How To Make Peace With Bad Past Experiences According To Expert Recommendations

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JAKARTA - A bad experience is certainly unpleasant and can even affect the way you see something that happens afterward. Even though you have experienced unpleasant things that make an impression on your memory, experts recommend making peace with these feelings.

Erin Olivo, licensed clinical psychologist and author of Wise Mind Living: Master Your Emotions, Transform Your Life, recommends the following ways to make peace and take wise steps after a bad event.

Think of the past as the present

If forgetting is impossible, then you can manage how much time you spend right now wallowing in feelings of loss, disappointment, and fear. Erin doesn't suggest getting rid of bad feelings about the past.

However, he suggests learning ways to calm down with the support of those closest to you when you feel 'sick'. This means imposing limits on memory and training awareness so that they can control negative emotions.

Rewrite with a new perspective

When letting the past determine the future, restrictions become even more binding. Each time moving forward is followed by new experiences and new thoughts.

Having a new perspective is a great way to build new experiences. Try to rewrite the bitter story of the past, but this time don't make yourself a victim. Instead, make yourself a survivor subject.

Avoid falling into a mythical cage

Based on the experiences of Erin's patients, many of them believed in myths, which slowed down recovery. Because, myths seem to be a cage that makes you trapped in pain and misery.

Such myths include 'traumatic experiences leave scars that won't heal', 'anger wins', 'I need someone else to heal this pain'.

According to Erin, nothing can change the way a person responds to painful experiences except for himself. One also cannot change anything that has happened in the past.

This means that the power to change what the next moment is like comes from how you respond to painful thoughts, memories, and feelings.