Somebody posts a ‘Do you remember when xyz’ item on Facebook and I begin to experience joy.
I go for a beer with my old (familiar and old – LOL) and we natter and we become very enthusiastic about ‘the time when….’
Good old feelings arise.

Actually most of what we remember wasn’t quite like that.
We have confabulated elements of our memories. We shrunk them down, bits fell off and we stowed them away in our unconsciousness - be there such a place. Just like a zipped down file on a computer storage device. When we pulled the memories back out again the original events weren’t like that but we got to feel something that resembled a recollection – a re COLLECTION – of feelings
They are just feelings and repeatedly running the memories will initially intensify the joy (or whatever your emotion is) and then the intensity will transform into a different set of feelings or will dissipate.

In point of fact most bad memories got bad through practice – BAD PRACTICE!
and
most good memories got good through practice – GOOD PRACTICE!
It’s all Practice, practice, practice – whatever you practice, you will get skilled at
I may be misquoting him but Richard Bandler has said

“The best thing about the past is that it is over”.

Thinking about it that way and I have to agree.
It is how we experience what’s left behind that is important and what is left behind is not the actual event but a printed memory; an imprint. That’s emotional.
There may be physical scarring or damage but the emotional stuff is running the show.
PTSD – Post-traumatic stress disorder, no matter the event is the reaction to memories, even if it (the feelings) are suppressed. There are things that can be done using eye movement to change the emotional impact. I use Integral Eye Movement Therapy and I’ve watched the inexplicable occur as I’ve used it. I was so fascinated by it that trained to become a trainer in it!
For me Bad memories tend to lose their impact and I can keep reducing the intensity by repeating a bad memory in my mind and reducing the emotional impact deliberately. That’s not denial. It’s Adjustment! Just like using knobs and dials on a control panel.
Remember, whatever you resist will persist. Its change that is required not denial.
My control panel, is my mind:

I can change the pictures that I see in my mind
Push images away, shrink them down, and increase the size of images from good memories of the same event.
Change the where I see them to different positions
Turn sounds up and down.
Change the sounds of people’s voices – their tonality, the words they use. Make them sound like Mickey Mouse
I can change the intensity of the feeling – damp it down, crank it up.
I can change the words that I use to describe the event.

There really isn’t much that I can’t do in my mind, ask any good Neuro Linguistic Practitioner.
It really is like the old gag:
      “Its mind over matter – if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”
There is also changing the enquiry you are having about the past:
      If you don’t like the answer you get, ask a better question!

And I can move my eyes in differing patterns while I remember the event and experience it changing.

What limits our experience is how we use our mind and our body. The ‘use’ is our spirit – how we inspire ourselves.
      It’s Mind, Body, Spirit, Practice and Communication

#JustSaying

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According to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation

“Confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.[1] Confabulation is distinguished from lying as there is no intent to deceive and the person is unaware the information is false …..