Recently I came across an idea for relieving stress from past experiences with people. I came up with it rather accidentally one day returning from my job. Earlier I argued with a friend about some silly thing, and that argument escalated to a bigger problem. That friend also was coworker. It was the kind of argument started when suddenly some one says something without thinking of the consequences. I came back home worried about the problem that had just happened.

The idea came to my mind when I started to wonder how would it be if I talked to this friend in a better way to fix the problem. Suddenly I realized that there was a way to at least be able to relieve my self from the stress so I could go to sleep without thinking of the matter. I would mentally create the scenario that I´d like to experience the next day. That would let me go to sleep relaxed, knowing that the problem was no big deal.

I visualized myself talking to my friend in a relaxed mood and I imagined him responding in a positive way to my words. I did this as vividly and as clearly as possible inside my mind. Then after a few minutes of visualizing the outcome as ideally as I would like it to happen, I just went to sleep.

Not only that exercise relieved my stress, but also had a positive effect on the real outcome the next morning. I met with my friend and asked him to resolve the problem of the day before. The conversation went smoothly an up beat, like it was really no big deal. I could almost not belive what happened. I could not say that there was an effect on my friend due to the exercise, nor coud I prove it. May be it predisposed me more optimistic about the conversation and somehow my friend picked that up, I do not know.

Then it occurred to me that I could apply this same exercise to older experiences and see what happened. I made a list of every person that I could remember with whom I had a bad experience in the past. One by one I repeated the same exercise, visualizing with as much detail as possible a scenario where the problem with each one of them was easily solved. To my surprise, That same week I accidentally met a couple of those people and this time it was like nothing bad really ever happened between us.

Again, I can not say to you that this exercise had any effect on those people, nor prove it. But one thing is for sure, it is a great way to let go of the pain of those past experiences. It worked for me and it might just work for anyone. I would also mention that I mentally imagined forgiving those people that hurt me or abused me somehow in the past and now I am so at peace with them and with myself. I wish you all the best and hope that this might help you too.