Using Timeline Reimprinting to resolve unwanted emotions in relation to a past incident

The challenge

Before Christmas, I met up with a friend who I don’t see particularly often and I noticed that he seemed quite down. Against the background of a noisy London pub amongst fellow heavy metallers (we were going to a gig after all!), J told me how he had managed to ruin a really good friendship with someone he’s known for a long time. In fact, it was the second time he’d overstepped the mark with this friend and it seemed like on this occasion, it was a step too far and there was no going back.

The effect

Despite the promise of a good dose of ear-shattering music later, J was clearly very miserable. He was filled with rumination and regret, wishing he could go back and undo what had happened. Losing this friend was something he didn’t want to face.

Solution

In the new year, I reached out to J and asked if he would like some help dealing with what had happened. We met via Zoom and discussed how he was currently feeling and how he would like to feel instead. After an ecology check to ensure that changing his feelings wouldn’t cause any unwanted consequences, I briefly outlined the Timeline Reimprinting technique.

Having established how he perceives his timeline, I then guided J through a visualisation process to determine and gather resources that would have helped both himself and his friend to have a better experience of the incident. We used colours to represent each resource and gifted them to each person as required. Finally, we rippled the changes through the rest of his timeline to the present, checked how J felt differently now, and then future paced to lock in the reimprint.

Result

J was initially surprised at how long the process had taken – it had seemed to him as if the session had flown by. I could see already how he was starting to feel better about the situation, and he confirmed this when he messaged his thanks the next day. A week later, J messaged me again to say he was feeling better more of the time each day.

Some six months later, J informed me that he had continued to feel better, to the point where he had been able to reach out to the friend and make amends, enabling their friendship to resume.

Timeline Reimprinting is one of my favourite techniques, and I often use it for belief change work, as well as for easing unwanted emotions in relation to past events. More recently, I’ve been learning how to use Timeline Reimprinting with Social Panoramas to help clients change problematic relationships.