Broadcaster John Cowan joins Andrew Urquhart to explore how we process painful memories and trauma in a healthy way, rather than simply trying to suppress or forget them. He notes that attempting to block out distressing thoughts often backfires, borrowing author Miranda Hart's line that "what we resist persists".

Cowan unpacks a therapist-used approach called imagery re-scripting, where instead of fighting a memory, you let it in and deliberately add the positive details that were also true of that time - kindness shown, lessons learned, love that was present. He also describes imagining your mature adult self stepping into the memory to comfort and reassure your younger, hurting self, changing the emotional charge of the memory without denying or sugar-coating what happened. Cowan, drawing on grieving the loss of both his parents within a year, says the memory itself doesn't disappear but can shift from a painful jab to a feeling of gratitude - while cautioning that deeper trauma may need professional counselling rather than self-help alone.

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Produced using AI tools under human supervision.