What would New Years Eve be without a countdown?
In the tradition of every media that will show a countdown of some sort on television tonight, I present to you the ShirleyIsNotMyName Top 5 Blog Posts of 2013!
Starting out our Top 5 countdown at number 5 is Randi Fine. Life can be painful and often times cruel but Randi will stops by to give advice on the leaving the pain of the past behind and moving forward to a Wonderful 2014!
Leaving the Past Behind
The human experience is not an easy one. When we enter
this world we are given few guarantees about what awaits us on our journey. We
are promised times of joy and times of sorrow, times of thriving and times of
suffering, time of hope and times of despair.
Pain is unavoidable. No one escapes life without
enduring their share of it. It may seem as if some have larger burdens than
others, but that is not true. It is one’s perception that determines the weight
of an experience. No two people have the same reality so no two people will
experience adversity the same way.
There are many factors that contribute to our
interpretation of life’s challenges. Upbringing plays a significant role in
preparing us for the road that lies ahead. We navigate that road through the use
of coping skills, healthy or unhealthy, attained in our impressionable
years.
Healthy coping skills are not innate; they are
learned behaviors. Some of us will have the advantage of proper parental
modeling, some of us will not. I did not. The skills I have today were realized
through much trial and error—mostly error.
Our instincts take over where our inability to
cope leaves off. When emotional pain hurts too much to feel we instinctively react
as we do to physical pain—ignore it, medicate it, deny and compartmentalize it,
or bandage it. These makeshift survival skills allow us to move on to the next
thing without having to accept what is right before us. They help us build
walls of protection. The higher these walls go, the more shielded we are from the
pulse of life. Over time these walls imprison us along with all the pain we
have held on to.
A great deal of energy is expended in suppressing
the pain we carry with us. It becomes a dam of feelings that pushes harder and
harder against the wall, trying to break free. We can only suppress it, mask
it, or numb it for so long before it starts seeping through the cracks in ways
we do not intend. We may have believed that we controlled the pain, but
eventually the pain begins to control us.
The pain may turn to bitterness and then bitterness
provides a self-righteous rationale to take a victim stance, to justify holding
on to the hurt. If we do not believe we caused it then why should we be the one
to let it go? We walk around proudly wearing a badge that says, “I am hurt and
entitled to it.”
Our pain becomes an integral part of our identity;
there comes a time when we do not know who we are without it. We find ourselves
stuck—trying to move forward while looking backwards. Every moment is impacted
by the pain of our past, and the future looks bleak.
It is very hard to let the past go; there is a
sense of comfort in clinging to it, scary to imagine life without it. But clinging
to the past is self-sabotage. We must let it go. We must move past our fear and
discover the wonderful life that that we are entitled to—the one that is
waiting for us.
The process of changing, letting our past go, may
be frightening and difficult even when we truly desire it. It requires
redefining our identity and changing our patterns. But that should never deter
us. Everyone can heal their past. All that is required is courage and
determination. Whether aware or unaware that we have it within us, we all
possess those inner-strengths. It is said that only the bravest souls choose to
incarnate into life. We are here because we are incredibly courageous.
The first steps to healing are acknowledging that
a problem exists and desiring change.
Since it may take time to excavate through the
dense accumulation of emotions, it is best to chip away at them little by
little. It helps to have a professional guide us through this process, help us
to identify our self-defeating patterns, and help us accept our feelings as
they come up.
Feelings never before felt can be very
disconcerting. But feeling pain means feeling human. By allowing ourselves to
feel we become stronger, more resilient, and better equipped to manage other
adversity. We learn that when we face our pain with acceptance we will be led
through it and then out of it. That understanding stretches our comfort zones. The
ever-lengthening chain of positive outcomes teaches us to have hope and faith. We
desire more for ourselves then we ever felt worthy of before. We live with
intent and our confidence soars. We are prideful knowing that we hold the power
over pain—pain does not hold the power over us.
What happened in the past is real, but the past is
meant to teach us. We are supposed to learn from the past, not live in it. Our
experiences, good and bad, will always be a part of our personal story, just as
history will always be part of the story of the world we live in. And our story
never ends; we continue to add chapters because our realities are constantly
changing. It is not possible to live in the past—the person we are today is not
the person we were ten or twenty years ago.
Life is full of countless blessings and infinite
possibilities. Every moment is a lesson in inspiration. We need only be
present.
Randi G.
Fine is a Ft. Lauderdale writer, radio show host, speaker, and published author
of the 2010 memoir, Fine…ly: My Story ofHope, Love, and Destiny and the 2012 spiritual/inspirational/self-Connect with Randi through Social Media
Website/Blog - Randi G. Fine's Love Your Life! - http://www.randigfine.com
Radio Show - A Fine Time for Healing - http://www.blogtalkradio.
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