For years I have used the phrase “That was then and this is now so…what do you want to create going forward?” In business and sales situations this question is usually met with a rush of ideas and solutions that result in positive action and successful results. It’s like the dam of resistance bursts and all future possibilities flow easily when permission to let go of the past is granted by me and chosen by the client. It’s been a very effective tool. However, when coaching individuals and couples on personal matters, this same phrase has triggered a couple of different reactions. One very much like just described but the other is a reaction of varying degrees of resistance. After some thought, I believe the difference between moving beyond the past easily and actively keeping it alive in our present is the difference between feeling angry about something versus feeling hurt about something or by someone. The purpose of this article is to expand upon this premise and offer you my thoughts on how we can live our lives in the joy of the present and future, even when we have been hurt in the past.

In the business environment, most of the communications difficulties, stumbling blocks and outright “people problems” are related to someone’s lack of skills and/or mistakes and misunderstandings that generate frustration and anger. In our business and personal lives, we’ve all experienced situations of pure anger and have also seen that anger, on it’s own, is an emotion we can process instantly or fairly quickly and get over, really over, when WE choose to do the work. Yet in our personal lives the same lack of skills, mistakes and misunderstandings often result in anger AND hurt.

I’ve noticed that whenever hurt is involved, it becomes a different story. Hurt will not go away or be released right away. When we have been wounded we need time to heal. On the other hand, we also know that sometimes years and years can pass and we still feel the pain or the anger of our pain as if it just happened. Why is this? Why do we keep it alive, talking about it, reliving it and in a very real sense re-experiencing the damage already inflicted upon us? Are we even aware we have a choice?

Try this!

Imagine, just for a moment, how differently you would feel if you woke up this morning still knowing everyone in your life and having all the wisdom from your past but having NO MEMORY of anything bad that had happened to you? How would you feel? What would you be talking and thinking about today? What decisions would you make about your future, if there were no past memories in your present thoughts? Can you see how different life would be even when just imagining this for a few moments? You felt the freedom because for those few moments, you made a conscious choice to let go of those pains from the past and as a result, felt an instant change in your life today.

In working on this in my own life and with my clients, we’ve all realized that yes, we can imagine it! Yes, it does feel instantly lighter and happier and most importantly much freer. However, what also comes up very quickly is our resistance to maintaining that choice in our day-to-day lives.

Why do we hold on to certain hurts?

The short answer is…I think we hold onto our hurt because we’re looking for an apology, for justice, for vindication and/or revenge. We may feel that “letting go” means that the person or people who hurt us will essentially be “getting away” with it. That seems unfair! So, out of some sense of justice, we hold on to certain hurts; carrying the impact of pain into each day, hoping (at some level of consciousness) that some day, somehow, justice will prevail. But what if it doesn’t? How long do we wait? Think of all the suffering we have endured because of this belief?

Why is it that 2 people can do the same hurtful thing to us and we can move beyond hurt feelings with one person but not the other? How come a person can do the same hurtful thing 2 or 3 times and we can let go of it in some cases but hold on to it in others? I believe, we have decided that the difference in our reaction depends on the way the OTHER person handles the situation.

We’re probably willing to forgive someone for hurting us if THEY are willing to:

· Own and acknowledge their impact without blame or defensiveness.

· Sincerely apologize to us while expressing genuine sorrow for hurting us.

· Offer to make amends & demonstrate their remorse with positive action.

· Express an intention that it never happen again and…we believe them.

· Ask for our forgiveness.

RESULT: We probably find that our hearts open up (versus shut down) to this person and we end up feeling closer to them as a result of their openness and sorrow. We’ve all made mistakes. We may find ourselves feeling gracious and compassionate and freely offering our forgiveness. The OTHER person has behaved in an adult and loving way and because of THEIR actions, we choose to forgive them and be free of the pain!

What if someone hurts us and then THEY:

· Refuse to accept any responsibility for their impact.

· Deny they did anything to hurt us-we’re just too sensitive.

· Blame us for their actions and refuse to apologize.

· Justify their actions, expressing no concern that we’ve been hurt.

· Leave, die or refuse to talk with us so the situation can’t be resolved.

· Appear to intentionally cause us pain-having all kinds of excuses to justify their negative impact.

RESULT: We may shut down, lash out, feel unloved, disrespected, feel hurt even more deeply because now they are aware of their impact and still don’t seem to care. We may strike out with an attempt at revenge or risk our safety by reaching out to this person (again) because of our need/desire for peace. We may end up feeling anxious (When will it happen again?) and/or depressed (Oh no a lifetime of more of this!) When the OTHER person makes the choices described above, most of us don’t even consider forgiveness a choice and are left still holding onto the hurt because of a choice someone ELSE made.

If the above is true then we’ve been giving the key to our freedom from pain, the choice to forgive or not to forgive, to the very person who caused our pain! Yiikes! Believing that we need something from someone ELSE in order to be free prolongs our pain AND generates a sense of powerlessness. What can we do to regain our sense of control over our own feelings and peace of mind? How can we create a sense of safety and freedom from the hurt we have experienced without depending on anyone else?

Forgiveness is the Key!

Two books that have been extremely helpful in sorting through this issue are The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Both of these authors talk about how much impact and power we have been taught to give to others, all for the purpose of making us easier to manage as kids and adolescents. In this process, we have adopted beliefs that keep us at the mercy of others. The challenge is to identify the beliefs and to realize they can be changed once we are aware of them. In both of these books, the authors give us numerous examples of what we are doing to give away our power and what we can do differently to give ourselves more freedom from the actions of others.

What if we’ve been unwilling to forgive someone for a painful experience because we thought we had to resolve it with them before we could forgive them? This would keep us at their mercy and our freedom tied to their actions. What if they don’t want to or are unable to resolve it with us? If we believe that in order to resolve something others must participate with us, we may find ourselves feeling trapped in this situation. What else can we do?

We can decide that instead of needing to resolve the past we can release it. Let it go and move beyond it. Where resolving requires others, releasing is a self-determined choice. We can make that choice on our own! We can make the choice to stop waiting for anything from the other person. We can decide that we are no longer going to give their actions our attention. How many moments have we lost, reliving these feelings? More importantly, how many present and future moments can we gain if we just decide, in this moment, that we are NOT going to let them or their actions into our thoughts, our days, our lives anymore? How different would our lives be if we decided to make the choice to release our pain and forgive those who have hurt us just because WE want to be free?

Make Forgiveness Your Choice!

Remember how the guy in “A Beautiful Mind” dealt with his “Past”? He saw the delusional characters every once in awhile. He knew they were there and he made a continual and conscious choice NOT to pay attention to them. Whenever they came into his field of vision HE choose not to give them his time or energy and what he got in return was his freedom and a chance to create a joyful life.

In “The Four Agreements,” Ruiz tells us to forgive everyone who has hurt us--NOT because they deserve to be forgiven but because we are tired of feeling the impact of their actions. He tells us that by forgiving everyone who has hurt us, we are choosing to let go of their actions and impact for our own benefit. It’s the path to freedom and it’s a choice WE can make. Everything changes as we consider that within our control, lies the ability to stop the suffering and move on with our lives.

It’s important to be patient and gentle with ourselves. We’re bound to fall back into the “It’s not fair” or “They’re getting away with it” feelings but we can choose, again and again, to let that go because of how WE feel when we are thinking those thoughts. In “The Power of Now,” Tolle talks about the “pain body” and how the energy of all the pain we have ever felt is sort of standing by waiting to be fed OR transformed into a different kind of energy. He explains that by being conscious of the pain, we can observe it instead of falling into it. Becoming the observer gives us control over these options and with that conscious choice; pain can be released from our hearts and minds.

The most helpful part of “The Power of Now,” for me, is when he explains that if we are feeling angry or sad, it means we are spending too much time thinking about the past and not enough time in the present. If we are feeling anxious or afraid, it means we are spending too much time thinking about the future and not enough time in the present. As we become more conscious of keeping our thoughts in the present moment (“What is happening-right now?”) WE can make choices about what to think about and this will, of course, affect how we feel today. With this knowledge we gain the skills to free ourselves from the past and therefore create more emotional safety and peace of mind in our present lives. As we do this, the happy, loving and funny parts of our nature begin to show up more often. What a wonderful gift to ourselves and our loved ones!

© 2002 Cathryn Bond Doyle. All Rights Reserved.