

What are you ignoring that needs to be brought to the fore?

What needs to change in your thinking about this?

What will help you the most right now: to focus on the positive or negative aspects of the relationship?

What do you need to correct inside yourself in order to 'see' this person as they really are?

What expectations, hopes, dreams or desires do you have to let go of in order to do this?

Change How You Feel About This Person

In this tool we're going to play with the picture you have in your head of this person.

Grab two pictures of someone else you know & care about; a recent picture, and one from a few years back; ten years or more would give you a good contrast. If you have kids, use pictures of your kids.

Look at the two pictures & notice what you're feeling. Observe how the two different pictures evoke slightly differnet feelings & memories, and how the older picture takes you further back in time.

We're going to evoking the same visual/mental mechanism in this exercise. We're going to change the appearance of a picture of the person, so that it elicits a different emotional response in you.

You bgein by uploading a picture of the person that means something to you. A favourite picture, or an important memory. Or a recent picture, reflecting the person you're angry at.

Once you've uploaded the image, there are all manner of goodies you can play with to 'change' the feel of the picture.

If your primary emotion is fear, you can use the color overlays, and items like the TV screen or helmet to create a barrier of safety between you & this person.

If you feel like you need some protection & distance, we've included some angels for you to place between you & the picture representing the person.

Otherwise you can use any combination of stuff, applying hats & glasses & masks, to make the picture look at ridiculous as you want. If all the little objects are in the way, then just close them using the little grey crossmarks.

The items are draggable, which won't always work on mobile devices... so we've included options on the buttons in case your mobile device or tablet doesn't support the drag function.

The point is to just play & have fun until the feeling you have inside you about this person changes.

Laughter is a fantastic way to create a change in the way you're feeling, and a good laugh can melt away even the most intense anger.

So play and have fun, and just ALLOW the change to take place.

📸 Upload a Face Photo of the Person

Remember Who They Are Coaching & Healing Questions

Now that we've done work to soften the way you're feeling about the situation & the guilty party, we're going to look back on your relationship with this person.

The questions can be answered in your head, out loud, or by typing them. The value of typing, or speaking out loud, is that it forces you to verbalize your thoughts better, so you shift more effectively.

If you type your answers out, you can also go back and read them in a thread - which often yields big picture insights, as well as additional insights you might have missed.

You don't need to save the typed results - and you'll never look over them again, even if it's a HUGE shift.

The value for you lies in the process of clarifying your thoughts in order to express them clearly in written format.

In a very basic nutshell... when you have to THINK properly to get a clear thread, in order to write it down so that someone else COULD understand it (if they read it), you actually improve the way you understand it, and therefore experience a deeper level of healing & release.

How did you meet this person?