As the old song says: “We always hurt, the ones we love.” What’s more, experiences in the past become hurt in the present when we deal with people or situations that cause us to recall the hurt. When the person who hurt you is a partner, the pain can become a constant reminder of past wrongs. Getting past the pain caused by those we love most is an important part of healing. More than that, letting go of the pain means offering true forgiveness and allows you to have truly intimate relationships.
Step 1
Decide what actions you can and cannot have a relationship around. The reality is there are some things that a partner may do that are completely incompatible with a continued relationship. For example, a wife might be able to get past a drunken weekend’s infidelity but may not be able to remain married to someone who took a mistress.
Step 2
Letting go of pain doesn’t mean ignoring it. Instead, focus on understanding the pain, letting go and moving on. There is a very basic word for this process. It is called “forgiveness.” Dr. Fred Luskin, Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project tells people who have been hurt that the goal of forgiveness it to widen your heart and accept both the good and bad parts of your partner. This is the heart of intimacy.
Step 3
Choose to forgive your partner. This is key whether you are staying in the relationship or not. If you choose to stay, forgiveness allows you to put the pain of the issue in the past and move forward together. If you choose to leave the relationship, forgiveness allows you to look for a new partner without the crippling pain of your broken relationship.
Step 4
Realize that forgiveness is about you, not the person that hurt you. At its heart, forgiveness is choosing not to carry the pain and anger of a past hurt. This means that you can choose to forgive someone who has never asked for pardon.
Step 5
Remember that forgiveness is a process not a moment. Like anything else anger, resentment and pain can become a habit. In addition, there are some situations that spawn long-lasting pain. For example, you may deal with the immediate pain of a divorce. However, years later, you may be hit with new pain seeing your ex with a new spouse. Deal with each new experience as it comes. Remind yourself that you have chosen to forgive the person and let go of the pain he caused.
“We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.”
I’ve struggled with it.
Letting go, I mean. I’ve struggled with moving on from my past. I’ve struggled with ridding myself of guilt, shame, and grief. I’ve struggled with freeing myself from mistakes, past relationships, and worries about the future.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. Believe me, I’ve tried really hard. I’ve written goodbye letters, mentally cut the energetic cords, and fiercely gone back into the pain to free myself fully from it. I’ve cried my eyes out, talked about it, and brought it to my meditation pillow.
What I’ve tried has helped to some extent, but not completely. So, instead of moving on I’ve felt stuck between my past and my future. You know, like in limbo. And that’s not the place to set up camp; both you and I know that.
It’s frustrating because I’m fully aware of the importance of letting go and moving on. I know that attachment is the reason we suffer. I know that past pain, anger, and resentment holds us back. I know that holding on to the unwanted blocks the wanted from coming in.
Letting go is essential. But, it’s not always easy to apply theory to practice. If you’ve also struggled with it, here’s another approach that has helped me to truly let go and move on.
Why Letting Go is Hard
First of all, everything is energy. Our thoughts and feelings emit a vibration, and what we send out to the world is what we receive back. This isn’t some woo-woo thing—it’s quantum physics (source).
That means that whatever we give our attention to—wanted or unwanted—grows. If you focus on happiness, joy, and satisfaction, you’ll experience more of that. If you focus on pain, regret, and guilt, you’ll experience more of that.
Just think about it, have you ever tried to rid yourself of stress, only to have found yourself getting more stressed, especially when you knew you shouldn’t stress? Or have you told yourself to stop worrying, only to have found more things to worry about?
Mother Theresa knew about this. She said, “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”
An anti-war demonstration focuses on war, which triggers feelings such as frustration, anger, and hopelessness. A pro-peace rally, on the other hand, focuses on peace.
The same goes for letting go. Unless you’re able to truly let it go—meaning that you withdraw your attention completely from it—you’re more likely to focus on the unwanted and thus draw more of that into your life.
Step 1: Say “yes” to what is.
You cannot reject or push against the unwanted. You cannot focus on a problem and find the solution. Because the solution is never where the problem is. So, you need to shift focus.
You shift focus by first accepting what is. If you want to let go of shame, start by first accepting that you’re feeling shameful. Don’t argue with your thoughts and feelings. Don’t resist them. Don’t try to push them away. Instead, give them permission to exist.
As Eckhart Tolle said, “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” To reach complete acceptance, spiritual teacher Bentinho Massaro suggests a technique where you agree with your limiting and hurtful thoughts.
For example, to accept guilt over something that happened, tell yourself, “Yes, I’m guilty.” If you struggle with forgiveness, tell yourself, “Yes, that’s right, I can’t forgive this person.”
This doesn’t mean that what you’re saying is true. Instead, it’s a tool to control negative thoughts and emotions so they don’t control you. By agreeing with them, the battle between you and them ends. When there’s nothing more to argue about, they lose their power over you. Touché.
Step 2: Let in instead of letting go.
Once you’ve reached a place of complete acceptance, you can move on to the second step.
This is about inviting the new.
Letting go can easily trigger fear. When you leave something behind and don’t know what to replace it with, you leave space for the unknown. Change is always scary, especially when you don’t know what’s coming next. That’s why you might find yourself clinging to the unwanted because that’s what’s familiar and known to you.
To make sure that doesn’t happen, consciously decide what’s coming next. Let in instead of letting go. Rather than pushing away the unwanted, invite the wanted.
When I left my corporate job in search of a higher calling, I battled with shame. Shame for stepping off the beaten path, for making a controversial choice, and for not having a clear path in front of me.
It was when I finally stopped fighting shame that I was able to see clearly. That’s when I could invite curiosity to join me instead. Curiosity did the exact opposite of shame; it helped me see the opportunities, not pitfalls, of the unknown and taking the road less traveled.
If you want to let go of anxiety and self-doubt, invite peace and confidence. If you want to let go of a past relationship, invite a new loving relationship. If you want to let go of the lazy and dull version of yourself, invite an active and energetic version of you.
This can be done step by step. For example, let’s say that you want to move on from an ex-love. Maybe your focus isn’t on attracting a new partner directly, but rather on inviting a happier, healthier, and more loving version of yourself. Then once you feel ready, you can invite in the relationship you long for.
Focus On What You Desire
It’s frustrating to replay mistakes over and over in your mind. It’s frustrating to cling to things from the past. It’s frustrating when you try really hard, but are unable to move on. Not only does that taint your future, it also steals the joy from this present moment.
Instead of trying harder to let go, accept fully where you are. Embrace it completely. Say yes to all worry, shame, and guilt. Confirm all the negative thoughts and feelings so that you can release yourself from their grip. Simply, give up the battle.
Then, invite what you desire. Imagine, visualize, and fantasize what you’d love to have instead in your life. Tony Robbins said, “Where focus grows, energy flows.” Focus on the wanted, not the unwanted.
Past hurts and old injustices have a way of keeping us stuck in our tracks, unable to move forward or experience joy. It can take a radical reboot to get past yesterday. Here’s how.
By Judith Sills Ph.D., published November 4, 2014 – last reviewed on June 9, 2016
Or perhaps you’re stuck in place by the unhappy residue of your own bad choices—the job you should have left earlier, the sexual secrets you keep, the doctor’s visit you delayed.
It is heart-stoppingly easy to get stuck in the darkness of bad memories. They are emotional quicksand and exert a strong downward pull on the psyche.
Sometimes the past traps us through unexamined clutter spilling from every tabletop and corner, elbowing out the new and the possible. Or it commandeers your daydreams, obsessively replaying old losses, past injustices, nagging guilts about the sibling you tormented or friend you let down.
Perhaps it lives on in litigation of a marriage although the divorce is a decade old, or in rage against the parent who belittled you, or at yourself because you once fell for someone else’s lies.
The strong urge to right wrongs that can never be erased, to revisit hurt from which you should have been protected, to cling to lost love, to brood, to avenge—these are natural inclinations, to a point and for a time.
Time’s up.
It’s an axiom of psychology that we are some recombination of all of our yesterdays. To move forward wisely, we are therefore often urged to look back. But there’s a point where appreciation and analysis of the past become gum on your psychological shoe. It sticks you in place, impedes forward motion, and, like gum, it doesn’t just disappear on its own. You need to do some scraping.
The power to get past the past does not lie primarily with the nature of events themselves. They count a lot, sure. But so do the steps forward a person is willing to take and how much effort he or she is willing to expend to push some emotional rock up, up, and out of the way.
Getting unstuck involves remembering an injury, but reconsidering it from a different, more empathetic perspective. Moving forward may mean reconfiguring a relationship so that you are less giving, more realistic.
But it rarely means cutting off those ties. Think alteration, not amputation. Getting unstuck requires being truthful with yourself about how you feel—still angry, sad, or anxious, even though you wish you weren’t—but holding out the possibility that someday you might feel better.
Is there anything you can’t get over? Yes and no. You don’t get over it, but you might find a different place to put it. You don’t forget it, but the thought no longer intrudes. You don’t pretend it wasn’t bad, but you have a sense that you can heal. We don’t get over the past. We get past it.
Getting past yesterday demands both thinking and doing. It’s things we do as well as things we think that hold us unwittingly in a painful place. Arguably, it’s easy to shift behaviors—that is, once you pause to consider them. More intricately, getting beyond yesterday is a psychological high-wire act of letting go, of reevaluating experience and relinquishing old perspectives, of discarding cherished but mistaken beliefs (often about what it takes to be happy), of delicately but deeply recalibrating thoughts and feelings.
Letting go means something has to open in your head and in your heart, but that shift, that easing, comes up against our own invisible, often implacable resistance. A great deal of that resistance comes from nothing more pedestrian than the great human reluctance to change. Even change for the better is still change, often initially dreaded and avoided. We are creatures of habit and of inertia.
A great deal of psychological research attests to resistance even to positive change. It is one of the great marvels of clinical observation how much discomfort people can tolerate before they acknowledge the need for change. And change is always uncomfortable, at least at first.
Letting go fights more than the powerful magnet of the status quo. It also comes into conflict with compelling, distorted thoughts that make holding on appear reasonable and right. We are given to magical thinking (“If I make more money, she will come back to me”), to delusions (“I must keep gathering this evidence. Somehow, I can be proven right if I stick with it”), to sheer errors of logic (“My kids have never appreciated or admired my collections, but they will someday. That’s why I have to hold on to them”). Each thought pattern is a cunning argument against letting go. Each needs to be directly challenged and rescripted before your heart and mind really open to a new state.
At its deepest level, the prospect of letting go forces us up against our three strongest emotional drivers: love, fear, and rage.
The tentacles of rage are easiest to understand, although difficult to escape. To let go of a past injustice that preoccupies us, we must relinquish our natural burning hope for equity, or at least for exposing to the world the wrongdoer—your brother, your crooked business partner, your vicious former friend—for who and what he is. Dimming that eternal flame of rage is effortful. The bad guy won. It happens.
Love itself is a powerful counterweight to letting go. Even when a relationship is out of your life—long after the breakup, the divorce, even the death—it may occupy your heart and your head. Letting go means loosening that internal attachment, and therefore losing that love—again.
What makes the fresh loss worthwhile, of course, is that letting go of the old attachment opens up the real possibility of a new one in your life. That would be sufficient, even inspiring motivation, except that it leaves a blank spot where the future lives, and we mostly fill such blank spots with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of future loss and additional pain. Fear makes us cling to what we know, however bad it makes us feel.
Letting go means confronting these invisible emotional barriers: bringing them into your awareness and then struggling against them. It means challenging irrational, unproductive thinking until you get your head on straight; it means facing up to your fear and then calling on your courage and your character to face it down; and it means confronting your passionate attachment to a past love and reducing it from a boulder to a pebble. Put the pebble in your pocket as a cherished reminder, and leave room in your heart for something new.
It’s a question many of us ask ourselves each time we experience heartache or emotional pain: how do you let go of past hurts and move on?
Holding on to the past can be a conscious decision just like letting go and moving forward can be a conscious decision.
One thing that connects us as human beings is our ability to feel pain. Whether that pain is physical or emotional, we all have experiences of being hurt. What separates us though, is how we deal with that pain.
Experts have found that when emotional pain prevents you from healing from a situation, it’s a sign that we aren’t moving forward in a growth-oriented way.
One of the best ways to heal from hurts is to learn lessons from the situation and use those to focus on growth and forward momentum. If we get stuck in thinking about what “should have been,” we can become immobilized in painful feelings and memories.
If you’re trying to move forward from a painful experience, but you’re not sure how to get started, here are 12 tips to help you let go.
1. Create a positive mantra to counter the painful thoughts
How you talk to yourself can either move you forward or keep you stuck. Often, having a mantra that you tell yourself in times of emotional pain can help you reframe your thoughts.
For example, says clinical psychologist Carla Manly, PhD, instead of getting stuck in, “I can’t believe this happened to me!” try a positive mantra such as, “I am fortunate to be able to find a new path in life — one that is good for me.”
2. Create physical distance
It’s not uncommon to hear someone say that you should distance yourself from the person or situation that is causing you to be upset.
According to clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, PhD, that’s not such a bad idea. “Creating physical or psychological distance between ourselves and the person or situation can help with letting go for the simple reason that we are not having to think about it, process it, or being reminded of it as much,” she explains.
3. Do your own work
Focusing on yourself is important. You have to make the choice to address the hurt that you’ve experienced. When you think about a person who caused you pain, bring yourself back to the present. Then, focus on something that you’re grateful for.
4. Practice mindfulness
The more we can bring our focus to the present moment, says Lisa Olivera, a licensed marriage and family therapist, the less impact our past or future has on us.
“When we start practicing being present, our hurts have less control over us, and we have more freedom to choose how we want to respond to our lives,” she adds.
5. Be gentle with yourself
If your first response to not being able to let go of a painful situation is to criticize yourself, it’s time to show yourself some kindness and compassion.
Olivera says this looks like treating ourselves like we would treat a friend, offering ourselves self-compassion, and avoiding comparisons between our journey and those of others.
“Hurt is inevitable, and we may not be able to able to avoid pain; however, we can choose to treat ourselves kindly and lovingly when it comes,” Olivera explains.
6. Allow the negative emotions to flow
If you’re fear of feeling negative emotions is causing you to avoid them, don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, Durvasula says that many times, people are afraid of feelings such as grief, anger, disappointment, or sadness.
Rather than feeling them, people just try to shut them out, which can disrupt the process of letting go. “These negative emotions are like riptides,” explains Durvasula. “Let them flow out of you… It may require mental health intervention, but fighting them can leave you stuck,” she adds.
7. Accept that the other person may not apologize
Waiting for an apology from the person who hurt you will slow down the process of letting go. If you’re experiencing hurt and pain, it’s important you take care of your own healing, which may mean accepting that the person who hurt you isn’t going to apologize.
8. Engage in self-care
When we are hurting, it often feels like there is nothing but hurt. Olivera says practicing self-care can look like setting boundaries, saying no, doing the things that bring us joy and comfort, and listening to our own needs first.
“The more we can implement self-care into our daily lives, the more empowered we are. From that space, our hurts don’t feel as overwhelming,” she adds.
9. Surround yourself with people who fill you up
This simple yet powerful tip can help carry you through a lot of hurt.
We can’t do life alone, and we can’t expect ourselves to get through our hurts alone, either, explains Manly. “Allowing ourselves to lean on loved ones and their support is such a wonderful way of not only limiting isolation but of reminding us of the good that is in our lives.”
10. Give yourself permission to talk about it
When you’re dealing with painful feelings or a situation that hurt you, it’s important to give yourself permission to talk about it.
Durvasula says sometimes people can’t let go because they feel they aren’t allowed to talk about it. “This may be because the people around them no longer want to hear about it or [the person is] embarrassed or ashamed to keep talking about it,” she explains.
But talking it out is important. That’s why Durvasula recommends finding a friend or therapist who is patient and accepting as well as willing to be your sounding board.
11. Give yourself permission to forgive
Since waiting for the other person to apologize can stall the process of letting go, you may have to work on your own forgiveness.
Forgiveness is vital to the healing process because it allows you to let go of anger, guilt, shame, sadness, or any other feeling you may be experiencing and move on.
12. Seek professional help
If you’re struggling to let go of a painful experience, you may benefit from talking to a professional. Sometimes it’s difficult to implement these tips on your own, and you need an experienced professional to help guide you through the process.
To let go of past hurts, you need to make the conscious decision to take control of the situation. However, this can take time and practice. Be kind to yourself as your practice refocusing how you see the situation, and celebrate the small victories you have.
Train your mind to let sad experiences slip.
Posted Feb 13, 2020
How often do you feel that you can’t move on? No matter how hard you try, you are living in the past. Like you are carrying a heavy burden that gets you stuck.
“Let go,” your friends tell you. It sounds so simple, yet feels so hard. You can’t stop holding to a grudge or a betrayal. Every time you want to move on, the past captures your undivided attention.
Rumination is a curious habit. It’s like binge-watching bad movies on Netflix. That’s what happens when we can let go of the past. We make sad stories play nonstop. The more we watch our life’s movie, the more it hurts.
What if I tell you that it’s possible to stop the rumination process? But, first, let’s understand why we get stuck.
Stop Losing Yourself into the Past
If we can’t change the past, why do we continue to live it?
According to neuroscience, the brain handles negative and positive information differently. Negative experiences require more thinking and, thus, are processed more thoroughly. This causes our brains to become better at remembering adverse events.
Reliving sad memories makes us feel like a hamster in the wheel — no matter how hard we try, we can’t move forward.
You can’t change how your brain works. But you can train yourself to get off of the hamster wheel. That requires cutting the emotional attachment we have with the past, especially negative experiences.
We usually have a hard time accepting that someone hurt us. Recognizing an unhappy ending makes us feel weak and embarrassed.
Eckhart Tolle -the most popular spiritual author in the United States, according to the New York Times- once said, “There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. You can acknowledge and learn from the mistakes you made and then move on. It’s called forgiving yourself.”
You get the point. To move on, you have to reframe your relationship with the past.
How to Stop Ruminating
1. Stop trying to be the hero of your story
We’ve all been hurt. It’s sad and embarrassing — no-one wants to look weak. That’s why we construct our idealized version of the past. And blame others instead of taking ownership for what happened.
Everything in life has a beginning and an ending. You don’t need to continue rehashing your past to keep it alive. Make peace with the end, especially if it was ugly, and move on.
2. Don’t let others define who you are
Blaming others when things go wrong makes us lose control. We are letting them define the terms of how we live.
You can’t control what other people do, but you can control how you react. Focusing on what people did (to you) is a distraction. Regain control of what you can manage and choose to live life on your own terms, not someone else’s.
3. Learn to forgive yourself
When something goes wrong, we tend to blame ourselves, too. We have a hard time accepting that we make mistakes and let our perfectionist mindset take over.
Did you make a mistake? Fine, we all do. Learn to forgive yourself. Errors can be corrected. Mistakes are not a final destination but a stop that prepares us for the journey. We must learn from them and continue moving forward.
4. Don’t let your problems define you
When we get so stuck in a problem, it becomes hard to separate the event from who we are. According to Eckhart Tolle, we also create and maintain problems because they give us a sense of identity.
Your stories shape you but don’t define your identity. Don’t let a bitter experience become who you are. Letting go of a past story makes space for new ones. Focus on the here and now and become at peace with yourself.
5. Build a Teflon mind
All our struggles stem from attachment. We are so in love with someone that we can’t separate the ‘me’ from the ‘we.’ We are so passionate about our careers that we let our job titles define our identity.
There’s nothing wrong with loving someone or our jobs. The problem is when we are so attached to them that the fear of losing them doesn’t allow us to enjoy them today.
Ajahn Brahm explains the idea of “Teflon Mind” in this humorous and inspirational talk. The British-Australian Buddhist monk advises that the best way to let go of something that hurts is not to let it stick first.
Letting go of the past is not forgetting what happened, but to let go of our expectations. We don’t suffer because a relationship ended. We suffer because we wanted it to last forever.
Instead of letting broken expectations get stuck in your mind, honor the positive experiences– both past and present.
Let go of attachment
Most people can’t let go of the past because they don’t appreciate their present. Reframing our relationship with our past requires us to stop thinking of how things should be and accept them for what they are.
As Dalai Lama said, “Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering.”
Letting go of the past doesn’t mean that things weren’t good while they lasted. It’s about remembering the good moments instead of allowing an unhappy ending cloud the whole experience.
Want to let go of the past? Start by appreciating what you have here and now: your present.
How to Find Freedom from Your Past and let go of past hurts with Mindfulness
The past can often bring up painful memories and difficult emotions which can affect our future and our entire life. Letting of the past can be very challenging mostly because of unresolved issues. However, remembering the past is not what causes us pain & suffering and ties us to different negative thoughts & emotions.
It is our inability to detach from the attachment to that past which keeps us from finding freedom and happiness. Mindfulness can help us learn how to let go of the past hurts, the past and the attachments related to it by bringing our focus to the present moment and appreciating what we have right now.
“No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free.” – Buddha
Many of us have painful memories that we would rather forget—a difficult childhood, painful relationship, or traumatic event. We usually find ways to avoid thinking about them, so we don’t relive the painful emotions.
The reason they continue to cause us pain and suffering is that they remain unresolved. They fester in our subconscious mind, and manifest themselves daily in our attitudes and actions, and therefore, our relationships.
At the same time, we want to live happy and fulfilling lives. However, as long as these issues remain unresolved, we will never find freedom from our suffering, or realize the peace and happiness we’re searching for.
Here we’re going to look at how the mindfulness practice can help you overcome your painful past. But first we’ll discuss some of the sources of our painful memories, things we do to avoid them, and their cost.
Sources of Painful Memories
“Be careful who you make memories with. Those things can last a lifetime.” – Ugo Eze
There are various sources of painful memories. The main ones are our relationships with our parents, romantic relationships, and traumatic events.
Many of us have strained relationships with our parents. We often feel like they didn’t give us some of the things we needed, such as love, attention, or financial support. Maybe they were neglectful, or even abusive. Whatever the case, we carry many of these painful childhood memories through much of our lives.
If we didn’t have good relationships with our parents, then chances are that our romantic relationships didn’t go much better. If our parents don’t teach us how to have healthy relationships, then we simply bring our lack of coping skills into all our subsequent relationships.
When we don’t get what we feel we need from our parents, we tend to expect those things from our partner. Sometimes we place unreasonable expectations on our partner, which are difficult for him/her to meet. This is where the power struggle begins.
Some of us may have experienced a traumatic event that we never fully dealt with. Some examples are verbal and physical abuse, sexual abuse, or even an accident. These can have long-lasting effects, especially if we haven’t sought professional help, or developed good coping skills.
Things We Do to Avoid Painful Memories
“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you’ll find an edge to cut you.” – Mark Lawrence
It’s natural for us to want to avoid painful memories, especially if we haven’t yet learned how to deal with them. In such cases, we may feel powerless to do anything about them.
If someone else is the cause of our pain and suffering, then we may expect them to rectify the situation. But this is usually unrealistic. The person responsible may be far removed from our lives by time, distance, or their passing. They may also be unwilling.
When we don’t know how to deal with painful memories, we develop defense mechanisms to help us avoid the feelings associated with them. This usually involves trying to avoid thinking about those memories.
You don’t have to forgive to let go and move on
You know what it’s like.
You’re hanging on to old hurts, grievances, slights, disloyalties, and more. A piece of music, a scent, a randomly spoken word, and you immediately replay the offense in full color and Dolby sound.
Like a cow chewing its cud, you savor thoughts of revenge while you wait for karma to take its pound of flesh.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Being hurt by someone, particularly someone you love and trust, can cause anger, sadness and confusion. If you dwell on hurtful events or situations, grudges filled with resentment, vengeance and hostility can take root. If you allow negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you might find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice.”¹
We become hoarders of painful, toxic memories. Too much hoarding makes life bitter and brittle with little hope for happiness and too much risk for psychological problems.
Research in many areas is showing that hanging on to bad memories contributes to depression and other mental health problems. It impairs your ability to cope with events in the present.
Rumination on discrepancies following negative events may persist if it focuses on the causes and/or consequences of those events or on the distress/negative affect associated with stressful events, rather than on actions aimed to resolve the discrepancies…. Moreover, results indicate that rumination is an important psychological mechanism linking perceived stress exposure to symptoms of depression and anxiety.²
There comes a time when you have to let go or be buried under the accumulated muck.
Even if you’re not ready to forgive, you can let go enough of the memory to remove the sting.
“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.” Jack Kornfield
Neuro-lingustic programming (NLP) can help change how you represent memories to yourself and either enhance the memory or defuse its impact. One way is to change sub-modalities —the different ways we see the world.³
When you remember something, you either see it, hear something, or feel something, or a combination. Let’s start with seeing.
Think of a negative memory. How does it appear to you? Is it large or small? Near or farther away? Black and white or full-color? Now, manipulate it.
If it’s large, shrink it. Full color? Turn it black and white. Close up? Move it away from you. Add static. Keep playing with it until it becomes a dot in space, then just poof it out of existence.
I used this technique with an extremely painful memory that resulted in tears whenever I thought of it. Now, it’s just a past event with no emotional impact.
If you are auditory, notice the volume and words, then turn them down as if you were lowering the volume on your phone. Maybe add static or ocean waves or another white noise. Use anything to drown it out.
Sometimes if I also have an image of the speaker. I turn the image into a long-neck chicken and the words into cackling and clucking sounds.
For kinesthetic people, identify where the feelings are in your body. A tightness in your stomach like a knotted rope? Imagine the knots unraveling. A lump in the throat that makes it hard to swallow and breathe? Imagine it shrinking, getting smaller and smaller, until you can take a deep breath.
However the memory appears to you, change it to lessen it’s impact.
Dwelling in the past robs you of the present moment, which is the only place where you are fully alive. While we may live metaphysically in a multiverse, our physical bodies and emotions reside in the now.
Pay attention to your moods
Are you in the dumps? What are you thinking that put you there?
By becoming aware of mood-triggering thoughts, you can immediately call a halt. Stop the thought and switch to something that elevates your mood. The less attention you focus on the bad memory, the easier it is to stop ruminating about it.
Refuse to get sucked into rumination
When negative memories are triggered, or if you catch yourself dwelling in the past, turn your attention to the present. Just focus on your breathing. That’s all you have to do.
Your breathe is the quintessential present moment. In. Out. Over and over. Notice how your stress dissipates, and your muscles relax. In. Out.
Don’t trust the memory to be accurate
According to Ken Eisold Ph.D.:
“…Neuroscientists have shown that each time we remember something, we are reconstructing the event, reassembling it from traces throughout the brain. Psychologists have pointed out that we also suppress memories that are painful or damaging to self-esteem. We could say that, as a result, memory is unreliable. We could also say it is adaptive, reshaping itself to accommodate the new situations we find ourselves facing. Either way, we have to face the fact that it is ‘flexible.’⁴
Challenge the accuracy of the memory by checking with someone else who was there to discover what they remember. I have done this with my sister. We grew up together in the same household, yet my memories of an event or situation often are very different from hers.
If there’s no one to check with, ask yourself if the memory is helpful or hurtful? If hurtful, try the NLP process to change the modalities.
You also can just stop believing it.
Yes, you can just stop believing in something.
Beliefs are merely strongly held opinions. Opinions can be changed.
Did you once believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or the monster that lived in your closet, waiting to crawl out as soon as your parents turned out the light? Do you still believe? Probably not.
When you realize that a belief no longer serves you, it’s easy to let it go.
Just stop believing in the memory.
“We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” Marianne Williamson
By Vanessa Rose | January 19, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment
If you find that the breakdown of former relationships keeps you in a cycle of not trusting others and not seeking out enjoyment, you might be wondering how to let go of past hurts. Processing old wounds and releasing them can free us up to be more present in the future. It can also help us find some hope for what could be in our future. Don’t let old pain keep you from living the life you deserve now.
How to Let Go of Past Hurts
Learning how to let go of past hurts can, of course, stir up old wounds. In fact, the reason you’ve been carrying the hurt with you for so long is that you’ve struggled to work with them. Until now. Here are 5 steps to letting go and moving forward.
1) Choose
You can’t take any steps toward the future unless you choose to. You must make a conscious decision to act from a different place in order to achieve different results. You might be struggling with this part, desiring to feel better but not quite finding the readiness needed to do the letting go. Clearing up ambivalence here will be the key to success. Consider working with a life coach who can help you discover what’s holding you back. YesGurus can connect you with a coach who understands the nuances of what you’re facing.
2) Take Inventory
Take stock of what your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors have been in direct response to this pain. Recognize where you’ve ignored your pain in order to conform to the world around you or survive the discomfort of it. Avoid judgment, as you were doing what you needed to in order to survive. But become aware of the nature of your emotions. It can also be helpful to understand your responsibility in it all, be it how you contributed to the situation or how you can manage to correct it moving forward. YesGurus curates a library of inspiring self-help content which can be helpful to you during this time of self-exploration.
3) Avoid Blaming Others
Letting go of the past can be difficult, in part because it feels good to blame others and focus on what’s already happened. It gets us off the hook and gives us an excuse to express anger and disappointment. And while your situation may very well have been influenced by another, it does you no good to continue to blame. Moving forward requires that you embrace the power of letting go, take charge now, and focus on what’s in your control, not what has already come and gone.
4) Stay Mindful
Bringing awareness to negative emotions sounds counterproductive, but if you consider that your negative emotions are around and in charge, whether or not you notice them, you might start to see the value in noticing. If you’re holding onto hurt, it doesn’t matter if you recognize your emotional pain or not; you’ll be feeling it. But if you take the effort to become mindful and acknowledge your feelings, you might find that they dim a bit. Perhaps these emotions just needed your attention and for you to understand the gravity of the situation and accept it as it is.
5) Explore Forgiveness
It’s easier said than done to let go and move on. Many people don’t want to forgive because they don’t believe others might be worthy of forgiveness. But the truth is forgiveness is less about them than it is about you. Forgiveness is the act of letting go and allowing yourself to be moved by an experience but not spending your days lamenting it.
If you’re ready to start living in your present power, let YesGurus connect you with a coach today!
Author: Vanessa Rose
Vanessa is a psychotherapist and writer who enjoys wandering aimlessly around Los Angeles in her free time. With a background in business, she embraces how structure and goals can significantly support the journey into the wild west of psychological exploration. Always curious about self-improvement and emotional expansion, Vanessa also manages her own website which explores the unconscious motivations of eating disorders in women.
One of the tricks to getting the love you want and connecting with the people in your life in a deeper way is to let go of past hurts.
These past hurts that you carry around can show up in a couple of different ways…
1. Guilt
Looking back, there are now things you wished you hadn’t done that caused a great deal of pain for others–or maybe things you wished you had done that you didn’t do. Somehow you think that by carrying around this guilt, you’ll be making up for what was done or not done.
2. Resentment
Someone did something to you that caused pain and somehow you believe that if you let go of that pain, you’ll be condoning what was done and pardoning the other person.
So you hang onto pain and most of the time it isn’t even a conscious decision to do it.
Letting go of past hurts seems much easier said than done but here are a few questions for you…
*How much of your life is being driven by the pain of the past?
*How often do you hold back and not go for what you want because of something that happened in your past?
*How often or how much of the time do you hold back because of a decision you made in the past about how “people are” or how “things are” that may not be true in every situation?
If you’re like most people (including us), you’re probably holding onto the past way more than you might think.
And this is one of the biggest challenges that keeps you from having close, loving relationships and many of the other things you want in your life as well.
Holding onto the past almost always stems from a very specific thoughts you’ve had…
-About how you do or don’t ever want to experience a certain situation from your past EVER again or…
-About what ever happened shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Very often this was something that happened in a split second, a moment in time, that you found to be painful. That hurt you.
It was something that was painful enough that you made a decision based on that thought you’re believing about that situation that turns into a “strategy” that you live your life from.
It’s a strategy for staying safe and making sure you’re never hurt like that again. Ever.
Let’s say you’ve made some “bad” choices in choosing a partner in the past and when you finally meet someone who seems like a nice person, you hold yourself back.
It may not even be conscious but you think…
“I’ll just keep up some walls so that I can’t be hurt again like I was before and those walls will keep me safe.”
Or “I don’t trust in this good feeling and am just waiting for something ‘bad’ to happen–again.”
Another example might be holding onto something your partner or family member did in the past and every time you think of if, you get angry and push that person away. Holidays are filled with stress and anxiety because you’ll have to see that person again or spend time with him or her.
While those are “normal” thoughts to have when you’ve been hurt in the past, you don’t have to keep holding onto them…
Because the truth is that holding on to the past is really impossible.
It’s the constant reliving of the memory of the past event that keeps the pain alive and not the event itself that happened.
What people don’t understand is they mistakenly take events that were painful in the past and bring them into the present moment, reliving them over and over again in their minds–creating a lot of anxiety.
This reliving of the past doesn’t allow anyone to get close to them enough to hurt them in the future–or so they think.
So how do you let go of past hurts so you can allow and enjoy more love and connection?
You can see a few things for yourself…
1. Your thoughts come and go and while you may not have a choice in what thoughts come, you do have free will which ones you’ll pay attention to.
2. You can see that hanging onto your thoughts of past pain doesn’t prevent pain–it only keeps you in a constant stressful state.
3. You can see the illusion of the idea that holding onto past hurts will keep you safe. It only keeps you stuck in misery.
4. You can see that when fears come up, they will pass if you allow them to and not act on them.
5. You can start to notice that sometimes you’re in a better mood and not focusing on the past and sometimes you’re in a low mood and the past overwhelms you.
When you see that the low moods come and go if you allow yourself to settle down and not work yourself into an emotional frenzy, you won’t get so caught up in them.
You can see some light and where there’s an opening of light, there’s love and connection–with yourself and with others.
When you can allow more and more light in, there’ll be more ease and life will just be full of more happiness.
How to Let Go of Past Hurts
- Post author:Wil Dieck
- Post published: November 22, 2018
- Post category:Get over regret / mindfulness
Do you find it hard to let go of past hurts? You are not alone. Many people find it hard to let go of their negative past events.
Everyone has things in their past that have hurt them. Everyone has done things they’re not proud of. Everyone has negative stuff in their past.
But if you don’t let it go, your past can drive you into the “could have” – “would have” mode. You know, the place where you constantly think about a situation and wonder how things might have been different. How if you would’ve just done that one thing or if you could’ve done it over, how much better your life would be.
But, here’s the real deal.
Wishing things were different isn’t going to change a thing. The past is, well, past. But there are things you can do to let go of past hurts and start living the type of life you deserve to live.
Stop Letting the Past Hold You in Place
Here’s the thing about the past. No matter how hard you try, you can’t change it.
What can you change? The things you do right now,
You can use today to make better memories and create a brighter future. Let’s take a quick look at three things you can do, right now, to let go of past hurts and start living the life you want to live.
Change Your Frame
There are two frames or lenses you can choose to view your life from.
The first is the problem frame. This is where you decide to focus on the problem, the things that get in the way of what you want.
For example, you would like to get into better shape, but you just can’t find the time to work out. There’s also no way you could find time to cook the meals that are healthy for you.
There’s just not enough time to handle all the things you need to do right now and get in shape too.
There’s another term for the problem frame. It’s the blame frame. This is where you blame someone or something outside of yourself for what’s happening to you.
In the example above, you are blaming your lack of time for not being able to get into better shape. This supposes that people who do find the time to work out have a magical clock that gives them more time.
By the way, if you find that clock let me know where I can find it.
But there’s another, more useful frame. This is the outcome frame. This is the lens that focuses on the outcome you desire.
In our example, you focus on the idea that you want to get into better shape. This gets your mind thinking about how you can accomplish the things you want to achieve. In this case, how you can you carve out 15 minutes a day to walk and 30 minutes three time during the week to exercise.
Practice Being Present
Another reason people find it hard to let go of past hurts is they let their minds constantly drift back to negative past events. Instead, do something that pulls you into the present. Practice mindfulness.
An easy way to begin practicing mindfulness is to schedule 5 to 10 minutes once or twice a day to stop what you’re doing and simply focus on your breathing. You can find more information about this in the article about deep breathing on this website.
Not only will deep breathing pull you into the present, it will help you feel refreshed, giving you the energy you need to get done what needs to be done.
Look for the Good in Your Life
The last tip is to focus on the good things in your life. Most people forget to look for the good that comes into their lives. Make it a priority to seek joy in the daily things that come your way.
It’s Not Possible to Change our Past, but it is Possible to Live for Today.
That’s something to remind yourself of each day. Why live with regret and conflict when there’s joy and beauty all around?
The Tao Te Ching says, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.”
You can let go of past hurts and live in the light of peace and joy.
Focus on the things you want, practice being in the present and look for the good in your life. If you do these three things every day, you will make life better for you and all the people you meet.
When you let go of past hurts, you’re able to change your outlook and focus on life’s brighter things.
Now, you’ll be living the life you really want to live.
Though hurt is an unfortunate part of life, the events of the past don’t have to ruin your present.
Figure Out What’s Bothering You In the Present
The past has, by its very definition, passed. Realize that, due to the fact that whatever is bothering you over, the only way it can still hurt you is through the emotions it’s bringing up in the present. That said, rather than continuing to replay the incident that hurt you in your head, begin to focus on how to deal with the emotions that it’s causing you to feel in the here and now.
Try to pin down why exactly these emotions keep coming up. Is it because you haven’t given yourself permission to feel them and let them go? Or perhaps because you’re afraid that if you allow yourself to move on that you’ll be in danger of being hurt again? Below you’ll find some ways to help yourself identify why you’re still feeling the pain of the past, as well as some helpful tools you can use to begin to work through it.
Allow Yourself To Experience Your Emotions
One of the reasons you may find yourself having problems letting go of the hurt surrounding a past event is that you haven’t given yourself permission to truly experience the emotions it caused. In a world where we’re told to put on a brave face, it can be tempting to shove down our feelings, as if into a box we carry deep inside. The only problem is that not only does that box inevitably start to leak, it can also eventually explode.
If you haven’t really allowed yourself a chance to feel your emotions, set aside some quiet time to do so. As scary as it may seem, allow yourself feel whatever you need to feel, cry if you need to, and begin the process of letting go. Some tools that can help you through this process include things like guided meditation or journaling.
Guided Meditation
If you’re having trouble letting go of the past on your own, guided meditations are a great way to allow yourself to be lead through the process. Check out some of the great meditations like the ones below which are available for free on YouTube.
Write It Out
Sometimes thoughts keep replaying in our heads simply because they have no other place to go. Rather than allowing them to continue haunting you all day long, set aside a time each day when you let yourself sit down and write out at least three pages of whatever happens to be in your head at the moment.
This can take the form of anything from a letter to the person who hurt you, even if you never intend to send it, to shameless ranting. Whatever’s bothering you, get it out and onto the page. Then resolve to let the thoughts surrounding the past go until the next day, when you can repeat the writing exercise for as many days as you need too. You’ll be amazed at how this simple exercise will begin to release the hold that your emotions have on you over time.
Notice Any Negative Beliefs You Hold About Letting Go
Try to look for any negative beliefs you may be holding onto that are keeping you from letting go of the past. Some common beliefs include ideas like:
- “I’m justified in hanging onto my anger because I was the one who was hurt.”
- “I need an apology in order to move on.”
- “If I move on, it’ll be like agreeing that whatever happen to me was okay.”
- “It’s someone else’s responsibility to heal me.”
- “If I let go, I’ll just open myself up to the same thing happening again.”
Once you identify any of these thoughts that may be lurking in the back of your mind, the next step is to realize that they are false. At the end of the day, the only thing holding onto resentment is actually doing is allowing the person who hurt you to continue to do so. As an old saying goes, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Hanging onto hurt from the past isn’t affecting anyone’s life but your own and purely in a negative way.
Look for the Lesson
Rather than attempting to use the pain of the past like armor against future hurts, decide instead to learn from it. By finding your own part in whatever transpired, you’ll be able to take back your power and prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. Though you couldn’t control the behavior of the person who hurt you, what could you learn from your own part in the situation?
Where you being unreasonable, selfish, or dishonest? If so. perhaps by offering an apology for your own part in the disagreement you’ll be surprised to find the other person willing offer one of their own.
Or perhaps you’ll find that although the other person was mostly at fault, you can still take back your power by learning from your response to the situation. Did you allow their unjust opinion of you influence your opinion of yourself? Where you too quick to trust even though the signs pointed to it being unwarranted? Or are you merely expecting an apology from someone who may not be emotionally mature enough to realize that they owe you one?
Be Grateful
Sometimes the best way to let go of being victimized by someone else’s unjust actions is to be grateful that they’ve shown you how it feels to be on the receiving end of such behavior. Though positive role models are generally a lot more fun to deal with, we often learn just as much about the kind of people we want to be from the kind of people we don’t.
Wish The Person Who Hurt You The Best
Though no one has ever really been able to explain why, many self-help books swear that praying for the person who hurt you is one of the fastest ways to free yourself from resentment. Even if you feel that their behavior was completely insane, image how sick they may have been in order to be capable of feeling differently. What must it be like to live inside the head of someone who could do to you what this person has done? The more wronged you feel, the more quickly you may realize that the odds of person who hurt you being genuinely happy are probably pretty slim. Rather than allow their actions to haunt you, try feeling a little empathy for them and wishing them the best.
Know That Forgiving Doesn’t Always Mean Forgetting
Not that it necessarily means an excuse for vengeance either, but forgiving someone is not the same thing as allowing them to continue to hurt you in the future. Know that forgiveness is about your happiness and ability to focus on the future, not about giving someone a free pass for inexcusable behavior. It may be that you need to distance yourself from the person in question, set boundaries, or take some time to allow them to regain your trust. Just know that hanging onto anger is not at all a prerequisite for doing any of these things and does nothing but make you miserable.
Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help
While hopefully some of the above suggestions will be able to help you move forward and let go of the past, don’t be afraid to seek out help if you’re afraid that it isn’t something you’ll be able to do alone. Whether it be a friend, a therapist, or a support group, talking to others can go a long way as far as providing you with perspective and support.
People who hold on to these past hurts often relive the pain over and over in their minds. Sometimes a person can even get “stuck” in this pain, in this hurt, in this blame.
5 Ways to Let Go of Past Hurts
The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make space for it. If your heart is filled full-up with pain and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
1. Make the decision to let it go.
Things don’t disappear on their own. You need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the conscious decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person (after you finish step 2 below). This is empowering to most people, knowing that it is their choice to either hold on to the pain, or to live a future life without it.
2. Express your pain — and your responsibility.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, whether it’s directly to the other person, or through just getting it out of your system (like venting to a friend, or writing in a journal, or writing a letter you never send to the other person). Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what — specifically — your hurt is about.
We don’t live in a world of black and whites, even when sometimes it feels like we do. While you may not have had the same amount of responsibility for the hurt you experienced, there may have been a small part of the hurt that you are also partially responsible for. What could you have done differently next time? Are you an active participant in your own life, or simply a hopeless victim? Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that??
3. Stop being the victim and blaming others.
Being the victim feels good — it’s like being on the winning team of you against the world. But guess what? The world largely doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you’re special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse with “your feelings matter” to “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice — to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you — in the past — have such power, right here, right now?
No amount of rumination of analyses have ever fixed a relationship problem. Never. Not in the entirety of the world’s history. So why choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to a person who you feel has wronged you?
4. Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy.
Now it’s time to let go. Let go of the past, and stop reliving it. Stop telling yourself that story where the protagonist — you — is forever the victim of this other person’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you focus on the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the past memories creep into your consciousness (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a conscious cue, such as saying to yourself, “It’s alright. That was the past, and now I’m focused on my own happiness and doing _______________.”
Remember, if we crowd our brains — and lives — with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you’re making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy back into your life.
5. Forgive them — and yourself.
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”
Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting something go. It’s also a way of empathizing with the other person, and trying to see things from their point of view.
And forgiving yourself may be an important part of this step as well, as sometimes we may end up blaming ourselves for the situation or hurt. While we indeed may have had some part to play in the hurt (see step 2), there’s no reason you need to keep beating yourself up over it. If you can’t forgive yourself, how will you be able to live in future peace and happiness?
I know this stuff is hard and that it’s incredibly hard to let go of one’s pain — I’ve struggled with this myself. If we’ve held onto it for a long time, it feels like an old friend. Justified. It would be sacrilegious to let it go.
But nobody’s life should be defined by their pain. It’s not healthy, it adds to our stress, it hurts our ability to focus, study and work, and it impacts every other relationship we have (even the ones not directly affected by the hurt). Every day you choose to hold on to the pain is another day everybody around you has to live with that decision. And feel its consequences.
So do everybody — and yourself — a big favor: Let go of the pain. Do something different today and welcome happiness back into your life.
Let the healing begin, letting go, forgiving others and most of all forgive yourself.
Unforgiveness can destroy you, and also we are so hard on ourselves. Forgive yourself, and you can fly again.
The hardest part is forgiving oneself, realizing you were again taken advantage of. It takes time but it will eventually come. Forgiving others is easy and it is burden lifted off your shoulder but forgetting will also take time.
Forgive your brain for letting your heart control your good senses about you.
You have to forgive your self but that cannot happen unless you relies what you have done first and instead of blaming someone else for your mistakes sad how many people cannot take responsibility because of their own ego.
There’s no sense in harbouring the past hurts, it only eats you up from the inside out and makes you bitter toward everyone. Live life as it comes not as it has gone.
It needs time to heal what they caused you, but even if how often you forgive them. They still keep on doing that to you, its better to draw the line. We have our limits as person.
It really begins to improve when you master forgiving yourself.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The wiser you become the more redirection is simplified.
Got Something to Say! Comment below :-
Are you going through Migraine, Stress, Anxiety, Grief, Phobia, Trauma, Addiction, Depression, Bad Anger, Dyslexia or any other mental issues?
Are you suffering Knee Pain, Sinus, Thyroid, Acidity, Digestion problem or any other disease?
But what you do with that hurt is probably more important than the hurt itself. Would you prefer to get back to being an active liver of life? Or do you prefer to ruminate endlessly about the past and something that cannot be changed?
In short, how do you let go of past hurts and move on? Let’s find out…
Blaming others for our hurt is what most of us start off doing. Somebody did something wrong, or they wronged us in some way that mattered to us. We want them to apologize. We want them to acknowledge what they did was wrong.
But blaming someone else for our hurt can backfire.
People who hold on to these past hurts often relive the pain over and over in their minds. Sometimes a person can even get “stuck” in this pain, in this hurt, in this blame.
5 Ways to Let Go of Past Hurts
The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make space for it. If your heart is filled full-up with pain and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
1. Make the decision to let it go.
Things don’t disappear on their own. You need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the conscious decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person (after you finish step 2 below). This is empowering to most people, knowing that it is their choice to either hold on to the pain, or to live a future life without it.
2. Express your pain — and your responsibility.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, whether it’s directly to the other person, or through just getting it out of your system (like venting to a friend, or writing in a journal, or writing a letter you never send to the other person). Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what — specifically — your hurt is about.
We don’t live in a world of black and whites, even when sometimes it feels like we do. While you may not have had the same amount of responsibility for the hurt you experienced, there may have been a small part of the hurt that you are also partially responsible for. What could you have done differently next time? Are you an active participant in your own life, or simply a hopeless victim? Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that??
3. Stop being the victim and blaming others.
Being the victim feels good — it’s like being on the winning team of you against the world. But guess what? The world largely doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you’re special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse with “your feelings matter” to “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice — to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you — in the past — have such power, right here, right now?
No amount of rumination of analyses have ever fixed a relationship problem. Never. Not in the entirety of the world’s history. So why choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to a person who you feel has wronged you?
4. Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy.
Now it’s time to let go. Let go of the past, and stop reliving it. Stop telling yourself that story where the protagonist — you — is forever the victim of this other person’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you focus on the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the past memories creep into your consciousness (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a conscious cue, such as saying to yourself, “It’s alright. That was the past, and now I’m focused on my own happiness and doing _______________.”
Remember, if we crowd our brains — and lives — with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you’re making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy back into your life.
5. Forgive them — and yourself.
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”
Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting something go. It’s also a way of empathizing with the other person, and trying to see things from their point of view.
And forgiving yourself may be an important part of this step as well, as sometimes we may end up blaming ourselves for the situation or hurt. While we indeed may have had some part to play in the hurt (see step 2), there’s no reason you need to keep beating yourself up over it. If you can’t forgive yourself, how will you be able to live in future peace and happiness?
I know this stuff is hard and that it’s incredibly hard to let go of one’s pain — I’ve struggled with this myself. If we’ve held onto it for a long time, it feels like an old friend. Justified. It would be sacrilegious to let it go.
But nobody’s life should be defined by their pain. It’s not healthy, it adds to our stress, it hurts our ability to focus, study and work, and it impacts every other relationship we have (even the ones not directly affected by the hurt). Every day you choose to hold on to the pain is another day everybody around you has to live with that decision. And feel its consequences.
So do everybody — and yourself — a big favor: Let go of the pain. Do something different today and welcome happiness back into your life.
The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make space for it. If your heart is filled full-up with pain and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
1. Make the decision to let it go.
Things don’t disappear on their own. You need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person (after you finish step 2 below).
2. Express your pain — and your responsibility.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, whether it’s directly to the other person, or through just getting it out of your system (like venting to a friend, or writing in a journal, or writing a letter you never send to the other person). Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what — specifically — your hurt is about.
We don’t live in a world of black and whites, even when sometimes it feels like we do. While you may not have had the same amount of responsibility for the hurt you experienced, there may have been a part of the hurt that you are also partially responsible for. What could you have done differently next time? Are you an active participant in your own life, or simply a hopeless victim? Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that??
3. Stop being the victim and blaming others.
Being the victim feels good — it’s like being on the winning team of you against the world. But guess what? The world largely doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you’re special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse with “your feelings matter” to “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice — to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you— in the past — have such power, right here, right now?
No amount of rumination of analyses have ever fixed a relationship problem. Never. Not in the entirety of the world’s history. So why choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to a person who you feel has wronged you?
4. Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy.
Now it’s time to let go. Let go of the past, and stop reliving it. Stop telling yourself that story where the protagonist — you — is forever the victim of this other person’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you focus on the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the past memories creep into your consciousness (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a conscious cue, such as saying to yourself, “It’s alright. That was the past, and now I’m focused on my own happiness and doing _______________.”
Remember, if we crowd our brains — and lives — with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you’re making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy back into your life.
5. Forgive them — and yourself.
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”
Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting something go. It’s also a way of empathizing with the other person, and trying to see things from their point of view.
And forgiving yourself may be an important part of this step as well, as sometimes we may end up blaming ourselves for the situation or hurt. While we indeed may have had some part to play in the hurt (see step 2), there’s no reason you need to keep beating yourself up over it. If you can’t forgive yourself, how will you be able to live in future peace and happiness?
Sometimes, no matter how much we try to avoid it, life hurts us. The very nature of being human is to feel, to experience life, and with that comes the ebb and flow of pleasure and pain.
The pain we experience in life can come in many forms and from many avenues. Often however, it isn’t the actual pain that ends up hurting us the most in life, but rather our insistence on holding onto that pain.
How often in life when we perceive that someone has hurt us do we ruminate over the things they did or said? How much do we like to blame and shame them, all the while wasting our precious energy on thinking about the past? It is almost as if we feel as though we are punishing that person by thinking nasty, negative thoughts about them or by choosing to hold onto what happened. But in truth we know that we are hurting ourselves in this process. The past is dead. Thinking about it will not change it.
So how can move on after life hurts us or gets us down?
1- Accept that you are hurt.
This may seem obvious but in fact most people avoid pain at all costs. If you can truly embrace your pain and accept that it exists, only then do you have the opportunity to let it go.
2- Release your feelings.
This part is another step of moving on from pain that we tend to avoid. As if accepting the pain isn’t enough, now I have to feel it?! YUCK.
Feeling where you are at and letting it out either to a counsellor or even a friend is a very healthy and necessary part of healing your wounds. If you aren’t much of a talker, you can release your feelings into exercise or even art. There is no right way, only your way. The important part is that you do it.
3- Live in the present moment.
Nothing from the past has the power to hurt you unless you choose to let it. If you have a hard time being present in your life, try starting a meditation practice or even do some yoga. Yoga brings the breath back to the body and the breath is the anchor to presence.
4 – Forgive, but keep the lesson.
Another reason we hold onto our past is that we convince ourselves that if we move on then we will forget about hat happened and make the same mistake again. Decide now to trust that you won’t. Make a note somewhere safe like a journal, and record the lesson or lessons that have come from your painful experience. Then close the book and move on with your life.
Life is too short to hold on to past hurt. None of us know when our time is up and there is so much beauty in the world that will be missed if you keep living in the past.
Let Go And Move On From Past Hurts
Let go and move on already! That is what I used to hear from family and friends. Easier said than done, letting go and moving on from past hurts can be a daunting task for most.
More frequently than I would like to admit, I caught myself looking back, thinking about Brownie. My three years old chocolate lab that passed in 2016.
He was born with a few rare health issues, and I promised him a long, happy life. Brownie was a fighter, and I was his mommy always beside him fighting the same battle.
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The Pain Of Losing A Loved One
The first day I brought my puppy home, he already had me wrapped around his paw.
I left no stone unturned to keep Brownie alive still, to this day, I carry this guilt that keeps me going back to the events that led to his passing.
Letting go and moving on became extremely hard, with so many questions lingering around.
Brownie was doing so well and had been stable for a while. I was so hopeful, so you can imagine my shock when it all happened. He fought like a champ and didn’t deserve to leave us, LEAVE ME!
His journey came to an end, and I was not prepared for that. It was too definitive. It felt like the world was caving in on me.
My heart was broken in a million pieces. I was paralyzed in pain and sorrow, lost not knowing how to let go and move on from there.
Holding On To The Past
Desperately, we hold onto the past, trying to go back to that special moment and keep it alive, not letting it go. Moving on becomes impossible.
We go over and over in what happened, looking for ways we could have done things differently to change the outcome.
One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss, or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let it go.
What is past isn’t coming back. The only thing in our control is the present and the future.
What-ifs scenarios won’t do us any good because they are an illusion we create to escape reality. Why keep hurting ourselves like that?
Even if I could find out what exactly happened to Brownie, how does that change the fact he is no longer here?
There is nothing I can do to bring him back. It’s a hard truth I didn’t want to face it.
Make Peace With The Past
Fast forward to the present, I have two dogs, whom I love very much, and my daughter, who is my world.
Instead of digging into the past, I started to be grateful for the years we had together, and the amazing people Brownie brought into my life.
By accepting what cannot be unchanged, I made amendments with the past. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss my boy, just now I’m at peace.
It’s essential to let go of the experience that has caused you pain and suffering to move on to a happier life.
The day you stop looking back, you’re gonna find that the future sure beats the hell outta the past!
Knowing the certainty of the past is comforting, and that is why so many people cling to it. There are no surprises when you remain on familiar grounds. Change is hard!
Allow Yourself To Feel The Pain
The future is full of possibilities, and one must be brave to leave what feels safe to embrace the unknown .
Acknowledge what is holding you back. Is it a relationship? A friend? A loved one that is no longer around? A family member? A situation?
Feel the pain and grieve if that is the case. Be kind to yourself and give time to heal. But at one point, you need to get over it so you can let go and move on with your life.
Be careful not to turn yourself into a victim. People will sympathize with what you are going through for a certain time. After a while, no one will care as the world keeps spinning.
If you feel trapped in this situation, seek help. Don’t allow this to go on indefinitely. Understand the pain might always be there, but you can still move on and be happy again.
Forgiveness Is Key To Letting Go and Moving On
Forgive people that did you wrong so you can let them go. Most importantly, forgive yourself.
It takes a lot of energy to keep negative thoughts inside towards someone else. It’s draining and counterproductive as it can affect our body and mind.
Letting go and moving on! Isn’t what we all want? Forgiveness is the key to free ourselves from all the pain and hurt, so we can then turn the page and start fresh.
Be Vigilant Of Your Thoughts!
Coming to terms with our past will give us a new perspective on the future.
Think about how far you have come and where you are heading. The rest of your whole life is waiting for you with open arms. Embrace it!
Every day make a conscious choice of what you are going to allow to permeate into your mind. If the negative emotions start coming up, take a deep breath, acknowledge it, rephrase it substituting the negative with something positive and CUT IT OFF!
This is what I sometimes catch myself feeling: I can’t believe Brownie is gone, it’s so unfair. What did I do wrong? I broke my promise to him.
And here is how I replace it with a positive: it was hard to lose him, BUT it brought Chase, a chocolate lab, into our family to join Julia and Molly.
I’m so fortunate to have an amazing daughter and dogs that bring so much enjoyment into my life.
Like magic, the self-pity feeling is gone, changed by gratitude for all I have.
Don’t feed into it. Overanalyzing what happened has never solved anyone’s problems nor cured a broken heart.
The following is an excerpt from an article called “5 Ways to Move On” by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
“We’ve all been hurt at some point in our lives. You essentially can’t be an adult or teen alive today that hasn’t experienced some kind of emotional pain.
What you do with that hurt is the difference between being an active participant of life, and letting things just happen to you freely.
Most of us have a tendency to blame others for our hurt. We want them to apologize to us, and admit what they did was wrong. The problem with doing this, is that if the individual who is being confronted denies the blame by saying things like “i didn’t hurt you” or “so what if i did”, then you are left with all this anger and hurt that has not been validated or acknowledged, and no solution.
That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t have any feelings to bring up. Your feelings are legitimate and you should feel them fully before moving on. However, there is a difference between acknowledging and feeling your emotions, and endlessly ruminating on them.
Step 1) Learn to let it go.
You need to make a commitment to yourself. Things don’t disappear on their own, and making this conscious acknowledgement to yourself, will help you to move forward in your own life. This means recognizing that you have a CHOICE to either hold on to the pain, or to live your life without it.
Step 2) Express your pain, and your responsibility.
There are countless healthy ways that you can express your pain. Whether its venting to a friend, exercising, or just journaling your thoughts, get it all out of your system. Doing so will help you understand what your pain is about. Ask yourself the important questions when faced with the pain.
- What could you have done differently next time?
- Are you in charge of your life or just a hopeless victim of it?
- Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that.
Step 3) Stop being the victim and blaming others.
It can feel good to blame all of our problems on the world. Yes you are special, and your feelings matter. However, it is important to recognize that your feelings don’t override all else, and nothing else matters. Your feelings are just a small part of the big picture. During that moment you have a choice. Those choices are, to either continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. By taking responsibility for your own happiness, you put all the power back into your own hands, instead of the hands of others.
Step 4) Focus on the present.
Being in the present is one of the best skills we as human beings have. When you focus on the here and now, you give less time for your mind to focus on the past. Sure thoughts of the past will come by every once in a while. And when they do, its okay to acknowledge them for a moment. After that, you can go back to doing what you were doing in the present. Some people have conscious cues that they use to help them with this. For example, when faced with a thought of the past, simply telling oneself “its okay, that was the past, and now i’m focusing on my happiness here and now” works great for some.
Step 5) Forgive them and yourself.
We don’t have to forget a person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everyone deserves our forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t saying “I agree with what you did”. It is saying “I don’t agree with what you did, but i’m going to forgive you anyway”. Forgiveness is a strong trait to have. It is a tangible way of letting something go. Forgiving yourself can also be important in this area. You owe it to yourself to find your own peace and happiness just as everyone else is doing.
Nobody’s life should be defined by pain. It isn’t healthy, it adds to our stress, and it hurts our ability to focus, study, and work. It even impacts every other relationship we have with other people who come into our lives, and are near and dear to us. Every day you choose to hold onto the pain, is another day everybody around you has to live with that decision. So do everybody and yourself a favor. Let go of the pain. Try something different today, and welcome happiness back into your life. “
Some years ago I carried around a lot of anger brought on after a person I trusted hurt me in a way I didn’t think possible.
It was a painful stage of my life, made more painful because I refused to let go of the hurt and the anger and consider what my life could have been like if I had not been wronged. I blamed this person for the life I didn’t have, and there was a sense of justification for the resentment I carried around.
The bitterness I had developed spewed forth in fits of rage that would overcome me. My inability to see reason had a perplexing affect on others in my life as they struggled to understand what was going on with me. Needless to say this self-sabotaging attitude had a huge impact on new relationships I tried forming.
Though I speak generally about the situation, it is not because I remain wrapped up in the hurt and anger. Truthfully, it is because I spent a long time working on myself and it wouldn’t be fair to that person or myself to write about the specifics.
We’ve all been hurt, and it hurts.
As much as I loved that person, it was but one moment in time and in the years that have followed I have freed myself of the hurt and opened myself up to new opportunities, including a new and healthy relationship.
In turn I have forgiven and moved on.
But some of the things I did with that hurt became arguably more important than the hurt itself.
How can you let go of the past hurts and move forward?
Psychologist John M Grohol suggests the only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make room for it, and he says this can be achieved in five steps.
- Make the decision to let the hurt go
- Express your pain — and your responsibility
- Stop being the victim and blaming others
- Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy
- Forgive them … and yourself.
It was actually quite difficult for me; completely letting go of the pain I had been feeling and forgiving that person. Forgiving myself was even harder. While I was pointing the finger I had completely overlooked my role in the circumstances. It was quite confronting when I had to face up to the part I had played in how unhappy my life had become.
I’m in a good place today.
The lessons I’ve learnt have had a broader application, able to be used on the day-to-day challenges. Consider how someone cutting in on a line at the supermarket gets you worked up, or how you feel when a family member doesn’t call you for your birthday, or even the impact of not being invited to a social engagement while all your other friends were.
Every time something like this happens I work my way through those five steps and it helps me to let it go.
We’ve all been hurt. You can’t be an adult or teen alive today who hasn’t experienced some kind of emotional pain.
It hurts. I get that.
But what you do with that hurt is probably more important than the hurt itself. Would you prefer to get back to being an active liver of life? Or would you prefer to ruminate endlessly about the past and something that cannot be changed?
Blaming others for our hurt is what most of us start off doing. Somebody did something wrong, or they wronged us in some way that mattered to us. We want them to apologize. We want them to acknowledge what they did was wrong.
The problem with blaming others is that it can often leave you powerless. For example, you confront the person (your boss, your spouse, your parent, your child), and they say, “No, I didn’t,” or worse, “So what if I did?”, then you’re left with all the anger and hurt but no resolution.
All your feelings are legitimate. It’s important to fully feel them, acknowledge them and then move on from them. People who hold on to past hurts often relive the pain over and over in their minds. Sometimes a person can even get “stuck” in this pain, in this hurt, in this blame.
The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make space for it. If your heart is filled with pain and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
You need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the conscious decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. You have a choice to stop reliving the past pain and to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person. This is empowering to most people, knowing that it is their choice to either hold on to the pain, or to live a future life without it.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, whether it’s directly to the other person, or through just getting it out of your system. Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what your hurt is specifically about.
We don’t live in a world of black and whites, even when sometimes it feels like we do. While you may not have had the same amount of responsibility for the hurt you experienced, there may have been a small part of the hurt that you are also partially responsible for. What can you do differently next time? Are you an active participant in your own life, or simply a hopeless victim? Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that?
Being the victim feels good. It is like being on the winning team of you against the world. But here is a reality check, the world at large doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you are special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse “your feelings matter” with “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you in the past have such power, right here, right now?
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviours, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
As we wrap up this month of May, I think it’s a good time to answer this questions that have bothered many hearts.
How can I forgive those who hurt me in the past?
Some of us were hurt in the early years of our lives and these childhood hurts can be difficult to let go because most of them come from the people you love the most- your immediate family members, aunties or uncles; people you see every day and still have to relate with. Worse still, some of them are never going to apologize because they don’t even know they hurt you, but you are still carrying the memory because it brought you much pain.
There is this story of a lady who her mother deprived of so many things when she was young because she (her mother) was promiscuous while growing up and feared her daughter would turn out the same way. She decided to do everything possible to stop her from towing that path.
She was a single mother who conceived her out of wedlock and was abandoned to cater for the child all by herself. She refused to allow her daughter associate with friends, and did some really weird things like not letting her plait her hair because she felt it would attract guys.
The worst part was that she circumcised her (Female genital mutilation) because she wanted to stifle all sexual desires that may come later in life. As though this was not enough, she told her horrible things about men which were born out of her own experiences and this left the young lady with a permanent hatred for the opposite sex.
Though the mother’s intentions seemed good, she went about it the wrong way and when her daughter got to know, she hated her mother and never wanted to have anything to do with her.
It took her years to detoxify her mind from the filthy things her mother filled them with. She struggled with letting go because she saw her mother as the reason she was still single at 37.
A time came when she realized she was doing more harm to herself than good and she decided to let go. She gave her heart to the Lord and forgave her mother.
She eventually regretted the years she spent nursing her grievances.
You can see that while some hurts can be outgrown or forgotten as we mature, others can cling so tight they retard our growth in life.
Though it’s not wrong to feel anger or hurt, it’s toxic to hold on to them and feed them with malice and rage. You need to let go to really live.
Some psychologists will tell you that the way your life turned out is as a result of the love you were denied while growing up thus putting the blame on your parents or the society. Even if this is true; it has happened. Pick up the pieces and move on; don’t cry over things you can’t change. The blame game will only leave you in circles that lead nowhere.
I observed that carrying hurts from one day into the next is extremely poisonous how much more carrying them from year to year or even from childhood into adulthood. It is so energy consuming that you will have to crawl through life.
I must also admit that letting go can be tough; sometimes our flesh enjoys holding the people who hurt us in its custody. It loves to be fed with feelings of revenge and hatred but this only leads to more pain.
You must realize that love doesn’t come naturally; the flesh is evil and selfish and know nothing of love. Even our ego fuels these ungodly passions and encourages us to lock up instead of allowing God to flow in with his love and grace.
I want to let you know that you can’t move forward while you are still carrying hurts from yesterday. It is time to let go so that you can enjoy the abundant life God has called you to live.
Whether it is a relationship that turned sour leaving you heartbroken or a friend that betrayed you or even a family member that hurt you, you can’t keep allowing them control your life.
Forgive everyone that has hurt you even if they don’t ask for forgiveness; go and make peace. That is what Jesus asks us to do and his tremendous power is available for anyone who dares to ask. He will heal your heart, wipe your tears, comfort you and restore all the years you have lost in the desert of anger.
Jesus will lavish you with so much love that will drown those scars and make you whole again. You will love again and hence live again, you will do good to those who despitefully use you and pray for them. This is what only Jesus can do through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Remember, people may still hurt you today; don’t allow it to pile up and become a foothold for the devil to hold on to and fill your life with anger tomorrow.
Finally, I pray the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard our hearts and mind in Christ Jesus and teach us to forgive even as we have been forgiven.
Don’t go into the next day with a pain from the previous day. No matter who hurt you, bring it to Jesus, he will heal you!
Have a splendid week and see you next month!
The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to make space for it. If your heart is filled full-up with pain and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
1. Make the decision to let it go.
Things don’t disappear on their own. You need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice up-front, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past hurt.
Making the decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think of the other person (after you finish step 2 below).
2. Express your pain — and your responsibility.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, whether it’s directly to the other person, or through just getting it out of your system (like venting to a friend, or writing in a journal, or writing a letter you never send to the other person). Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what — specifically — your hurt is about.
We don’t live in a world of black and whites, even when sometimes it feels like we do. While you may not have had the same amount of responsibility for the hurt you experienced, there may have been a part of the hurt that you are also partially responsible for. What could you have done differently next time? Are you an active participant in your own life, or simply a hopeless victim? Will you let your pain become your identity? Or are you someone deeper and more complex than that??
3. Stop being the victim and blaming others.
Being the victim feels good — it’s like being on the winning team of you against the world. But guess what? The world largely doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you’re special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse with “your feelings matter” to “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice — to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good. You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you — in the past — have such power, right here, right now?
No amount of rumination of analyses have ever fixed a relationship problem. Never. Not in the entirety of the world’s history. So why choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to a person who you feel has wronged you?
4. Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy.
Now it’s time to let go. Let go of the past, and stop reliving it. Stop telling yourself that story where the protagonist — you — is forever the victim of this other person’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you focus on the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the past memories creep into your consciousness (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a conscious cue, such as saying to yourself, “It’s alright. That was the past, and now I’m focused on my own happiness and doing _______________.”
Remember, if we crowd our brains — and lives — with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you’re making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy back into your life.
5. Forgive them — and yourself.
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”
Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting something go. It’s also a way of empathizing with the other person, and trying to see things from their point of view.
And forgiving yourself may be an important part of this step as well, as sometimes we may end up blaming ourselves for the situation or hurt. While we indeed may have had some part to play in the hurt (see step 2), there’s no reason you need to keep beating yourself up over it. If you can’t forgive yourself, how will you be able to live in future peace and happiness?
Editor’s Note: The following is a report on the practical applications of Pete Wilson’s new book, Let Hope In: 4 Choices That Will Change Your Life Forever (W Publishing, 2013).
Each new day of your life is a gift from God that He wants you to live fully. But if the pain you’ve suffered in your past is still impacting your life now, you can’t fully embrace the new life God offers you because you’ll be stuck in a frustrating cycle of brokenness that leaves you feeling hopeless.
The key to overcoming your past pain is making choices that invite God’s hope into your life. Here are some choices you can make to heal from your past and enjoy hope from now on:
Transform your pain instead of transferring it. If you don’t find ways to learn from your past pain, you’ll likely be doomed to repeat the mistakes you made in the past and transfer your pain to everyone with whom you interact – from your friends and family members to your coworkers and neighbors. So ask God to break the hold that your past has over you and show you what useful lessons you can learn from it so you can begin moving forward. God is much more powerful than your history, and when you trust Him, God will start to transform your pain into healing and wisdom in your life.
Leave shame behind. Silence the voice of shame in your life so it won’t block the healing that God wants to give you. Listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice telling you that God loves you completely and unconditionally, regardless of what has happened in your past. Even though God knows the worst about you, He wants to redeem you anyway. Let go of shame and accept God’s invitation to healing.
Overcome your regrets. Holding onto regrets from your past will only lead to more regrets unless you break the unhealthy cycle by releasing your regrets to God. Realize that it’s pointless to dwell on your regrets, since you can’t go back and change your past – all you can do is keep moving forward. Pray specifically about each of your regrets while envisioning Jesus on the Cross. Leave every one of your regrets at the foot of the Cross as a symbolic way of entrusting them to God’s power to redeem them for good purposes.
Confess that you’re not okay. Don’t waste any more time or energy pretending to be fine when you’re really hurting, lonely, confused, or frightened because of your past pain. If your pain was caused by some sin of yours in the past, confess that to God, repent from the sin, and ask Him to forgive you. If your pain was caused by someone else sinning against you, admit to God that you need to forgive the person who hurt you, and ask God to empower you to do so. Ask God and some fellow believers you can trust to help you start the healing process.
Pursue healing. Turn to the ultimate Healer, Jesus Christ, to help you heal. Seek Jesus’ guidance for every step of your healing journey, knowing that He specializes in taking what’s broken and restoring it to how it should be.
Embrace your past. Accept the reality of what happened in your past that has caused you pain, without denying it or minimizing its effect on your life. Let go of your desire to have life go the way you’d planned it. Surrender your past to God, so He will take it and use it for good purposes. Talk openly about your past with other people who are struggling with similar types of pain, if you sense God leading you to share what you’ve learned with them. Doing so can usher hope into their lives as well as your own.
Choose trusting God over pleasing God. Instead of trying to make up for your past failures by working hard with religious rituals you hope will please God, choose to trust God’s promise that He loves and accepts you unconditionally. Rather than trying to reach God through your own efforts, trust in His grace.
Accept God’s surprising gift of radical grace, and be graceful with others. Unlike the limited, strings-attached grace that other people (even those in church) offer you, God Himself wants to give you completely unconditional grace – grace you can count on, no matter what you’ve done in the past. That grace is surprising, yet real. God sees past your past sin when He looks at you; He focuses on the fact that you’re one of His beloved children. No matter how others may label you as a second-class person due to your past mistakes, God always sees you as a first-class person. Express your gratitude to God by following His command to forgive the people who have hurt you in the past – relying on God’s help to do so.
Discover the true meaning of God’s will for you. You can free yourself from the burden of worrying about aligning your decisions with God’s will when you realize that knowing God’s will is simple. God’s will isn’t about figuring out specific details about your circumstances, such as which job you should pursue or where you should live. Instead, God’s will is simply about giving your best effort to loving God and loving people in any circumstances. Recognize that God has given you the freedom to make your own decisions about specifics in your life, as long as you follow the basic principle of God’s will, which is to choose the most loving course of action while trusting God. Don’t worry that poor decisions you made in the past may have caused you to miss out on God’s will for your life. You can always get back in line with God’s will for your life when you trust God to redeem your mistakes and try to make loving decisions from now on.
Be grateful. Choose to be grateful for all the good gifts that God constantly pours into your life. The more you choose gratitude, the less power your painful past will have over you.
Overcome fear. You can move past your fear of the unknown and into a hopeful future when you ask the Holy Spirit to renew your mind each day. Then you’ll be able to approach any situation from a faithful perspective. Focus on God’s love, which drives out all fear, and you’ll experience more hope in your life.
Adapted from Let Hope In: 4 Choices That Will Change Your Life Forever, copyright 2013 by Pete Wilson. Published by W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tn.,
Pete Wilson is the founding and senior pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Pete desires to see churches become radically devoted to Christ, irrevocably committed to one another, and relentlessly dedicated to reaching those outside of God’s family. Pete and his wife, Brandi, have three boys. Visit his website at:
Whitney Hopler, who has served as a Crosswalk.com contributing writer for many years, is author of the new Christian novel Dream Factory, which is set during Hollywood’s golden age. Visit her website at: whitneyhopler.naiwe.com.
Publication date: October 25, 2013
It’s my first year in college. Over winter break I stayed with one of my high school mentors. We were discussing my plans for summer and she suggested I take some classes at a local community college. I rejected that idea only because I know a lot of former students from my high school planned to attend after graduation and I have no desire to see them, I had a really hard time in high school and was bullied a lot ( who wasn’t?). She said that I was stuck up and came off as arrogant and obnoxious. If this came from anyone else I probably would have shrugged this off but she is really important to me. I really look up to and admire this woman. If someone is important enough to me I take everything they say to heart and believe it to be true. I took what she said pretty hard. I began second guessing and over evaluating everything I did. Is what she said true? Is this why I have so few friends in college? I never brought this up to her because she can be really dismissive about my ideas and feelings. Back to the point. How do I get over this hurt? I still talk to her and as I said before she can be dismissive so I just pushed it down. Over spring and fall break I could get out of going to her place by travelling abroad through my university but for winter break her house is still my best option. I have the option of staying at my dorms during winter break but I think she might be offended if I did this. How do I let go of this past hurt so I can move on with the relationship?
