It usually starts with our parents or guardians, who try to instill in our little heads what is and isn’t right. They say, “Do this…,” “Don’t do that…,” and raise us according to what “IS” and “ISN’T” right. There’s nothing unusual or wrong about that. We all need a bit of guidance at least at the beginning, right?
The trouble, however, is that they have their own issues too. They have their worries, learned behaviors in certain situations, and even though there’s always some positive intent behind any behavior (good or bad), problems can arise in our interactions with THEM.
Misunderstandings, disappointments, unmet expectations—and worse, hurt, trauma, and sometimes a great deal of pain—can appear.
This model obviously applies to any relationship between two or more people. So we’re not only talking about our parents. This system naturally includes our siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, classmates, teachers, neighbors, partners, and everyone else we interact with.
Whenever THEY (all those who surround us) act based on their own internal PROGRAMS and EXPERIENCES, it’s easy for us to dislike something they do. Or someone might unintentionally, or even intentionally, hurt us.
Sometimes the hurt is so great it can affect our entire life.
The conclusion many of us draw from such an experience can be: THEY hurt me, and from that moment on my whole life has been… (fill in the blank).
Caught yourself? Did something come to mind to fill in that sentence?
In most cases, almost all of us know exactly what we’d write there, don’t we?
Let’s take a short journey together that will (I hope) leave you at least questioning by the end of this article whether things might be a bit different than they seem.
Take a deep breath (don’t forget to exhale) and dive into an UNpleasant memory you can find—one that involves someone who hurt you in some way.
Notice what you see, what you hear, and what emotions and bodily sensations you feel…
Then come back here to the present moment. Right now (as I mention it) you might feel your toes, the air in the room and its temperature; maybe you hear a familiar voice or a sound from somewhere…
Now notice one thing. I don’t know whether this applies to you, but I can guarantee that many people reading these lines along with you (somewhere in another town) at this very moment are experiencing something called DISSOCIATION. If your memory didn’t show up in the same way, it’s very likely you have at least one that does feel dissociated.
Many people perceive such a memory as a movie, a picture, a series of pictures (setting aside other representational systems for now), and the important part is they see themselves in the memory. They see it from the observer’s perspective, as if watching from outside. And your “character” plays a certain role for your private “entertainment.”
There’s nothing unusual about that—this is how it works. Our subconscious mind has the ability to bend reality into an altered form following certain rules. The how and why aren’t important right now.
What is important is to realize something fundamental:
Right now, as you read these lines, you do not see yourself reading.
That alone can make us at least wonder whether the memory is truly “real”…
Are our memories real?
No, they’re not. Memories only seem real because we can feel them.
What happened five minutes ago—even a few seconds ago—is no longer real. We can’t actually go back in time to that moment. We can only imagine it. The only thing that’s real is right now…which means right now you can experience the best moments of your life—or the worst—if you’re carrying your past with you.
And that past isn’t real either. It’s merely a construct of our subconscious mind that falsely tells us who we are.
All those people in our memories aren’t real now, either. They, too, are just constructs of our mind in this moment, because they aren’t “stuck” back then—they’re living their own lives.
It’s odd how we can keep them alive even long after they’re gone. It’s like when clients tell me their father looks at them through their partner’s eyes—it’s as if he’s with them thanks solely to a facial expression, even though he’s been dead for decades.
Then we say, “It’s his fault. He did this to me; because of him my life is tragic.” And then we meet people who (to us) resemble him in some way—or we meet the same person years later (if they’re still alive)—and we act based on our own learned PROGRAMS that warn us: “WATCH OUT! Do everything you can to avoid a repeat of what happened in the past!” And it’s not just people; the same applies to situations, animals, and who knows what else.
And we end up asking: “Why is my life so tragic? Why do I feel so miserable around my partner or in the presence of my boss?”
Please pause and consider these facts:
- We said the past doesn’t exist.
- We said we can’t truly go back there; it only feels real because we feel it.
- We feel all that hurt, betrayal, humiliation, pain, grief, loss, powerlessness, fear, anxiety, pity, hatred, rejection… we see images, hear voices and sounds, smell scents—and we act based on learned programs, without realizing it’s not THEM, but our reaction to them and to what happened.
If we change our reaction, our subconscious mind will remove the hidden barriers that prevent us from feeling differently in those situations, that keep us from seeing more options (more paths), that keep us from making better decisions in the future, and that keep us from perceiving our life as better.
If you truly want to change whatever makes you who you are and makes your life what it is, you need to leave the current model of the world where it’s all THEM—and move to a higher one in which we realize: Yes, THEY did something unpleasant, but it was our reaction to their behavior; it’s our internal ways of representing the past. If we change those representations, we change ourselves.
If you need to forgive them, then forgive them. Realize they’re not actually there anymore; they’re your representations of them. And forgiving doesn’t mean approving what they did. It means: not carrying that hurt inside you, not hurting yourself again and again by replaying old painful memories.
When we forgive them, we’re in fact forgiving ourselves (or at least the parts of us that represent them). We are all the actors in our memories—victim and perpetrator, director and screenwriter of the stories in our mind.
Learn to change yourself, let go of what you carry inside, and allow the world around you to change accordingly.
Many articles offer lots of advice about what to do, but lack instructions on how to do it.
Here’s mine: if you know how, use FasterEFT and change the way you represent your memories. If you don’t have the tools yet, get a free manual, and if you really mean it, dive into a seminar and change your life for real.
Each of us ultimately stands alone. For some, it feels nice to be pitied when they retell a sad story—but in the end there’s nothing and no one who will change your story except you.
What is it that you want? Pity? Advice you can’t apply—or that brings no change? Or do you want to change your life and live, here and now, in the best this world can offer?
If what Jesus said is true—“The kingdom of heaven is at hand… it is right here…”—then where is the kingdom of hell? Here as well. Some of us walk through paradise; some of us play cards with the devil every day…
So what kind of day is yours?