Are you struggling with letting go of anger and resentment? The following article explains why it’s self-preservation to make peace with your past!
Are you still holding on to all the negative things that have happened in your past? If you are, then in order to be truly happy, you need to make peace with your past.
The moment you let all the pain go, and make peace with them, your life will start to change for the better.
The fact is we all have a past and no one was perfect. Some things were painful and so it makes good sense that we remember them for learning and survival.
This is how most of the animal kingdom works, we instinctively learn from experience. When we touch something hot and hurt ourselves we mentally log it and work to not do it again.
In this way remembering our past can shape our future very positively. The reality though is our past cannot perfectly predict our future and there are ways in which holding on to our past experiences can have a limiting effect on us.
Related: 10 Tips To Let Go Of Your Painful Past
5 Reasons To Make Peace With Your Past
Here is why letting go of trauma and healing the past is important.
1. Making Negative Generalizations From One-Off Or Very Specific Experiences Can Indicate You’re Unnecessarily Limiting Potentially Joyful Experiences.
Using grandiose words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ when talking about something can be a tell-tale sign you’re applying a too generalized rule to something. Look around and see if others are having a different, more positive experience of something that you have written off.
2. Just As Our Past Can Remind And Inform Our Thoughts Of Something Unpleasant Our Nervous System Can Also Be Reminded.
In fact, our body can react the same to the thought of an unpleasant stimulus as it can to an actual stimulus.
If something from your past is causing you to feel guilt, shame, regret, or anger regularly you are putting unnecessary stress on your body and keeping it in a prolonged tense state which is not good for your health or mindset.
3. Research Shows That Past Experiences Can Negatively Impact Our Future In A Variety Of Ways.
However if you have come to understand these experiences and make sense of them you are much less likely to suffer from them, recreate them, or re-experience them.
4. Holding On To Unpeaceful Elements Of Your Past Can Be Hard For Those Around You.
We all come with a past but if you’re projecting too much negative behavior onto a current partner, friend, boss, or co-worker it can be very damaging to the friendship or relationship and it’s less likely to blossom into something supportive.
Related: How Mindfulness Can Help You Let Go Of Past Hurts and Heal Yourself
5. Many Uncomfortable Experiences In Our Past Can Be Viewed In A More Helpful Way.
The times we didn’t receive the love we’d hoped for from someone, or we experienced trauma, loss or failure can be our greatest teachers.
They can be the very things that make us stronger, and more understanding, or allow us to decide what we don’t want to do, be like, or be a part of.
Our pain can also offer us the opportunity to learn about healing and this is an invaluable skill to have and help others within life.
Written By Chanelle Sowden Originally Appeared In Chanelle Sowden
You can check out Chanelle Sowden’s (Childhood Therapist) Instagram page here.
Now you know why it’s vital to make peace with your past. It’s just not about letting go, but healing your past trauma and past experiences so that it doesn’t ruin your future. Let us know your thoughts on how to make peace with your past in the comments below!
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