I’m letting people who hurt me in the past live rent free in my mind.
One episode involves a former landlord that tried to run me over in an intersection with no traffic cameras.
Another one involves a manager that fired me for informing that one of his favorites yelled during night shift and ignored alarms to talk. He fired me the next day, used the exit interview to tell me everything I didn’t do right (but kept quiet about his favorites, even though I did the job like them), still had the utmost confidence on his favorites, accused me of being lazy and instead of simply firing me and keeping neutral he chose to take it personal, proceeded to try to scare me insinuating I wouldn’t work for his system again, when that failed, tried to humiliate me and then fired me. This was in an non union hospital.
When I think about it I get angry. Id like not to be so thin skinned, but here I am.
There is no one way that works for everyone.
You have to release the emotion.
Try taking a deep breath exhale the emotion. Try with or without a mantra such as “it doesn’t matter” or “this doesn’t define me”
Try the above when you are already in a relaxed mental state where your allow your breathe to return you to the relaxed mental state.
This is basically meditative / mindfulness.
Allow yourself to feel the emotion but while controlling when you allow the feeling to enter you mind which also requires allowing yourself to releasing it.
When you find something that works through practice, even if it helps in the slightest of way, repeat the process whenever the intrusive thought occurs.
I suggest deep breathes because they are easy to sneak into any situation. But other options might include making a fist and releasing it, basically anything where you can control the tension.