A fitting quote coined by Stephen King; it illustrates the human condition. When something horrific happens, we find it hard to comprehend how someone could have shot up a festival or school, or how this church going family man could have killed his wife. But the reality is, as humans, we are capable of anything. Some people are just wired wrong and commit horrendous acts of violence. Then there are regular people who have untreated mental issues or are on some serious medications that shouldn’t be combined and do things they could never imagine doing. These are more the outliers, but there are things inside all of us that are very real.  We all have darkness and light. Let’s take a look at where this applies to most of us.

Ghosts and monsters of our past can haunt us for our entire life. We see this in how we interact with the world. Sometimes we keep replaying old tapes of how we were treated as kids, what we believe about ourselves or we’re still in survival mode as we replay a scary trauma that happened to us. These tapes are sneaky, too, because we don’t even realize how much they can dominate our thinking and world view until we’ve been doing it for years.

What causes us to stay stuck in this pattern is not integrating our traumas or our struggles. And we don’t integrate them because we simply don’t know how to do it. If you have been through a trauma, finding a therapist to help you sort out your feelings and integrate what happened is so important. There are many services that can help people with this, too, if going to a therapist is cost prohibitive.

When it comes to our ineffective ways of thinking, it comes down to being mindful of when you are thinking that way. Then you have to challenge that thought.

Here’s an example that I struggle with myself. I often feel like I need to take responsibility for other people and make sure they are okay, have what they need, etc. sometimes at the expense of myself. I’ve had to retrain my brain to slow things down and take a step back and say to myself, “Is this really my responsibility? If a friend told me this is their responsibility, what would I say?”. Sometimes I just keep going and take on the responsibility and don’t realize it fast enough. Other times I catch myself and tell myself that it is okay to not take on that responsibility because it isn’t mine to take. And if I don’t allow the other person to take responsibility for themselves then I am denying them the ability to gain mastery for themselves. And often I feel guilty about not taking on the responsibility, so I will literally unpack all the beliefs, one by one that make me feel guilty and question whether or not that is really fair. Would I think it is fair for my friend to feel this way about being responsible for something that is my responsibility? Of course not.

We all have ghost and little negative monsters that reside in us…but we also have the ability to evict them.

When you’re in a relationship with someone who is a narcissist or an abusive person, they don’t reveal themselves to be that way from the beginning. Obviously, if they did, we wouldn’t want to be with them. But over time, the layers are peeled back, and you start to see behaviors that are troubling.

In our society, especially with social media, it is so easy for all of us to present ourselves exactly how we want to be seen by the world. The reality is, if someone is not being authentic, eventually cracks will begin to form, and their true character will be revealed – good or bad.

You see it in unhealthy relationships, but you also see it in places you wouldn’t expect. When you see people pay it forward or do something nice for a stranger, they are showing their true character. If you are a kind person and you see someone who needs help, the instinct from your soul kicks in and you help them.

What secrets are in your soul you may be afraid to reveal? 

Falling is inevitable.  What matters is how well we rise after falling.  Failure is experience and the most successful people have failed more times than they can count.

Let’s take a look at how some have fallen. We all know how well they have risen today.

• J.K. Rowling was an unemployed, divorced single mother when she wrote Harry Potter. Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishing houses.
• Stephen King’s first novel was rejected 30 times.
• Starbucks wouldn’t exist today if Howard Schultz had given up after being turned down by banks 242 times.
• Walt Disney’s theme park concept was trashed 302 times.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team for “lack of skill”.
• Oprah was fired from her role as reporter because she was “unfit for TV”.
• Albert Einstein was described as “mentally slow” by his teachers and expelled from school.
• Soichiro Honda was passed over for an engineering job at Toyota.

If any of these people didn’t rise after falling, the world as we know it would be different. What matters most is knowing what you want and believing that no matter what happens or what kind of failures may occur, you are going to keep going because that is who you are.

Falling gives us the gift of experience that we can use to achieve our goals. Only by falling can we learn what we need to become to rise up for the next chapter of our lives.

We all have baggage and scars from previous relationships and even our family of origin. Our past hurts and fears can transfer into new relationships because we are scared of the same thing happening again.  Sometimes we are so afraid of something bad happening again, we treat our new partner with distrust, or we will even wound others to try to heal ourselves.

Healing what hurt us is necessary for us to have the healthy, loving relationships that we deserve. How can we begin the healing process for ourselves?

1.) Understand we have to open ourselves up to experience true intimacy with another person. We cannot have a real, meaningful relationship without opening ourselves up this way, and that means that sometimes we will get hurt. We can’t experience one without the other.

2.) Look for life lessons you can learn when you get hurt. How did this happen? Did you miss red flags? How did this make you a better person? Maybe what happened allowed you to become more sensitive or compassionate, which is an asset for all your other relationships. Or perhaps you learned what you don’t want in a partner.

3.) Forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be vulnerable and forgive the other person for hurting you. It’s hard to see this when we are hurting, but most of the time when people treat us bad, it has more to do with how they feel about themselves and what’s going on in their own head than us. We are all broken and make decisions we aren’t proud of at times. Take this as a lesson learned and let go.

4.) Talk about it with someone you trust. Holding in all your pain is not noble. It takes strength to share what’s really going on with us with other people. Sometimes just talking about how you feel and another person listening and validating your experience can make a big difference in how you look at what happened.

5.) Don’t lose your sense of self-worth. Always remember that your value as a person does not decrease if another person cannot see it. Just because someone didn’t appreciate you, doesn’t mean that others won’t. If you know your own value in relationships to begin with, weathering a breakup or betrayal will be a little easier.

More Resources to Heal What Hurt You

Books

“Man’s Search for Meaning” – Viktor Frankl recounts his Holocaust experiences. The book illustrates how finding purpose sustains resilience. He asserts that meaning in life is the central human motivational force, and one can find purpose even in suffering.

“The Art of Living” – This book is a modern paraphrase of Epictetus’ ideas. He was an important Stoic philosopher. In the book we learn that nothing is harmful except our perceptions of events. By embracing this ideal, we can let go of things outside of our control.

“The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” – Bessel van der Kolk delves into how trauma reshapes both body and brain. In particular, you’ll learn how trauma compromises sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. Readers can discover a new understanding of the impact of trauma and pathways to recovery.

“Trauma and Recovery” – Judith Herman’s masterwork on the field cannot be overlooked. Split into two sections, Herman helps readers identify the nature and origin of trauma. Then she helps guide you on a path of re-integration and recovery.

If you had a massive knot in your shoelace, would you just take a pair of scissors and cut it to get the knot undone? If you did, they would be forever altered, and your sneakers would never fit the same way they did before.

This quote is such a good one to remember in handling conflict in relationships. Often times we are really quick to lash out when we are upset or are hurt.  It’s understandable because we are hurting in the moment. But before we act, we need to think about how we can most effectively handle it, that aligns with our objective, self-respect and the relationship in question.  The feelings that you have are always okay and you don’t need to defend them to anyone. What you do have to do is be mindful of how you choose to respond.

For example, if my boss had promised me a promotion and instead gave it to a colleague, I shouldn’t just walk down to his office and tell him off. I need to cool off, compose myself and then schedule a meeting with him and calmly ask him what changed and how can we get me back in the running for a promotion.

With personal relationships, it can be harder. For me when my husband says something or does something that really triggers me to feel alone or insecure, I have a protocol that I try to follow. I give myself 24 hours to take a step back, think about what happened, think about how I felt and put myself in his shoes to see where he may have been coming from. Then if I feel like we need to have a conversation about it because I still feel hurt, I approach the conversation from a fair, rational place, rather than being super emotional. 

This applies to saying things that you might not mean. In a fit of anger, it’s easy to say something horrible to someone you love. Once you have said it out loud to them, you can never take it back. And in turn if you untie it, you can tie it again. But if you cut it, it will never go back together.