As a Certified a, Life Coach, I know that we can become, trapped, by past hurt. I am trained to help my clients look back at their, past, and find clues for their future. It is not that the, past, equals the future; but that it gives you an indication of how you respond to hurts and disappointments. For example: Do you tackle them head on and fight like Rocky Balboa, or do you fold up like an umbrella like your best girlfriend and let circumstances anchor you in life?
In Chapter 2 of my book “Out Of The Snares” I share with my readers how I responded to a significant childhood hurt, child abuse. I used the analogy of a train traveling to a predetermined destination and hit something along the way and become derailed. That train can no longer continue on to that destination. Once derailed it is finished and we become, trapped.
I made the choice not to let the circumstances of my childhood, derail me. I choose to release, past, hurt. Instead, I chose to look at the positives that came out of that experience and allowed the lessons learned to shape me into the person I am today.
We all have a story, the successful people in life, succeed in spite of their story. I share secrets on how to use your story as the launching pad to fire you up. I teach you how to not become, trapped.
I show how the people that God placed in your life as a child, are there to teach you something. Just as in the story of Moses being raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter until he was ready for God to use him to fulfill his purpose, all the people in your life and your, past, have strategic purposes.
How to Heal, Past, hurts
We all have a mother or mother figure who helped shape us into the women we are today – whether that person is a biological mother who gave birth to us, or a mother figure such as an older sister, aunt, stepmother, grandmother, or teacher. However, the reality is that no matter who you called “mother,” this woman held power over your development throughout your life, and she may not have been the mother you needed. Whether through intentional malice, physical or emotional abuse, or unintentionally through absence or other life circumstances, you may find yourself wounded by her actions — or lack of action. This, past, hurt, influences who you become and how you live, either, trapped, or free. Releasing, past, hurts stops the harmful impacts that can ripple through your relationships with a partner, children, and within yourself. It stops you from becoming, trapped, by these memories.
The take away from this chapter is that we all have a, past. Some more daunting than others, but under every cloud there is a silver lining. Success in life depends on how you chose to respond to the rain.
Remember that the same rain that causes the flood is the same rain that is responsible for the harvest.
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 from, past, hurt, you can’t be open to anything new.
1. Make the decision to let go of the, past.
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 become, trapped, by the pain, or to live a future life without it.
2. Take responsibility and release blame for, past hurt.
Express the pain from, past hurt, 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 and take responsibility. Blame allows you to stay a victim. Doing so will also help you understand why specifically you are hurting.
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 will you become, trapped, by it.
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. Release the shackles and get out of the snares of blame. Why would you let the person who you feel is responsible for your, past hurt, 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.
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 free yourself from being, trapped.
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.”
Download you copy of “Out Of The Snares” today
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013C71KHE
Additional Resources
How to Forgive even when it feels impossible
https://myhelps.us/reflection-4-rejection-surviving-mothers-abandonment/
