Healing Old Hurts - Letting Go of the Past

Several times each week I attend an exercise class with a friend of mine. Last Wednesday the fitness instructor was having the class do ‘walking-lunges’ around the gym. While we were in the middle of our exercise, another member of the gym called the instructor over to tell her that one of the women in the class was not doing the lunges correctly. After we lunged our way back into the exercise room, the instructor stormed into the class fuming! She took the last 10 minutes of class to express her anger over what she assumed was someone questioning her ability as a fitness instructor. The strong reaction the instructor had to the person’s comments really had nothing to do with that person. All the person did was re-activate an old hurt by pushing the right button. When I returned to class on Friday, the instructor was still talking about the episode. What popped into my mind when she brought up the event again was “Wow, how much energy has she wasted on this over the past 2 days?”

How many times have you had a strong reaction to something that someone says to you? Think about a recent time when you felt hurt, betrayed, worthless, rejected, inferior or angry. What emotional hot button was being pressed? As Bill Ferguson says in his quote above – every one of us has hurts from the past that affect our lives today. These hurts might stem from a feeling of failure, not being good enough, not being loveable or some other form of not being okay. Until you can identify and release these core issues, they will continue to surface. Once you can disconnect from the hurt, the hot button will be gone and you will no longer react personally to comments from others. If the fitness instructor truly believed that she was an excellent instructor, how would she have reacted? She would have let it go as what it really was – a need for the other person to show their knowledge.

Is there an old hurt in your life today that needs resolving? Are you wasting time rehashing events due to emotional hot buttons that have been triggered? Make a commitment to disconnect these hot buttons. Next time you have a strong reaction to something that someone says, stop and ask yourself-“what is the real source of my pain?” Go back to the creation of the old belief about yourself and re-write the belief with the REAL TRUTH.

Practice your new belief everyday! Don’t end up 90 years old still recreating painful experiences because of an old belief that you accepted when you were young!