Letting Go of Past Hurts

Last week we talked about the importance of “completing the past” in order to fully consider the future, and we looked at a 4-step process to help with moving on. 

This week I want to take it a step further - to go a little deeper and show you how - physically HOW - you can let go of past hurts and painful emotions in order to bring emotional healing.

It all begins with consciousness.

And of course, as you know, it’s “Generous April”! So once again, I have another free download to help you let go.

Lightening the load

Imagine yourself in a swimming pool, trying to hold a float under water. Think of all the energy you’re using trying to keep it under. If you couldn’t swim, this float could literally save your life. But you’re spending all this time and energy trying to keep it under the water, and as a consequence you’re flailing about - you are, in fact, more at risk of drowning.

Now imagine how it feels to stop fighting it - to just let the float come up to the surface and instead of using your energy to force it under water, you hold the float out in front of you and spend that energy kicking your feet to propel you forwards. It’s a completely different sensation, and naturally, comes with a different set of thoughts and emotions (progress and victory, instead of panic and fear).

We all go through life with a vast array of different emotions, and most of us spend an awful lot of time and energy trying to suppress them - or worse, repress them unknowingly. 

We fear letting them “bob up to the surface” because we’re afraid of what we’ll be faced with. It’s unknown, it’s uncertain and it’s scary. 

As a result of suppressing and repressing our emotions, we’re like a pressure cooker waiting to blow. One false move, and our little ‘pressure release valve’ on top might blow off spectacularly, spraying our contents (emotions) all over the place!

Letting go, on the other hand, is like the controlled release of pressure - the sudden dropping of a weight. Instantly, you can feel relief and a lightness, which in turn comes with more happiness and a sense of freedom. This is a mechanism the mind uses - one we’ve no doubt all experienced at some point.

For example, have you ever been in the midst of a blazing row where you’re so angry and upset, but then suddenly the whole argument strikes you as ridiculous? You begin to laugh and the pressure is relieved!

Or perhaps you’ve been chatting with a loved one or watching a funny film, and you’ve laughed so hard that you suddenly burst into tears? After all, positive emotions need releasing too...

The human condition

In his book, “Letting go”*, Dr David Hawkins writes:

“We carry around with us a huge reservoir of accumulated negative feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. The accumulated pressure makes us miserable and is the basis of many of our illnesses and problems. We are resigned to it and explain it away as the ‘human condition’.”

He describes this burden of negativity as an “elaborate struggle to escape our inner fears and expectations that have been projected upon the world”. 

He notes that we fear these feelings because we have “no conscious mechanism by which to handle [them]” and so we bury them - either by suppression or repression - and the pressure builds up…

It is this accumulated pressure of feelings and emotions that causes our thoughts. And these thoughts are incessant! (Have you ever sat still for just five short minutes and observed the myriad of thoughts that cross your mind?!). So, when we let go of a feeling, we are also freeing ourselves from all of the associated thoughts.

The three emotional prisons we incarcerate ourselves within

1. Suppression and repression

These are the most common ways we tend to push down our feelings, and we do it because we don’t like to be bothered by our feelings - and frankly, we don’t know what to do with them! Repression is unconscious: it happens when there is so much guilt and fear over the feeling, that we unconsciously use a variety of ways to keep the feelings repressed. Most often, this is done by either denying the feeling completely (“it never happened”) or by projecting the blame onto others (“it’s her fault”, “he made me angry”).

On the other hand, suppression is conscious, and the pressure of suppressed feelings and emotions manifests later on as irritability, mood swings, muscle tension, headaches, and various ailments (e.g. colitis, hypertension, insomnia and even allergies).

2. Expression

Many people believe that expressing their feelings will free them from those feelings, but unfortunately that is a misinterpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis. 

Freud said that suppression of emotions causes neurosis, but what many then extrapolate from that statement is the idea that expressing emotions is the antidote to these neuroses. However, what he actually said was that the repressed impulse or feeling was to be “neutralized and channeled into the constructive drives of love, work and creativity”.

Let’s think about this for a minute: if we express our negative emotions to those around us - let’s use anger as an example - what happens? They feel attacked and as a result they also feel the urge to suppress, express or escape their feelings that arise as a consequence of our expression of anger. Left unchecked, this can lead to the breakdown of relationships with those around us. 

A better solution, therefore, would be to take responsibility for our own feelings and emotions, to feel them, let them play out internally, and neutralize them by letting them go. If this course of action is taken instead of expressing negative emotions, then only positive feelings remain and can be expressed healthily.

3. Escape

Another common mechanism we use to handle (or rather, not handle!) our emotions is to escape or avoid these feelings by diverting our attention onto something else via various different means of distraction. This includes all forms of entertainment (TV, social media, video games, reading, listening to music) as well as medicating ourselves with addictions to food, alcohol and drugs. This might sound extreme, and these things aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves, but have you ever noticed what you do when you’re even remotely bored? For me, I reach for my phone. Or go and put the kettle on for yet another cup of tea! I don’t need to do either of these things, but I can’t bear to be bored. Or sometimes I use these distractions to avoid doing something particularly difficult - like writing and marking! When I have to write a paper, or mark essays, I find it really, REALLY hard to make the conscious effort to NOT procrastinate! 

As Hawkins writes:

“People are desperate to stay unconscious...People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread even a moment of aloneness.”

In a stark warning to his readers, Hawkins also warns that by expending such huge amounts of energy to keep down the growing pressure of suppressed and repressed feelings, we find ourselves less able to truly love and trust another person, which ultimately leads to “emotional isolation and self-hatred”.

Letting go

When we let go of a feeling, we release the energy behind it and effectively decompress the built up pressure. As we release more and more feelings, the accumulated pressure that has built up over time begins to decrease.

So, how DO we physically let go of our feelings and emotions and make way for the positive feelings to be expressed?

Step 1: Become aware of the feeling

Let it come up, sit with it and let it run its course. Drop any judgements you might think about it and see it for what it is: just a feeling.

Step 2: Give up resistance

Once you’ve become aware of the feeling, the next step is to let it be. Don’t resist it, don’t fear it, don’t try to change it, or change the way you respond to it - just let it be. It is resistance that feeds the feeling and keeps it growing. When you give up trying to resist it or change it, then it will shift to the next feeling. You may notice a sensation of feeling lighter.

Step 3: Ignore all thoughts related to the feeling

This one’s a bit trickier because we are constantly bombarded by our own thoughts - they are relentless and self-reinforcing, and they only serve to breed more thoughts. Thoughts are simply our brain’s way of rationalizing the presence of the feeling. The solution, then, is to focus on the feeling itself, and not on the thoughts that accompany the feeling. 

As you practice this, you may notice you have feelings about your feelings. For example, you might fear feeling fear, or feel guilty over feeling angry. This is perfectly normal, don’t worry. To let the feelings come up, it can be easier to let go of the “feeling about the feeling” first, and then you can move onto letting go of the feeling itself.

You may also find it helpful to keep track of your progress - in a journal or a notepad. This can be helpful to overcome the resistance of “it’s not working” that naturally arises when you start to make progress. You see, your subconscious has a clever ploy to try and bury these things, and it can be easy to forget just how far you’ve come!

One final tip for letting go: it’s not particularly helpful to “think” about it, but rather to simply (in the words of Nike) just do it. After enough practice, you’ll begin to see that all your thoughts are merely resistance to letting go.

If you’d like to explore this concept of letting go some more, then I’d highly recommend David Hawkin’s book*. You can also download this free guide designed to help you let go of past hurts.

Join the movement

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