Question: I am trying to recover from a painful divorce, but I can’t seem to stop the agonizing conversations that I wished I had had with my ex. I don’t want to open up this can of worms again, but I do want to stop these imaginary thoughts about the past that go endlessly round and round in my head. How do I stop this?

Don: Stop worshiping the volcano of pain.

Imaginary conversations with people from the past are symptoms of unresolved emotional pain from those situations that are stuck in your subconscious mind. This is one of the main symptoms of resentment and is part of the grief process. Real conversations with real people make imaginary ones go away. Your situation doesn’t allow an actual conversation with the person, but there is another way to resolve the cause of the emotional pain and the subsequent, imaginary conversations: Counseling with The Grief Recovery Method.

This process uses several action tools to root out the unresolved resentment, regrets, and unexpressed emotion to deal with them out loud with the counselor. These steps are listed in the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook. 

This process is NOT the same as Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief, but about the action steps a person must take, in some shape or form, for the emotional pain to release. Counseling with the Grief Recovery Method guides you through the steps. ·Most people report feeling physically lighter, an internal sense that the power of the memories are less or gone, and a dramatic reduction or a cessation of those painful imaginary conversations that popped up both day and night.

Anne Bercht writes, “Getting to the truth put an end to my obsessive thoughts.” This is the key. When you can get to the truth in conversation with another person, your obsessional thoughts will reduce or cease. ·However, the truth is not just observable facts. The truth you can work with in counseling is the emotional truth of how you really felt and feel now about a past situation and the steps in the Grief Recovery Method that allows the volcano of pain to ease. What begins to occur instead of imaginary conversations in your head about the past, will be the actual concerns of your day!

Every round of imaginary conversations that you have is not releasing the emotional pain, but just stirring it up and stoking it, causing you more and more discomfort and suffering. Step by step speaking out loud the emotional truth, not to the actual person, but to someone listening without judgment is the heart of resolving the emotional pain of your past.

The counseling method works with divorce or any loss where you feel unresolved and can’t seem to let the thoughts about it or the emotional reactions about it go. ·

After my divorce was final I still have painful conversations that still go around and around in my head about  conversations that I wished I would have had with my ex.  I don’t want to open up this can of worms again with them, but I do want to stop this round and round endlessly painful imaginary conversation about things in the past. How do I stop this?

Psychotherapy with The Grief Recovery Process can help free you from the cause of your emotional pain in any situation of loss and grief. Let go of the wish for a different or a better yesterday. Feel like yourself again.