“If you are still being hurt by an event that happened to you at twelve, it is the thought that is hurting you now”. - James Hillman
All too often I hear colleagues, friends and relatives speak about something that happened years ago with such anger and hurt it’s as if they were reliving the event all over again. When I saw this quote it made so much sense I had to share it. This is exactly so. It’s the thought that hurts years later, not the deed. Why bring it back if it brings you pain? Why not acknowledge it happened, deal with it and move on? You are who you are because of everything you’ve lived and experienced.
I know I’m going to receive many angry comments about this….from people who have been abused, badly treated, survived horrific experiences. All I’m saying is, it’s not the experience that is hurting you any more, it’s the memory of it. One of my favourite quotes of all time was when Richard Carlson said “You can’t have a better past….only the past you’ve had”
Bringing things up over and over again won’t make them go away and be better. It will just become your focus and stop you from moving forward in your life. Is that what you want?
“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us”. - Stephen Covey
That includes us. How you deal with the present will determine your future. And if you live in a past you hated by rehashing those events over and over, they will become magnified into gargantuan proportions, take over and push aside everything else. You’ll be so busy reliving what you’ve hated, you won’t have time to create a life you love.
All the best…
Donna Karlin
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