Stop brooding about the past….it doesn’t help!

If you struggle to let go of the past, and often find yourself looking back with regret or anger, the Thrive Programme can help you leave the past where it belongs.

You may have noticed that when you feel happy and your self esteem is higher, you rarely think back to the past (unless you're on a real self-sabotage mission!). You feel quite content to just exist in the here and now. However, in those moments when you feel down and depressed, that is when your mind has the ability to go wandering and seek out memories that cause you to feel angry, embarrassed, sad or regretful.

There is a good reason behind why we brood about the past. It's an attempt to gain a sense of control over past events, seek closure and feel better. Unfortunately, no amount of brooding ever achieves that - we're simply dragging those memories into the present and recreating those past hurts. There exists huge amounts of research into the negative effects of brooding on our lives: brooding leads to feelings of powerless, helplessness, hopelessness and lethargy.

Your past experiences no longer DIRECTLY affect you!

But what does affect you is the way you think about them TODAY. How you think about the past will be directly influenced by your current beliefs and thinking. We don't view the world the way it is, we view the world as we are: we see the world through our own set of filters or lenses, and these include our CURRENT beliefs and self esteem and our CURRENT stress levels.

When we are thriving and our self esteem and beliefs are strong TODAY, we don't feel the need to dig up the past, and brood over those negative events.  When we are not thriving, that's when our minds head off for that very unhelpful stroll!

My client Sarah came to see me for this very reason. Upon finishing the programme, this is what she had to say...

I signed up to the Thrive Programme because I wanted help to deal with the past. A very difficult relationship with a family member had caused me much hurt and distress over many years. When that person died my feelings about the situation with which I had always struggled got even worse. I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about the past, endlessly replaying events in my head seeking some kind of resolution so that I could move on. This didn’t work.