There is a huge difference between healing the past and living in it, for many it becomes a life mission devoted to self which is usually the opposite to the desired outcome. There are those who are self-oriented, using the ideal of healing as finding a legitimate way to focus on self without recrimination or guilt, and still others find that unanswerable question of why me, can hold them in cognitive therapies for years without a genuine release. The circumstances that initiated enough damage to require healing being overwhelmed by behaviours that take over where that circumstance left off.
Psychics are forever rooting current issues into past lives, potentially causing damage, as a person in pain will grab onto anything that assuages any feelings of guilt, fear, anger and grief. If there is one thing we have become adept at it would be avoidance, evasion and denial, a trifecta of destructive patterning. Healing should be a transient focus, initially perhaps engaging a number of strategies to resolve longstanding problems, but any past healing process should begin and end without becoming a lifelong focus on self, pain and grievances. We are all quite capable of making life changing admissions and decisions about behaviour and future goals in a matter of seconds with the right motivation, leaving us free to heal as we go, addressing emotions, relationships, behaviours (our own) as we navigate the polarizing energies of relationship. Apologizing where necessary (guilt) working through feeling threatened (anger), releasing those things that no longer align with our life (grief) and overcoming those things that send us scurrying into denial (fear). Self-Actualization is the way to living in the now, truly and happily, it is a symptom of having moved beyond the past into the very dynamic present.
It is important to address the cognitive aspects of memory and experience, it is even more important to release these at some point, as memory is not always your best friend. Anyone can turn a major past incident into a present waking nightmare by allowing the mind to reference that experience in any and every new experience you may be having. That is to say, a challenging experience with a parent can define the way you see the opposite sex or even your own, in turn determining the type of relationships available to you. A self-fulfilling prophesy is really just the belief being lived through real life, for instance if you believe all men are bastards. you will only ever recognize the bastard in them, yes, even the good guys. I don’t believe we are ever attracted to the wrong person or job, we simply fulfil our understanding of life and living, if you believe you are not good enough you will always be attracted to those people or situations that remind you of your belief, if you believe you were unloved as a child you will harbour resentment at those who may not have loved you the way you deserved, but loved you nevertheless taking on the mantle of the victim partner, unappreciated parent or relationship saboteur.
As long as your past behaviours are still in play they are not in the past, changing these behaviours IS healing, expecting others to heal your life is not. Everyone has a set of values, even thieves teach their children it is bad to steal, liars teach their children not to lie and so forth, why? Because these people hate to be targeted by a thief or a liar it’s a mixed message but the value is instilled while the model of behaviour belies the value. It is only when values are compromised that a person is truly miserable, if you are not living your own values it is easy to see the devaluation, lack of sincerity and unreliable aspects of who you are. This tends to leave a resentment of self which is really a resentment of the teaching. When you can look honestly at these you will find that ever elusive peace.
A client haunted by early child sexual abuse was angry 30 years later in a way that led to many other behaviours that were destructive to others. Self-serving and misogynist tendencies meant friendships were a challenge to maintain unless with drunkards and stoners who were also angry, not so ironically the very personality type of the original abuser. This man could only hate himself knowing that the role model for his behaviour and the friendships he chose to develop were a reflection of a man he hated with a passion, while he would never find it in himself to deliberately hurt others, his refusal to see his own behaviours were, as an adult, his own. This left him seeking therapies that were to continue for years to come without resolve. These therapies focused on his feelings drawn from the past and will continue to do so, as the real issues and experiences will never be shared in honesty. This may be a desire to heal the past, but the past isn’t the issue, the present is, years of drug abuse illicit and legal take their toll, as they don’t serve to render the past irrelevant. The reason for taking them is to be able to live with one’s self, here, today. Being driven to connect with the police and force the issue of laying charges against his abuser was motivated by incredible guilt, guilt says the psychotherapist for something he had no control over, but I have a different take on it, guilt is evidence of remorse for something we did or did not do, and our victim here knew that his abuser had gone on to molest other boys, potentially hundreds of them, over the next 30 years, his guilt is more likely from not taking any action to stop him when he was old enough, supported and strong enough to do so, and so it goes on.
His experience is a description of living in the past rather than healing the past. All healing must come to an end at some point, to move into a life management strategy of dealing with the present on as many levels as we possibly can leading, for the most part, to a peaceful and enjoyable existence. When you step onto the path of self-healing, with or without assistance, seek to accept your life experiences as they already happened, non-acceptance maintains and supports negative thinking and poor behaviours. In short, what you fear has already happened to you, and you survived!
- Move into the understanding that no matter how angry you are, fearful you have become or guilty you feel you cannot undo what was done.
- Look honestly at your behaviours, where are you perpetuating problems or hurting others, they didn’t cause your past, leave them alone.
- Sort yourself out, then take a look at what you have created in life, move away from anyone that resembles or creates situations you associate with past circumstances no matter what that is.
- Envision doing better, having better and creating better letting your past define the relationships/career choices can only ever be damaging.
- learn from what you don’t like in yourself, change it to be more the person you are rather than the person you were taught to be.
- If your first thought is I am not good enough then do what you need to be good enough in your estimation.
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Awesome post, thank you !!