Why are we allowing things in the past to hurt us…?

 

            “I can forgive, but I can’t forget….”

 

            No matter how much efforts we put in to shelter out the adverse elements from affecting our life, we can never be sure to avoid occasional unexpected shower and thunderstorm that may just raining down on us when we are least expecting them – that’s life.

 

        Just when we beginning to feel love, to taste the fruit of success in our career, to enjoy life, or feel like we are the luckiest man/woman on earth, somehow we will soon find ourselves having to deal with recession, retrenchment, sickness, death, or having to overcome the loneliness of breaking up. Why is that so? Why does it has to be me? “It is a question most often filled with anguish, hurt, and blame.

 

            Psychotherapist and author Mira Kirshenbaum offer a unique insight and ten different and intriguing responses in her book ‘Everything Happens for a reason – Finding the True Meaning of the Events in Our Lives’. Kirshenbaum explains that nothing is random.

 

        Even having found some meaning to those things that has happened in our lives, and learnt something profound out of it, but are we able to drive those hurtful sour feeling out of our mind? Well, my take is most probably not that easy.

 

        Martin Luther King once said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that’. This is the secret that I have learnt from Martin Luther King sometime ago when I was in search of the answer myself during the darkest moment of my life.

 

        It is written in simple English that everyone can easily understand; but it is also the most profound secret for us to unleash the power within to drive out those anguish and hurtful feeling resided deep inside our soul.

 

        In another word, negative action cannot drive out negative feeling, only positive action will.

 

        When we have to face challenges in our live such as disappointment, separation, departure, rejection, humiliation, or lost of our valued possessions, the blames and hatre will not help to drive out those negative feelings inside us, only the positive actions will.

 

        So what are the examples of the positive actions?

 

        Positive action means doing things, which we passionately love with our heart and soul. With our heart and soul means, we will go in-depth into studying and understanding every detail about the thing that we do, and not just doing it for the sake of doing. Do it as if we are doing our PhD thesis paper, if possible go on to share our new discovery with others, that will multiply our power and yield much greater effects in driving out those negative feelings.

 

        The activities below will produce a mighty force in helping us to drive out those negative feeling resided deep inside us.

 

·        Pursuing our dream hobbies or things that we always wanted to do but no time to do in the past.

·        Involving in the volunteer work to help people or nature whom or which are in need of our times, skills and experiences.

·        Exercising to make ourselves feels good and looks good.

·        Picking up new skills to lighten up our soul, like Zhineng qigong, yoga, meditation, or even a religion.

·        Learning to love ourselves more, and feel good for ourselves from within.

 

        The list here is not necessarily finite, for those of you who are passionately love your job, and prefer to put your heart and soul into it, can also yield the same effect.

 

        Besides having the food for our soul, we also need to eat well, having enough rest and sleep, and be sure that we keep our body hydrate at all time. This is the time where our body are subjected to tremendous amount of strains, hence we can’t just focus on our mind, but also to take care and make sure our physical body is in the pink of health. Healthy body, healthy mind and soul are inseparable. One can affect the other easily.

 

        Last of all, if situation allow, go for a good sensual massage or a good love making session to lighten up our mind and soul with good orgasm. But it must be a good and guilt free experience, if not it will generate more harm than good.

 

        Finally, do not lay blame on anyone for the things that has happened to us. Not ourselves nor others. No one is at fault for what has happened, though we may feel responsible for it (that is normal), but it does not necessarily mean that we have to find someone to put the blame on to ease our sense of responsibility. If we do that, we will unknowingly being sucked into the deepest end of the black hole, to a point where we might not be able to recover easily.

 

        Most of the time we cannot control what has happened around us, but we can control what we going to do or feel after it has happened to us, and that is what determines our success and happiness in life.