The past week has been something of a rollercoaster for me, gentle but still with ups and downs. I found myself engaging in debates and conversations that have allowed me to exercise my mind and share my sense of humor. But there were also times when my thoughts focused on past pains because of conversations I came across.

There is nothing wrong with remembering your past and acknowledging it. It’s okay if things that you’ve lived through still hurt and bring you pause. But you should not allow your past to overrule your present or your future. It can take some people longer to get over past damage or loss or injustice, but that does not justify clinging to your grief and pain so tightly that you not only fail to heal but also do more damage to yourself.

Sometimes healing can’t come until you’ve made some drastic changes in your life. This may mean giving up a specific group of friends, something that can bring additional pain with the initial severing of ties but ultimately allows you to shed the influences that continue to cause you damage. More difficult can be giving up ideologies and philosophies that you doubt or disagree with.

Other changes made to bring healing to your life may be more positive. Finding a new hobby or activity can help you build new memories that have few or no associations to whatever caused you damage or grief. These changes can also help to bring new friends into your life, and new friends can bring new perspectives you may find useful in your healing process.

Ultimately, however, you have to find the desire inside yourself to drive your healing forward. Making changes to your life can help, but if you insist on clinging to pain, nothing you do will cause it to ease into background noise. Don’t feed it in a way that allows it to fester and infect your life with a slow, poisonous unhappiness. Acknowledge it, but fight for your future, your peace, and your happiness.

Hezzie

See previous blog post, The Journey to Here , to read about some of my personal difficulties that required healing.