Sure, your past may have sucked. It may have been hard. But it doesn’t have to define you as a person, and it doesn’t define the future version of you.
So many clients come in and say that therapy has never worked for them in the past. They say to me that their past is to fucked up for them and that their past is defining who they are and the future them. Of course I call bullshit! No one’s past defines their future unless they want it to.
I am not saying that past traumas do not affect who we are today, but it is what we do with that information that separates us from repeating patterns or becoming the better versions of ourselves. Having hope is the key difference between allowing the trauma to affect us and define us or allowing the hope to guide us to a better and brighter future.
Author Matthew Hussey talks about trauma in his new book Love Life. Matthew states that Trauma = treasure. Trauma needs to be reframed according to Hessey. Hessey states that recognizing the parts of ourselves that we could never have experiences without the very thing that we wish never had happened. We need to consider the valuable parts of ourselves that only developed because of the trauma. Hessey continues to discuss how the richness, complexity, and depth of who we are today, and our character is forged in these incidents as it is powered by our achievements. If you take away the trauma, you are taking away the treasure of what we learned and who we have become.
Matthew is stating that yes it sucks that the trauma happened, but by reframing it we can see the person that we have become. Are we more resilient? Are we more patient? No matter what the trauma was, it does not define was as a person or our character, unless we allow it to.
As we move forward from the trauma as individuals, we need to consider how you are going to move forward. We need to make sure that we acknowledge (mistakes or pain) and learn from the event, recognize it and see them as lessons or plot twists, not destiny. We need to shift our mindset as we get to choose the narrative and use the past challenges to build strength and insight.
I tell my clients all the time that we need to focus on the present and cannot get stuck looking backwards. We cannot change what happened in the past. What we can change is how we use this information to create our future. A better and brighter future.
We need to take positive steps, set goals and break them down into small steps so that we can achieve what we are setting out to accomplish. We need to practice self-compassion and forgive ourselves, let go of resentment and develop an understanding that we are more than just those moments. I have said it in other blogs, and I will say it again, if having compassion doesn’t include ourselves, then it is incomplete. Self-forgiveness must include empathy and compassion.
As we move forward, we need to focus on what we “can” do and not what we can’t. We need to learn from our mistakes but not dwell on them. We need to make sure that we do not become complacent with what we have accomplished and what we still need to accomplish.
We must have “hope”. Having hope allows us to believe in a better future and actively work towards it. Hope is the desire for good outcomes with the conviction that you have the will power to make things happen, even when things are difficult. Hope is more than wishful thinking, it is a mindset that includes self-belief, action, finding meaning and connection with a higher power (god, Buddha, universe or whatever) to help us through life’s challenges and helps us create positive change.
Remember, it is our present choices and actions that allow us to grow and build new paths even if the past experiences were difficult. By focusing on the present, we can build a strong future. Our future is defined by the amount of work that we want to put in today and not defined by the trauma that took place in our past. We define our futures. When combines with hope, there is nothing that can stop you from becoming the best possible version of yourself.
