Life Re-Remembering Technique

Human memory is unreliable—and this phenomenon can be put to practical use. If you had a carefree childhood and expect an equally smooth life ahead, you might not need this technique. Still, it’s useful to understand the roots of other people’s behaviors and even help them.

Scientists have discovered that certain personality traits or long-term habits are formed randomly as a result of childhood experiences.

For example, a child breaks a jar of jam, quickly hides the evidence, and lies to their parents, blaming the cat. The parents believe the story, and the child concludes: if you cover your tracks and lie convincingly, you’ll always get away with it.

Another child in the same situation does the same but is very anxious. The parents believe the story, but this child decides: it’s better to tell the truth than to feel so worried.

A third child confesses honestly and gets punished. They decide: next time, I’ll lie to the end.

Yet another confesses and gets praised. They conclude: you can mess up as much as you want, as long as you admit it afterward.

The situation is the same, but the conclusions are different. The nuance is that we can’t predict what conclusions a person will draw. Later, people forget these were conclusions from a specific case, and they become unconscious rules or habits for life.

For instance, a little boy asks a girl to play cars with him. She says, “Go away, dummy.” The boy grows up believing it’s better not to approach women—they’re unpredictable and aggressive. The girl, meanwhile, forgets the incident or maybe decides the best way to flirt is to send boys packing.

How to Use the Technique

If you notice recurring failures in your life, your task is to recall the earliest memory where you developed the habit of ending up in such situations. If you find and reinterpret it, your reaction to similar situations can change for life. You can draw healthier conclusions and live a more balanced life.

Another brilliant insight: it doesn’t matter if something really happened—what matters is whether you believe it did. Some personality traits can form not from real events, but from vivid imagination.

Over time, it’s become clear that human memories rarely match what actually happened. Memories are like flashes—vivid, detailed, but often lasting only seconds. Most people can’t control this, except perhaps under deep hypnosis. Usually, people recall their rationalizations of how things might have been.

This is called the phenomenon of false or implanted memory. Even eyewitness testimony changes with each retelling. The first time, someone might say they saw someone in the shadows; by the fifth time, they’re sure it was Roman in a red sweater—and absolutely believe it.

Memory is unreliable, and that works in our favor. If we realize that most of what we remember is made up, the question isn’t whether our memory is true or false, but which version is most useful. If someone remembers something unpleasant, they’ll have problems now. So, let them remember it differently—let them remember how it “really” was.

• Imagine the whole country celebrating your birthday with fireworks.
• Squadrons of Carlsons flying with cakes.
• The police marching and saluting you.
• Young men kneeling and offering roses.
• Girls blushing and kissing you.
• Elephants dancing, genies flying.
• Siblings loving you, parents always united.
• A wizard arriving in a blue helicopter.

No need to share these stories with others. For your autobiography, stick to a simple list of schools. But for yourself! You don’t have a past—you have a momentary imagination of the past, which you call memory. It affects you right now. So why let it be something bad? Let it be something good. Do it for yourself, not for anyone else. The goal is to remember your life “correctly” and to re-remember it to match your current mood.

What are you doing now? Dancing? Then you’ve been dancing your whole life! You’ve been doing flamenco since you were three. All your relatives say so. The key is not to skimp on good memories for yourself.

Examples of Re-Remembering

Another example: a girl never dated anyone, her parents divorced early, and she lived with her mom, who always said she’d end up alone. Not good! So, she remembers a happy life with both parents up to that moment—shopping together, holding hands, celebrating holidays, cakes and candies. Whatever she wants. She remembers an older brother—even if he was born later. He protected her, helped her, took her to and from school. Where is he now? Moved away. All vacations were spent at the sea with the family. Birthdays with lots of friends.

Since she lived with her mom, she remembered her family as poor. Not good! Even her slippers were trimmed with mink, and the toilets were coral.

All that remains is a sense of self—a state that helps you get what you want and hit your targets, not miss them because “I’ve been a loser since childhood.”

One guy grew up in an orphanage. We helped him remember all 20+ years with parents, siblings, family gatherings. For him, it was even a joy to remember that his parents fought and made up. Now he’s been married for several years and has kids. His wife complains: “I’m tired of hearing ‘In our family, we used to…’” But he has those memories now.

There are many such episodes. The point is always the same: if something feels like a memory, that doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes not. If a memory is useful, keep it—even if it doesn’t fit with others. People can reconcile anything. If it’s not useful, don’t pretend it never happened. It did—but differently. Not that your parents left you for three hours, but only for two and a half. And they came back with gifts, brought friends, and there was a dance circle—until you felt happy and light. Then move on to the next episode.

One woman was afraid to be alone in a room because she was once robbed in a rented apartment. She imagined she could have been home, beaten, or assaulted, even though it never happened. But after imagining it once, she became afraid. So, she re-remembered it differently: she saw the robbers, beat them up, dragged them to the police. Now she feels calm in empty rooms.

Another woman had a failed seven-year marriage, so her second marriage started to go downhill. She re-remembered that she never had a seven-year marriage—she was traveling in Europe. Now, this is her first marriage.

Of course, you choose the content of your new, correct memories yourself. Don’t copy or take suggestions from others.

The Meaning of Changing Your Personal History

It doesn’t matter how things really were. What matters is to make your past fit what you need now. That’s the point of changing your subjective personal history.

If you don’t like a memory, it’s bad. Everything you don’t like is false and wrong. Everything you like in your memories is true and right.

You personally met Claudia Schiffer. She said you have amazing style and she’ll follow your example. Who else but Claudia Schiffer would want to follow your lead?

Studying Ericksonian hypnosis? Remember your 18 meetings with Milton Erickson—why not? 🙂

You can go back as far as you want, even to Rurik, and in detail, with pleasure, recall every episode, making sure you don’t do yourself any harm. If something’s off, rewind and start again.

“All my ancestors had luxurious hair.”

The sign you’re doing it right: a blissfully relaxed state with an excited smile—life is good. And it will only get better. Then imagine a few episodes ahead, catching the mood. The most important thing in this technique is to change the mood you live in. Everything else will follow.

In the end, all such situations should be remembered with a radically different feeling. As for the future, you feel calm, deep, sincere, and relaxed—confident! Everything will be fine! Because everything in your life has always been fine. From birth, you’ve been lucky. You were born lucky, outpaced a bunch of sperm. You were lucky from the start.

How to Practice

So, you have about 20–25 minutes now. Take your time and recall everything in detail—but do it right.

The result should be: you had, have, and will have a happy life.

We rewind the tape so that, by mentally changing the circumstances, we automatically enter the submodalities of the past. Then, for the unconscious, it all becomes real. Consciously, we remember all the conclusions we made, but our attitude toward our life becomes normal.

Can you redo it later? Yes. What if episodes don’t match up? No problem—everyone’s like that.