Haunted by the Past Part 4: Grab Your Rose Colored Glasses

Welcome back to the Thriving with Depression Series! Thank you for joining me on my adventure! 

To view the full series, check out our archive! As a reminder to new readers, you can start anywhere, even here as articles do not need to be read in any particular order.  

Welcome back to the past! Wait, that’s too far back, let’s try again.

Ok much better! I love dinosaurs, but only as long as they are on television or in a museum. 😄

Today I going to address applying the three steps to past hurts and regrets. The three steps are:

1. Step One: Reframing your negative thoughts to positive ones. 
2. Step Two: Read the positive thoughts out loud.
3. Step Three: Include an aroma that brings back positive memories or just one you like. 

There are no changes to step two and three when applying to past circumstances. But step one is done a little differently. 

Reframing is a little different in the past vs. a current situation. Let me show you an example.

Reframing in current situation: Let’s say one of your stressors is money. This is probably a stressor for most of us! You can reframe your thoughts from “I’m stressed about money every day” to “I am grateful to have a comfortable home with all the necessities of life.”

Reframing a regret: “I regret putting all of my money in a questionable business years ago. I should have known better.” You would reframe to a positive thought: “I am grateful I have some money now to put into a much safer investment.” For past regrets and hurts, as I mentioned before, it must include what you learned from the situation. This is critical. I believe the main point of life is for us to grow and mature. We do it by learning! Now, the learning part: “I now take the time to thoroughly look into any type of investment or situation. I learned my mistake when I was young, so I won’t repeat it when I am older.” 

Reframing regret as you can see above, is fairly obvious. You did something you wish you had not. Maybe you said something unkind to someone or made a mistake. You try to look at the situation in a more positive light. You might be grateful that you were able to recover from your mistake or maybe the other person forgave you. Maybe it gave you some information about yourself and your current situation. Perhaps it showed you that were overly stressed. And any mistake gives us the opportunity to learn. If you said something when you were overly stressed, you may have learned how to decrease your stress or count to three before reacting. In the example above, the takeaway was to spend more time researching an investment before spending your hard-earned money.

The same can be done with hurt. Hurt can be a little more complicated. Since you were not the one in control, you may not know why the other person hurt you. There are also two types of hurt- intentional and unintentional. In the following example, it is unclear if the hurt is intentional or not: “I am hurt because my brother does not return my calls ore respond to my letters."  

It can be reframed to "I am grateful to have family; not everyone knows or has family. I hope he will eventually speak to me or respond to my cards and letters. I am making his life better. There is a saying that it is easy to be nice to people who are kind to you. It is much more difficult to be kind to those who are not kind to you first. I have learned to deal with people who are not always warm to me."

An example of reframing known unintentional hurt. "My co-workers had a party at a local restaurant and did not invite me. They said they didn't invite me because they did not believe I wanted to go out. But I am hurt. How could they think that?" This can be reframed to "They did this unintentionally. They like me and want me to come next time. I leaned to speak up when I want something."

An example of reframing known intentional hurt. "My old boyfriend says I am not interesting, pretty or smart. I may not be a model or genius. But I believe I am somewhat attractive, I did well in a couple of subjects in school, and I have lots of hobbies. After speaking to a therapist, I now understand that he says these things because he feels bad about himself. I will give him the option to change this behavior, go to counseling with me, or to leave". 

But what about something that is more traumatic? What about a robbery or something worse? How do you look at in a positive way and learn from it? Shouldn’t the robber be the one to learn something? 

That is a great question!

Do you reframe it to say: "I am grateful I was only robbed and not worse? I learned to put more locks on my door?”

That doesn’t quite sound right. Yes, you can be grateful that you were only robbed and not worse. It is always to be grateful to survive a situation and be able to continue. Life is precious. 

When you face something traumatic, first and most importantly, you need to heal. 

• Find support groups, a good therapist, and find as much support as you can (family, friends, spiritual group, etc.). 
• Write and/or find constructive outlets for your emotions such as art therapy or music therapy. 
• You also need to have tools, coping skills and a plan for when you have flashbacks or triggers. 

I do not claim to be an expert on healing trauma. But as you heal after time, you can move forward. When this happens (which will unless you try to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol or engage in self-destructive behaviors), you have a new ability to help others. I can understand why someone would or does self-medicate. But doing this will halt the healing process. Eventually, you need to heal or lose yourself to drugs and alcohol. Once healing has occurred, you can help others with similar situations. 

I wish no one ever experienced anything traumatic in their life. But it does happen. 

It is not uncommon to see those in the helping professions do so because of past life events. Therapists and counselors may come from traumatic backgrounds. In rehab centers, many times the counselors have overcome their own struggles of addiction. I, myself, became a nurse because I grew up in an ill family. Once people get better, they often want to help others as well. Many say it helps them continue to heal, stay on a better path, and brings joy to their lives. 

Once you have sufficiently healed, you will then be able to appreciate to be alive and to learn how precious life is and learn how to heal others. 

Should you need help with a trauma, please see my resources guide. One final note before we leave the topic of trauma (and this also applies to any mental health issue or situation), it may take a few tries to find the right therapist for you. Just like looking for a doctor or dentist you like, you need to find a therapist you feel comfortable with. That does not mean finding a therapist that tells you what you want to hear. That means finding someone you feel safe around.

I mentioned last time that for past hurts in which the event continues into present times, deal with the present first before the past. First, see if you can stop the ongoing hurt. 

• One option is to leave the person or situation causing the hurt. Examples of these types of situations include: if the situation is dangerous/causes physical harm, abusive (including emotional abuse), illegal, or could lead to deleterious (gambling addiction that could lead to financial ruin for the whole family, etc.).
• Another option, if the situation is safe, is to stay in the situation/relationship but institute boundaries. For example, your cousin can't come into your home if he/she is high or takes your possessions. Your cousin needs to adhere to your house rules/boundaries, or he/she is no longer allowed in your home. 
• Continue the relationship, if the situation is safe, from a distance. If a relative can be challenging to be around or continues to ignore you, this may be an option. You may decide to continue to send cards, perhaps call/leave voicemail messages, but not see the relative in person. 

Once again, please reach out for help right away if you are in an unsafe condition. Please see my resources guide if you are not sure where to start. Make sure you let the person you speak with know that you are in an unsafe environment.

To summarize the steps in overcoming the past:

• Learn from any regrets to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
• Learn from any hurts. Is there a way you can avoid a similar situation? Note: This does not mean that you did anything wrong. Learning from a situation is NOT the same as accepting blame. 
• Applying step one for past events is different from current events. 
• If events from the past are ongoing, deal with the present first by changing or halting the situation.
• Forgive-let go of anger and resentment. 
• Once you start to heal, use your experience to help others.

I hope the examples above helped. 

But what if you are not at the point where you can forgive (whether it be yourself or others) and use your experience to help others? If so, you may find it challenging to (1) reframe your situation from a negative to a positive and/or (2) learn from it. If you are stuck at this step, I recommend the following. Start with the very basics. Be grateful that you are alive. If you don't yet feel that way, then be grateful that those who care about you don't have to grieve you because you are still alive. This may be family, friends, co-workers who depend on you and even a pet. Regarding the learning part, it may be just that you can encourage others by sharing your experience or learning how to become stronger by dealing with hurt.

Sometimes you need to start with the very basics, especially as you initially heal, before you can see any further into the light. And that is absolutely ok! The three steps will help. One of my mom's favorite expressions was "Rome wasn't built in a day." As time has gone on, I like this expression more and more. It means it's ok if you don't get to where you are going right away. We all have our own path. 

You are here for a reason. I am sure glad you are on this journey with me!