I agree with the idea it's better to just accept the memories and accept they happened. I agree that trying to push them away can be a lot like feeding the negative power they can come with.
I have a lot of traumatic memory related to my childhood, the kind of stuff that really can just feel like a bullet train right back there at times. This stuff used to enter my mind (either after a disturbing dream or when some similar, present feeling triggered them) and it was like it cast this darkness over my entire consciousness, I'd often feel sick, cornered, and just upset.
I think it's a pretty normal reaction to want to find a place to shove it so it stops causing those wretched feelings, I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't have that wish to be able to perform some kind of magic brain surgery to get it all out. I definitely did.
Thing is, I found a lot of these painful memories directly tied to something happening in my present situation. Struggling with feeling good about myself, struggling to form healthy relationships with people, struggling to feel loved, and all sorts of things. A lot of these memories were keys in this respect, shedding light on where a lot of my pain originated from. It sounds so utterly cliche, but for me it was really true.
These memories usually got me feeling exactly like I did when they first occurred, primal fear and rejection by a parent (among other things). It was like I became reduced to a shivering child all over again. I tried avoiding them, I tried forgetting, I tried pretending I didn't care.
As I got older though, I started taking a new approach. It really is like a monster under the bed. Instead of hiding under the covers I decided to really look it in the face. What was it going to do, kill me? Destroy my sanity? Make me explode?
I faced those memories and I won't lie, it hurt like hell. It was the kind of pain that literally had me on the floor shaking, crying, and feeling like my whole body might rattle apart. I felt the way as I did as a kid, but then I forced myself to remember I was grown up. It was sort of like going back in time to pick that little girl up and tell her it was okay, and not her fault.
It really changed so much, and while I'll still remember a lot of those things and I might get a pang, those memories do not have an eighth of the ability to paralyze me as they used to. They're just memories, but they don't kick me around because I accept. It hurt, and while it sounds like another cliche', it was like being set free.
I just think it's best to reckon with it and accept these things happened. There will never come a time when you don't have past situations that will mess with your head. No one in this world is perfect, no one in this world makes all the right choices all the time, no one in this world always says the right thing. We're human, we f**k up, we react too emotionally sometimes and sometimes we behave in ways we wish we hadn't.
I think it's best to accept that, think about all things we can do to improve, and be ready to do it all over again the next time a situation arises that is painful, embarrassing, or challenging.