Great question! What jumps out at me is your underlying assumption that you must purge yourself of the memories and the intuitive feeling that there is more with her to come, in order to be a better you. Or rather, the assumption that it's a problem.

It's rather like driving away from the inner core of a big city. You're leaving the city, but for a long time, all you still see and experience is the city. Finally you get to the suburbs, and then eventually, the rural area, but there is lots of overlap in experience...moments where it's not as 'city' as where you started from, but not exactly suburban yet...or when do the suburbs exactly become rural, etc.

If you are feeling good in some ways, excited that the time of outward negative drama seems over and that you can do something different now, then it can be very tempting to want to push away any of the negative-feeling emotions that arise. To rid yourself of the internal drama. And the intuitive feeling that you are meant to be together perhaps has pain attached to it, because it might seem starkly counterintuitive to 'reality'. To feel it might make you feel delusional, or like you don't know why you still want to be someone with whom you had so much negative drama, why there is still a desire for relationship. In other words, you might see the relationship with her as not conducive to a better you, but you still want it, just a better version of it.

This is not a problem.

Part of being this better you that you want to be---actually all of being a better you---is the embracing the deep honesty of yourself and accepting all the paradoxes that arise. That you have thoughts and feelings that seem to contradict each other, but they are all part of you. In the matrix world (I don't know what else to call it), it's a world of opposites. Either, or. So if you're moving on, you can't still want to be with this woman. This isn't true, because you feel differently. If you make it a 'problem', you're pathologizing your own genuine feelings and dreams and desires.

I always say "expand!" Expand against the contraction that is feeling limited or unwanted. What is awake and alive and unlimited is always moving towards what is dark and static and constricted. There is a yoga teacher I know who always says "If you can feel it, you can heal it." So much wisdom in such a little phrase!

Feel your genuine feelings and embrace them all. Do not run from the internal drama. Let the internal freak show happen.

Recognize that you are big enough to hold that there are so many things about this relationship that you dislike but that there are some things that you really enjoy and wish could continue. Focus on the good feelings that arise when you think of those wonderful things, but accept that right now they are packaged with negative feelings too. It's a mixed bag of goodies and you need to experience them all. There may be feelings of wanting her, yet feelings of shame or anger that she acted in ways that felt disrespectful to you, feelings of anger that you want someone who is like that, feelings of desperation that you won't find another woman as lovable, and feelings that you are better than that, you deserve a better woman. You are a network of contradictions, like everyone.

If you stay open to your genuine feelings, and let them arise, and let it play out internally and not project out onto the actual physically manifest woman, it will start to clean up in ways you can't imagine right now. The more honest you are, and the less you project, the faster it gets really good, just like you want it to. I promise that---well, to the extent that anyone can do such a thing!

turn your 'neediness' into a feeling of desire :)

here is a process you can use: 20. Focus delight (love, for the case of breakup)

hug and love to you! :)

By focusing on a different version of those memories.

The secret to focusing is that, as Abe says in the introductory course, each thing is not one, but two.

He means that literally. Each memory, and the event and energy it points to, is not one, but two. The negative version of that event that eats you up, and the positive version of that event that supports you and helps you move on or get back together again, whichever is more appropriate, are as different from each other as a memory of a car and a memory of a frog.

So by focusing on the positive versions of all those memories, whenever they come up, you can keep and allow that relationship to be for all the good things that it brought to you. There is no need to repress it at all.

This shifting focus to positive versions is also commonly called "healing" in other traditions, such as my own.

Note that if she took her spontaneous unilateral change of your relationship as a "sign" that it should end. I would like to add that everyone has a choice to what is a sign and what is not, and what that sign means. There are no hard and fast rules.

It is also not set in stone that your relationship is over. That is simply a manifestation of fear.

I would recommend that you use creative workshopping to recreate your relationship, and constructive denial to deny negative beliefs that go along with that- and then make sure that you are okay with your relationship changing radically, if that is the most natural way for things to go forward.

It's a bit of a paradox- use as much energy work as you can towards the circumstances you prefer, and still be open to the idea that if things turn out completely differently, the core of what you focused on will be there.

Here is an example.

Start thinking about things happy-version-of-you and happy-version-of-her are doing together. Affirm: My relationship with my love is solid and well. Send clouds of blessing, harmonizing, strengthening energy on yourself and her. Affirm to yourself that your positive expectation and your confidence will bring about the closest available equivalent of your visualizing, and trust you will recognize it when it comes. Breathe deeply and slowly during your workshop to have more energy.

Most likely, negative voices will come up during your practice- "it cannot be, you are now seperate" "the sign was clear, she will now go" "too much happend". Simply disagree with each one, and affirm the opposite three times. "no we're not seperate, we can be together. We can be together. We can be together." "no the sign was not clear, we just chose to interpreate it that way. I can create what I prefer. I can create what I prefer. I can create what I prefer." "No, too much has not happened- love can heal it all. Love can heal us. Love can heal us."

So to directly answer your question on this background: Whenever you feel needy, simply turn to your workshop to satisfy yourself, and let the outer circumstances be whatever they may, without trying to directly intervene in them unless strongly inspired to take action, and focus on creating the good energy. That way you have it all at once- the positive thinking, the clearing of pre-paved thoughts, and the necessary letting go.

I have a good feeling about the things to come. All the best to you!

Ahh, that feeling of parting ways for good with someone you deeply care about(love) sure is sh*tty. I feel you.

That thing you feel "The 'problem' is that I still feel my ex is somehow, somewhere still part of that future. No way in hell we can go back to the previous relationship but why should love not prevail in the end?" is a classic. You only think that way because you still care about her, and that's OK. I mean, you spent years with her, it takes time to detach. Every and single one of people whose hearts had been broken can confirm your current thinking. And guess what? 90% of those people, after their period of grieving, found a new partner claiming he/she is 10x better and that breaking up with their ex is the best thing that happened to them. Not just concerning the field of relationships, but positive growth in general.

I'd say it ended for a reason. Keep it that way. I think that would be the path of least resistance. Trying to reverse the situation would be like swimming upstream and opposing the flow. Actually, metaphysically speaking, losing a girlfriend of 4 years is the same as losing a favourite T-shirt. Maybe it sounds harsh, but I'd say it's true. Only difference is that you're more emotionally invested in the girl and you gave more meaning and a "big deal" sense to your relationship with her. We're humans, that's the way we work. But metaphysically it doesn't matter one bit. But you are strong. You're a man for goodness' sake. Act like it. Keep your chin up high. Everything will change with time.

As for your question, when past memories come just change your focus to something else. It will be hard in the beginning but with time memory of her will either fade away or you will start to notice that the way you view them(the memories) and her in general changed. Changed in a sense that they'll appear like just normal memories from your past, like the memory of using the toilet for the first time in your new apartment - just a memory, nothing more. Keep yourself occupied and happy.