How Changing Your Computer Password Can Unlock a Change in Your Life

What if I told you that changing your computer or email password is actually a powerful new form of therapy?

There’s nothing more frustrating than having to change a carefully thought out and memorized password, but instead of resorting to a random password generator website, Mauricio Estrella, a creative director based in Shanghai, decided to take his recent divorce into his own hands and changed his password to Forgive@h3r [forgive her] in an effort to turn around his negative attitude.

Estrella claims that repeating this message of forgiveness every time he logged into his numerous accounts acted as a constant reminder to move on from the past, changing his outlook on life for the better.

"I had to type this statement several times a day. Each time my computer would lock. Each time my screensaver with her photo would appear. Each time I would come back from eating lunch alone. That simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife. That constant reminder that I should forgive her led me to accept the way things happened at the end of my marriage, and embrace a new way of dealing with the depression that I was drowning in,” Estrella says.

Regular affirmations are known to be an effective fix for changing your attitude, and personalizing your password can be an easy and effective way to slip your daily dose psychotherapy in on the down-low.

Next time you have to come up with a new password on the fly, try turning your personal motto into a unique and (bonus!) easily memorized series of letters and numbers, and if you’re looking to be even sneakier, take the first letter of each word in the sentence or phrase you’re looking to use and mix in your preferred numbers and symbols for a tough-to-crack password.

You know what they say: ChangeURMind&ChangeURLife