Pain from our past has a sneaky way of sabotaging us just about the time we’re ready to move forward or grow in life. Learning to overcome a hurtful or painful past is a deep part of mindset work that is required for lasting success and fulfillment in life.
We don’t mean to do it.
Let our emotions and memories run the show. But without conscious effort, they do.
And the majority are earning Razzies instead of Grammy’s or Oscar’s for their life’s performance. Learning to overcome a hurtful past and retrain our thoughts can be the single biggest deciding factor in our level of regret or success in life.
Self-Preservation and Our Past Hurts
One of the sad reasons we hang onto past hurts is self-preservation. We cling to the pain, letdown, or abandonment so that we don’t forget in the hopes that we can somehow prevent it from happening again.
*This post in not intended to subsitute for the advice of a Doctor or Licensed counselor in any way. If you are working through past trauma or abuse, please consult your chosen medical professional.
This rarely works and it’s why so many people repeat the same mistakes with relationships and money over and over again.
The ego tricks us and makes us believe that if we hang onto the past pain, the certainty, we don’t have to do the scary or unknown. The ego doesn’t like the unknown because, hey, what if you decide you’re better off without that nagging voice in your head.
Get Over the I’m Not Good Enough Lie
But continuous attacks from our ego can cause some lasting damage. Lasting pain and lies that dig deep wounds and take even longer to heal from or get over. If you’ve been reliving some horrible scene from your past over and over in your head, or if you’ve been holding a grudge about something for a long time, your ego is in need of an a**-kicking.
Why Our Past Emotions Can Ruin Our Present
Emotions are powerful. Let me give you an example.
Think about your first kiss, your wedding day, or maybe the birth of your first child. Chances are high that you remember very vivid details about those days or at least the few hours surrounding those events. These likely bring up some seriously high vibe emotions for you.
Heal the Past, Live Adventure in the Present
Now consider where you were when you lost a loved one, received divorce papers or a breakup, or maybe when you suffered a painful injury. Again chances are high that you remember with detail, the days or hours surrounding those events too. Negative emotions created soul-sucking vibe within you.
Now tell me where you were on the first tuedsay of last month at 3:00.
If it wasn’t one of the events above, you likely have a vague recollection of that day.
Why?
Because we retain information and memories that have emotion attached to them. The rest is gray matter. Fuzz.
This very fact is why I encourage people to take trips, create memories with family, and spend on activities and memory enriching events instead of material possessions.
This fact, is also why I have a job as a mindset coach. It’s super easy to attach very STRONG emotions to pain, lies, and hurt.
Why You Should Overcome a Hurtful Past
How does the inability to let go impact our lives, our relationships, our health, and our happiness? What does it cost to keep buying into the lies and reliving the wounds of our past?
It’s likely cost you relationships with significant others or friends, caused strains in the family, taken a toll on your overall health, impacted your spiritual belief or faith, and train-wrecked your ability to create or sustain financial wellness.
If you’re not where you want to be in any of the main five walks of your life, it’s likely something from the past that needs a good spring cleaning. People like to blame their circumstances, their lack of resources, or their strategy. But 9/10 it’s the ego. The lies we believe. The past we hold onto. The negative we cling to and keep manifesting back into our lives over and over.
You can heal and overcome your past hurts if you WANT to.
What’s In It For You?
Turning the page isn’t always easy. You’d think we’d be sick and tired of reading the same chapter repeatedly. But when it comes to turning the page or checking out a new book entirely, the fear of the unknown creeps up and tries to sabotage us. That old book is afraid of being put on the shelf to grow dust.
When you think about why you should let go of resentments, self-limiting beliefs, or past hurts, what is the reward for you going to be?
Will it improve your relationships? Likely
Will it ease your stress in your day to day life and improve your health? Probably
How about allowing you to create a life on your own terms with financial wellness and abundance? Definitely
I’ve listened to hundreds of people over the years describe to me, what their version of success looks like. The answers are different only in their descriptions.
Success=Life on our own terms. Time and Money=Freedom. Being able to do what we want, when we want, and in alignment with our own moral compass.
Identify Your Habits to Overcome Your Past
The answers we seek to why anything is or is not going well for us in life can be found in our daily habits. What are your tendencies? How to you react or behave emotionally to certain situations? What kinds of people or events emotionally trigger you?
People often don’t give a lot of thought to habits. In today’s digital age we have more mindless habits than ever before. People can lose themselves for hours in online forums, chat rooms, feeds, etc.
But our habits are nothing more than a result of our thoughts and emotions taking physical form.
And our thoughts and emotions stem directly from our core beliefs. It’s why I spend so much time helping others overcome their hurtful past by adressing self-limiting beliefs and old stories from the past that have strong emotions or beliefs tied to them.
Those very beliefs, turn into our habits.
If you work out everyday for 6 months you are going to see physical change. No doubt about it. If you compliment or do something sweet for you spouse every day for six months, you’re going to see a positive reward in your relationship.
If you relive a painful event from your past every day or react from a place of hurt when triggered on a regular basis, guess what? That habit is going to manifest itself in a physical form in your life one way or another and it usually holds you back or continually hurts you.
These habits often take the shape of addiction to food, tv, social media, gambling, sex, drugs, or other mindless numbing behaviors. They can also include self-destructive criticism and hopelessness.
Get Out of Your Own Head
When we have been trapped in a negative emotional pattern, it’s often difficult to recognize or admit that we’re there.
We’ve settled, adjusted, and often rationalize or justify with excuses and more blaming of circumstances.
The problem is that our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and habits are all saddled together in this ride we call life. And if you only attempt to change one, you’ll likely not get far. Life coaching, personal trainers, and finance or business coaches began to emerge as a lifeline for those who were sick and tired of mediocrity and we’re finally ready to get out of their own heads.
They were admitting they needed help to get past the blocks in their life that were holding them back from fulfillment and success.
By identifying your emotional habits, and the beliefs and emotional triggers behind those habits, you can actively make a plan to recondition yourself with new habits, thus creating a more rewarding outcome.
Overcome the Past Using Active Conditioning
Mindset work, especially the kind involving overcoming our past, requires ongoing effort. If you refuse to address habits or admit you need to overhaul them, then life just kind happens to you. You’re playing defense all the time.
Take me and my money mindset. Just when I thought I had worked through all my blocks and abundance was knocking on my door, another fear around money popped up. New levels, new devils. Those pesky money beliefs are stubborn but I tackle them every time.
I like to play offense. Being on the defensive all the time is exhausting. You rarely score any wins on defense.
Don’t fool yourself here.
The ability to change your habits or succeed has very little to do with how smart, talented, funny or inspired you may be. The ability to admit you need to overhaul your habits and emotions is a huge step in the right direction. But for whatever reason, people usually trip and fall when it comes to seeking help with this.
Read About Who Benefits from Coaching Here
If you could do it all alone, you’d have likely done the work a long time ago. Obviously you didn’t puposely evade success or sabotage your dreams. So if you knew how to avoid the past emotions kicking your goals out of reach, you’d have done the work.
Those skeletons would have been kicked out of the closet long ago.
Empower Yourself to Overcome Your Past
So how do you empower yourself?
You honestly address you habits and your emotional behaviors. Seek mentors and coaches to help you work through this stuff in a fraction of the time you’d be spinning your wheels trying to do it alone. Coaches hold you accountable and keep you on point for focused results.
You surround yourself with positive music, books, and people who inspire you to be the best version of yourself. Do things that lift you up regularly.
Maybe one of the most impactful things you can do to overcome your past is go back to your why. Motive behind your choices will always matter. Saying, well I want to be rich is bland at best.
But saying you want to make an abundance of income so you can create a scholarship program, impact your family, or donate to your favorite cause, that’s the kind of incentive that really challenges you to take the focus off yourself and put it on serving others and the greater good. Giving fills a space in our hearts that cannot be filled in other ways.
Giving love, friendship, kindness, forgiveness, money, solutions, etc. It all feels SO GOOD. Having a purpose outside of yourself, will empower you like nothing else can.
xoxo-Deanna