Post by Susan Peabody on Aug 2, 2020 20:42:21 GMT
In recovery, we must not dwell or live in the past. But if we have been wounded we have to visit the past to learn how it has affected us. We have hidden gems in our unconscious that can reveal why we are currently an addict or depressed or anxious.
I did this by analyzing my dreams with the help of an enlightened witness. Together we processed what we found out. [Identify, talk, write, feel, forgive, let go, move on.] Then, and only then to we let the past go and put it in God's hands.
In summary , when it comes to the past, we do not dwell there or live there, but there are times when we visit it to understand ourselves better. We only need to do this if we were wounded and still have left over business. This means, whether we like it our not, the past haunts us and affects our current life and emotions. Elke Tolle calls this a pain body.
When this process is over we turn to the scriptures and follow Paul's advice: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11
"Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery of the truth about the unique history our childhood.... In order to become whole we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom. The damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. We can, however, change ourselves…. We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of the past and are thus able to live with it."
— Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child
“The remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted, and then let go of join together to form an energy field that lives in the very cells of your body.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Change is to human life what the metamorphosis is to the caterpillar; it is the inevitable cycle of life. If there is no change, there is no life.
— Susan Peabody, The Art of Changing