Ack. I woke up feeling good. No gut wrenching pain in my stomach.
And then I was looking through old hard drives and mistakenly opened a folder of old sex photos. Wasn't on purpose.
Man oh man that hurt. She looked so stunning and sexy. And we looked so happy. And she looked so yummy... .Arg... .
willy45 i did some work with photos that helped me a bunch and i'd like to suggest it to you. this is only a suggestion though as i'm not sure how strong you feel in this situation, so approach with caution. but, i would occasionally run across a photo of my ex, or her with the replacement, or whatever. and a few times that this occurred what i would do was look away from the photo for a while and really feel the emotions and anxiety that seeing it brought up in me. then i would focus on my breathing and heart rate allowing myself to calm down again. when i was calmer, i would look at the photo again, and this would allow me to explore the feelings again, but at this point i was stronger and was a little bit more detached. i would try projecting different emotions of detachment, gratefulness or even love onto things that i despised, in a way working to rewire my response to such visuals. i would go back and forth at least two or three times from looking at the photo, to looking away, monitoring my response each time. and each time i was able to do so with more peace and control.
another more active technique i used allowed me to release anger and rage. i believe it is healthy to give our anger outlets and let it flow as violently as it needs to, as long as we do it in a safe space where we aren't hurting others or ourselves. there is one photo i could picture of my ex and i where we were holding each other and kissing. it really was a great photo and one i loved that captured the affection we had for each other. well, obviously my ex had already destroyed any remnant of respect she had for me and our r/s, so it was time for me to get to work and do the same. this is part of what i call "Owning your Destroy"--a term i picked up from a blog, the technique from a book i read.
i'll try and summarize below, but if you anyone is interested i can give more details just let me know. so, what i would do is first sit and quiet myself. then in this state i would envision a boundary all around me which represented my personal space--this boundary was an arms length away in every direction (front, back, above and below). in this way the boundary would look like a bright egg surrounding you. this represents your personal space. then i would bring up the image(s) in front of me, inside of my 'egg'. then use my anger to rip it up, burn it, punch it, kick it--basically whatever feels the most satisfying to you. then i would push/kick/send it outside of my personal space and send more anger into it, imagining a flame thrower or similar firing out of me to burn and destroy it further.
in this way i was able to give less meaning to these images and destroy the un-reality i was holding onto. again, there's more to these techniques so i can refer you to the original authors if you like. the burning/destroying is also referred to as "Burning Contracts", or beliefs we hold which no longer serve us.
i think the default solution presented is to try and ignore and avoid photos and memorabilia. and this is useful as well. however if you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't or don't want to avoid there is much helpful work to be done as well.
