5 Steps to Stop Past Events Affecting You in the Present
We let past events dominate our thoughts, we allow others’ past behaviours to continue to affect us. Here’s the method I used to stop that!
Previously, I discussed taking responsibility for our reaction to the behaviour of others. I want to outline the five steps that I’ve used to do this in my own life. I hope that it will be helpful for you too to start moving on from the past.
Step One: Acknowledge
Whatever led to you being stuck in the past, and resentful about a certain person or situation, did happen. There’s no point trying to ignore it or forget about it — acknowledging that it happened is vital.
If you can’t acknowledge it happened, you’ll never be able to take responsibility for your part in it.
If you can’t take responsibility, you will never get over it.
In this step, we’re going to acknowledge both the event itself and all the effects it’s had on your life since.
Action:
- Write down the event in as much detail as possible, but avoiding judgement statements. You want an account that states only the facts of what happened.
- List all the ways in which this event has affected you. You should consider areas like your emotions, your behaviour, your relationships, etc.
Step Two: Perspective
The first thing that you wrote, the account of the event, you cannot change.
That event would have been seen completely differently by the other person. An objective viewer would have had yet another account of the event.
When we remember events, we embellish them. This means that the memories are quite different from what actually happened.
Even if we could change what had happened, we wouldn’t be able to genuinely remember it in order to do so!
The list of things you’ve allowed that event to do to you: that’s what you can change. In fact, these are the things you owe it to yourself to take steps to change.
Action:
- Rewrite the event from the other person’s point of view.
- Now, it’s time to ask yourself some important question:
Did the other person involved intend that you should have allowed it to affect you in the way it has?
Did they truly cause any of the things you feel about the event now?
Did they make you take on limiting core beliefs, which won’t allow you to move forward?
Spoiler alert: that person didn’t set out for you to have that list of effects! Maybe they’ve even forgotten the details about what happened.
Step Three: Imagine
You’ve now done enough work to see you’re responsible for how you behaved at the time of the event, and since. You choose to allow the event to hurt you, every time that you react in a way that you blame on that event.
Action:
What would you feel now, when reminded by that event? How would you like to react now, instead of the negative behaviours and beliefs on your list? Outline the dream reaction you’d have when a ‘trigger’ came up to remind you of that event.
I want you to imagine it in full, bright colour with real specificity. I want you to think about a situation where previously you’d have been triggered.
Let your mind see everything around you and inhale the smells in the air. You are making this as real as possible, so also think about what sounds you’re hearing. Finally think about you yourself, and your physical and emotional feelings.
You are teaching your brain that the trigger can create a different experience. The brain cannot always tell the difference between visualisation and reality. This means we can use a visualisation technique to change our reactions to triggers.
Step Four: Next Steps
It may not be enough to work through the memory of an event, even if you’re committed to changing your reactions. It may be that a trigger is too strong to be able to get through it with this work.
There are certain triggers that we need to find ways of managing or removing entirely from our lives.
It is perfectly okay to remove toxic people, places, or things from your life.
Action:
Think about the main things that trigger you, and whether there are any that you need to eliminate. If that feels too strong, you may want to at least think about what boundaries you can put in place.
This does not mean that you should get rid of the trigger, without doing the work. You still must take responsibility for all you’ve subjected yourself to since the event.
Step Five: Growth
These five steps are not the end, and you will need to repeat them around all sorts of events now and in the future. By taking action whenever you need to, you will learn to take responsibility more quickly.
It’s important to acknowledge the progress you make. When we have more work to do, it can be hard to stop and look at where we’ve come from already. It may feel arrogant to praise our progress, but if we don’t acknowledge it, there’s a risk we will slip backwards.
Action:
How are you going to make sure that you continue to recognise your progress? It might be by working this process with a close friend, so you can hold each other accountable. You could start a journal, where you continue to work through these steps for other events.
I hope these five steps change your life as much as they have changed mine. It’s easy to think everything we’ve been through is someone else’s fault. It’s time that we realise we are responsible for all our reactions, not someone else.
If we can take responsibility, we can move forward.
Originally published at https://wildeaboutwellbeing.com on July 25, 2020.
