Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

2043

Abstract

tell you something, and you can’t move on until you acknowledge their existence in the first place.</p><p id="3e96">Allowing yourself to feel your feelings is as simple as laying down in your bed and monitoring your body. If you feel sad, where do you feel it? Do you feel it in your chest? Or do your arms and legs hurt? Explore these sensations — and as you do, watch what thoughts come up. These thoughts are what’s holding you back from closure.</p><h2 id="11ef">You need to contextualize your hurt</h2><p id="0531">Once you realize you’re hurt, you need to do the hard work of contextualizing that hurt. To contextualize your hurt means to look back into the past and see the situation with clear eyes. It means to recognize that if your parents abused you, if an ex manipulated you, or if a friend abandoned you, this says a lot more about them than it does you.</p><p id="57ee">Most people who find themselves haunted by the past are not contextualizing their hurt. They are clinging to it, using it as the building blocks for their entire life story. Some signs you are not contextualizing your past properly are:</p><ul><li>You allow these hurts to fuel beliefs about yourself such as “you are broken,” “you are damaged,” or “you are unlovable.”</li><li>No matter what you achieve in other areas of your life, it never seems to make up for the tragedy of your past</li><li>The present feels empty and meaningless, and the past feels somehow more real</li></ul><p id="7e01">If this is you, what you need to do is take a hard look at what happened and see it for what it is. If a few years ago you fell into the arms of a manipulative man, you need to accept that you did nothing to deserve his treatment. If a friend ghosted you, her absence says more about her weakness than your unworthiness.</p><p id="f5f9">Once you’ve properly contextualized your past, you’ll begin to feel a weight being lifted off your shoulders. Instead of seeing yourself as bad, unworthy, or unlovable, you’ll see yourself as just a regular person to whom s

Options

ome bad things have happened.</p><h2 id="1d54">You need to forgive those who hurt you</h2><p id="cc6b">To forgive doesn’t mean to forget, and it doesn’t mean ‘become friends with’ either. “To forgive,” in the American Heritage Dictionary, means “to renounce anger or resentment against.” If you want to make peace with your past, you need to renounce your anger against those who hurt you.</p><p id="8438">That may mean renouncing your anger against an ex who treated you poorly. It may mean renouncing your anger against your parents, who did a piss-poor job of raising you. It may mean renouncing your anger against yourself, for doing something stupid and getting yourself into a mess. Whatever it was, whoever it was, renounce your anger.</p><p id="dc24">Forgiveness has nothing to do with whether they see what they did wrong or whether they “deserve forgiveness.” Holding anger and hurt in our bodies doesn’t mean the hurt didn’t happen, and it doesn’t make those who hurt us any more sorry. All it does is hurt <i>us</i> even more.</p><p id="e2d7">And if you’re waiting until the other person sees the error of their ways to forgive… forget it. The simple fact of the matter is that a lot of people who hurt you are never going to feel sorry, especially the people who hurt you the most. Many people will feel churlish and be unwilling to apologize, think they did nothing wrong, or forget that whatever happened even took place at all. If you wait for people to do the personal development necessary for them to acknowledge your experience, you’ll be waiting forever. Simple as that.</p><p id="9ffc">The process of putting the past behind you is not linear. You may feel back to your regular self some days, only to find other days are stolen away by the weight of what’s happened. This is normal, and this is okay. Healing is an uncertain and uneven process — but if you stick with it, you will get there eventually. We all will.</p><h2 id="272a">If you want more stories like this, sign up for my weekly digest.</h2></article></body>

How To Make Peace With Your Past

Your trauma doesn’t have to hurt you forever

Peace with my past is something I’ve always desperately wanted, yet have always struggled to get. I have a tendency to carry every broken connection I’ve ever made with me, like lead weights strapped to my back.

Recently, I’ve been learning how to put those weights down for the first time, how to find some measure of peace with my past. This is what I’ve learned.

You need to admit that you’re hurt

It can be hard to admit that we’re hurt. Perhaps we feel admitting we’re hurt implies weakness on our part. Or we think feeling hurt this long after something happened means we have some kind of neurosis or instability.

The truth of the matter is that if you feel hurt, you feel hurt. Ignoring that pain won’t make it go away; it just means you won’t be able to control the effect it has on your life.

It is deceptively simple to identify if there is anything about which you still feel lingering pain.

When you’re at parties and sharing horror stories from the past with friends, do you feel compelled to share the story of how so-and-so hurt you?
Do you find yourself unable to trust and connect with people for reasons that are unclear, even to yourself?
When you think of your life story, do you define it by the moments you’ve been hurt by others?

Once you’ve identified your hurt, let yourself feel it. No matter how silly or embarrassing the emotions, let yourself feel them fully. Typically, hurt feelings are trying to tell you something, and you can’t move on until you acknowledge their existence in the first place.

Allowing yourself to feel your feelings is as simple as laying down in your bed and monitoring your body. If you feel sad, where do you feel it? Do you feel it in your chest? Or do your arms and legs hurt? Explore these sensations — and as you do, watch what thoughts come up. These thoughts are what’s holding you back from closure.

You need to contextualize your hurt

Once you realize you’re hurt, you need to do the hard work of contextualizing that hurt. To contextualize your hurt means to look back into the past and see the situation with clear eyes. It means to recognize that if your parents abused you, if an ex manipulated you, or if a friend abandoned you, this says a lot more about them than it does you.

Most people who find themselves haunted by the past are not contextualizing their hurt. They are clinging to it, using it as the building blocks for their entire life story. Some signs you are not contextualizing your past properly are:

You allow these hurts to fuel beliefs about yourself such as “you are broken,” “you are damaged,” or “you are unlovable.”
No matter what you achieve in other areas of your life, it never seems to make up for the tragedy of your past
The present feels empty and meaningless, and the past feels somehow more real

If this is you, what you need to do is take a hard look at what happened and see it for what it is. If a few years ago you fell into the arms of a manipulative man, you need to accept that you did nothing to deserve his treatment. If a friend ghosted you, her absence says more about her weakness than your unworthiness.

Once you’ve properly contextualized your past, you’ll begin to feel a weight being lifted off your shoulders. Instead of seeing yourself as bad, unworthy, or unlovable, you’ll see yourself as just a regular person to whom some bad things have happened.

You need to forgive those who hurt you

To forgive doesn’t mean to forget, and it doesn’t mean ‘become friends with’ either. “To forgive,” in the American Heritage Dictionary, means “to renounce anger or resentment against.” If you want to make peace with your past, you need to renounce your anger against those who hurt you.

That may mean renouncing your anger against an ex who treated you poorly. It may mean renouncing your anger against your parents, who did a piss-poor job of raising you. It may mean renouncing your anger against yourself, for doing something stupid and getting yourself into a mess. Whatever it was, whoever it was, renounce your anger.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with whether they see what they did wrong or whether they “deserve forgiveness.” Holding anger and hurt in our bodies doesn’t mean the hurt didn’t happen, and it doesn’t make those who hurt us any more sorry. All it does is hurt us even more.

And if you’re waiting until the other person sees the error of their ways to forgive… forget it. The simple fact of the matter is that a lot of people who hurt you are never going to feel sorry, especially the people who hurt you the most. Many people will feel churlish and be unwilling to apologize, think they did nothing wrong, or forget that whatever happened even took place at all. If you wait for people to do the personal development necessary for them to acknowledge your experience, you’ll be waiting forever. Simple as that.

The process of putting the past behind you is not linear. You may feel back to your regular self some days, only to find other days are stolen away by the weight of what’s happened. This is normal, and this is okay. Healing is an uncertain and uneven process — but if you stick with it, you will get there eventually. We all will.