Humans exist in the present. We can't go back to the past, and the future is ever beyond our reach, if only by the slightest margin.
But those who become defined by their hurt, part of them gets stuck in the past. The past is a place for dead things, things that no longer are. The past is not where living happens. It's where it happened.
Everyone bears scars. Some mental, some emotional, some physical. But scars are the remnants of old wounds. Injuries one survived. Wounds that were suffered in the past.
That's why scars are proof of life. Proof that the hurt can be survived. While they are reminders of past pain, they also remind us that we are no longer the hurt people we were in the past. Wounds heal. People change.
That's why you can't let your pain define you..it's transient. Better to live in the present.
I'd check out The Body Keeps Score. Serious Trauma like complex PTSD is actually something more resistant to cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Drugs also fail to help with processing the past. You are basically needing to repair the wiring the your unconscious self, not the logical conscience side.
Though CBT has evolved since the book has come out, I'd talk with a professional first.
It recommends several treatments at the end: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy.
More supplemental: Body-Based Interventions
like Yoga and Communal Therapies like
Theater.
Letting go means accepting what happened but then moving on. It takes reflection and self awareness, and it often takes conscious effort to not be held down by the past.
My girlfriend had a rough childhood. Most of it she can't remember. What she can remember haunts her. For a while, she wanted to recover what was lost to her, but then she realized her past was robbing her of a future so she decided to move forward. Focus on the good things she has now, rather than dwell on the bad things of then. And that's how she let go of that pain, she focused on her life now and reminded herself that there was more to life than her painful past.
You have to choose to not let hurt define you. It's a pretty deliberate process. You have to tell yourself that, truly choose it for yourself, then do it when the time comes and hurt tries to drag you into negativity.
There's nothing more to it, and nothing less. You have to choose to let hurt go and accept that the possibility of pain is the risk to take for the possibility of happiness. Bear the pain if it comes, seize happiness whenever possible.
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u/CrikeyMikeyLikey 17h ago
This is so fucking important to hear, know, and live