When you’re feeling overwhelmed with your
sadness and loss, it’s hard to believe that your life will ever change, or
you’ll ever be able to smile or laugh again. But the truth is you will – it
won’t always be this bad – and there are things you can do help move on with
your life:
Decide to
face your pain.
An unresolved past never really goes away. You
may think you have buried your anger and pain but the hurt is still there and
it will surface down the road. If you don’t face what happened, and the
feelings it unleashed, you will end up being ruled by your subconscious mind. So,
try and find the courage to revisit the pain.
Accept
there’s nothing you can do to change the past.
What’s happened has happened, and what’s done
is done. There’s nothing you can do to turn back the hands of time, or to
rewrite the story so the ending’s happier. But you can change how you think,
and you can start over again, and build a different future that’s not poisoned
by the past.
Be
grateful for the good times.
There’s usually something that you can be
thankful for. You don’t have to pretend that everything was bad – or write off
any good times and happy memories.
Consciously
let go and set your focus on the future - Don’t let the baggage, or the
failures of the past, affect your identity or self-esteem.
You are NOT what you did, or how you acted
previously. You’re not just a product of what happened to you. You are
valuable, unique and you have so much to give. You’re the author of your future.
Remove
your past from your future.
We all tend to think that the past will morph
into our future and become our destiny in life. But that doesn’t have to
happen. The future’s a blank page. You can change your expectations and work
towards those objectives. Instead, look hard for the exceptions, the times when
things went right, and notice what you did that resulted in success. You still
have those same strengths, skills and great qualities.
Be
realistic and take small steps at first.
You can’t snap your fingers - and find that
life has changed. Accept it will take time, and you will still have some bad
days, but if you keep on going then the past will lose its grip.
TJ
