Forget someone who hurt you


8 Ways to Move On

Letting go of the past, including people who hurt you, may involve accepting what you can’t control, taking accountability, and focusing on the lessons. Seeking help is also important.

Most people have, at some point, wondered how to let go of a hurtful past. It’s natural to feel that your current emotional pain is forever linked to what you experienced before. But, even if the past caused it, letting go of the pain starts with focusing on today.

How to let go of the past may mean different things to different people. It may also depend on your situation.

Maybe you think letting go is about being able to remember events or people without experiencing the pain. Perhaps you feel it’s about forgetting altogether. Or, it may mean you want to move on despite not having forgotten or forgiven yet.

Whatever it means to you, it’s possible to release what weighs heavy on your heart and mind. You can heal, and these tips may help.

“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become.

~ Carl Gustav Jung

Sometimes when you’ve hurt long enough, you may get used to the emotional pain. Maybe it feels safe and familiar. Maybe you’ve internalized it as part of your identity. Perhaps staying angry at that person is comfortable because you can keep a distance.

Growing pains can be real. Getting away from the things you’ve felt and thought about for a long time may be uncomfortable. But healing, joy, and peace of mind may be on the other side of letting go.

It may not be the case for everyone, but if you ask yourself “why can’t I let go?” these questions may help you start releasing your past:

  • Are there any secondary gains from keeping yourself focused on what hurts?
  • Is thinking about the past keeping you from trying new relationships or situations?
  • Do you avoid resolving emotional pain because this would mean facing it first?
  • How would your life be if you left the past in the past?
  • What would happen if you adopted a different role in the situation?

Sometimes, to heal, you first need to feel it. Bottling up your thoughts and emotions may hurt you more in the long run and make it hard to let go, particularly if you keep thinking about the past and what harmed you.

Ruminating on the same negative thoughts may affect your mood, relationships, and even your ability to be productive and creative.

Try to find ways to express how you feel healthily. Releasing the emotional charge may help you stop ruminating.

Consider engaging in activities that provide a safe space for you to let it all out. For example:

  • journaling with prompts
  • writing a letter to the person who hurt you (sending it is optional)
  • expressing your pain through art or play if writing or talking is difficult for you
  • finding a trusted friend, relative, or therapist to share your experiences and feelings

Taking accountability doesn’t mean you have to blame yourself for things that happened to you in the past. It’s more about realizing how much energy you’re spending on remembering or feeling things that are no longer your present. It’s also choosing to focus your attention elsewhere.

When you hold on to your pain, resentment, or hurtful memories, you’re reliving the painful experience again and again. This may keep you stuck in the past, which is something you can no longer change.

Taking accountability is also about claiming your power and deciding others will not control how you feel or live your life.

Maybe you didn’t have a say in what hurt you in the past, but you have a say now. You can choose where you put your mind and heart today.

It’s natural and valid to feel this is a difficult task. Maybe the pain is so intense that you can’t help but focus on it, or perhaps you have to live with the consequences. But healing is still possible.

Consider reaching out to a mental health professional to explore how you can develop effective coping mechanisms that may make releasing the past easier. You deserve it.

Focusing on past events may leave little room in your heart and mind for new experiences, including those that may bring you joy.

Not letting go of the past may make you more prone to miss the good in your life.

Consider these steps to make space for the new and to release the past:

  • set personal and professional short-term goals
  • cultivate gratitude so you can focus on the present good
  • assess the quality of your current relationships and choose those that do you good
  • commit to a new hobby or activity every month
  • clean and organize your spaces, so you give away or discard items that no longer serve you
  • establish new bonds or try to strengthen casual relationships that have the potential to be great friendships
  • practice mindfulness, so you learn how to return to the moment when your mind wanders to the past
  • commit to one self-care activity every week
  • engage in altruistic activities that may boost your mood by helping others
  • identify positive leaders and role models who lead with empathy and compassion

Prioritizing yourself is about being intentional with your decisions. This may start with realizing that choosing what’s good for you doesn’t mean you’re being selfish.

Putting yourself first may also mean reclaiming your power by leaving in the past what hurts you and focusing on healing today. It’s about realizing that you matter.

Consider:

  • going to therapy to explore how to let go of the past and hurt you’ve experienced
  • setting boundaries with other people who may want to relive or discuss the past when you’re not ready to
  • making life decisions that make you feel safe, at peace, or happy, even if others don’t agree
  • reframing thoughts that may increase your anxiety or sadness to focus on thoughts that may make you feel hopeful
  • engaging in self-compassion and self-respect

Prioritizing yourself may also be about exploring ways to find forgiveness.

Forgiving yourself and others has been associated with higher psychological well-being, including a higher tolerance to uncertainty and a lower tendency to experience anger.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

~ Rumi

What have you learned about relationships, love, yourself, and life from your hurtful past experiences?

Your first response to this question may be to think of the negatives you may have learned. It’s natural and valid. But try to pause if this is your first reaction and consider focusing on a few positive lessons. For example:

  • how strong and resilient you may be
  • who showed up for you and proved you can rely on them
  • the things you now know you don’t want in your life
  • the coping skills you may have developed to face life challenges
  • the sense that everything passes and this too shall pass

This isn’t an all-inclusive list and may not necessarily apply to your situation.

The idea is to try to identify whatever strength, skill, knowledge, or clarity you may have gained from a painful event. Focusing on these lessons may make it easier to let go.

One reason you may be ruminating about past events could be a need to revisit past choices or what could have been.

Focusing on the “what ifs” may lead you to repeatedly engage in the same inner conversations and scenarios. But thinking about what happened isn’t going to change it.

It may be difficult to accept, but learning to identify those things you have no control over may help you let go of the past.

The “should haves” or “what ifs” will not change what happened. The “what coulds” and “what wills” may help you move forward and be intentional in daily decisions that will affect your present and future.

Whether you live with trauma, experience anxiety or another mental health disorder, or may be facing relationship resentment, a mental health professional can help you let go and release your emotional pain.

Learning how to let go may depend on your specific situation and understanding of what letting go is about. But it’s possible and healing can be achieved.

Openly expressing how you feel, reclaiming your power, making room for new experiences, and focusing on the lessons are a few ways to let go of emotional pain.

If you’re having a difficult time letting go, consider seeking the help of a mental health professional. They can help you explore the possible causes of your challenges and develop coping skills that work for you.

3 ways to forgive someone who hurt you and move on

Forgiving someone for hurting you is not an easy task. Are you able to take the hurt that you have experienced and turn it into something positive? When it comes to deciding whether to forgive someone, there are many aspects to think about. Are you making the decision to forgive them for them or for yourself? Think about the pros and cons.

Does it help you to hold on to past hurt and pain? The difficult decision to forgive someone is extremely powerful and can be to your own benefit. It’s important to let go of the anger, resentment and regret that comes from the hurt in order to experience true peace in your life.

There is no glory in resentment. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

It is easy to be consumed by bitterness and revenge when someone who is especially close to you hurts you, either physically or emotionally. However, if you are truly planning on moving on with your life, it’s important that you forgive the person who hurt you.

The ability to forgive helps in your healing process

Being able to let go of pain opens the door to new possibilities and new relationships. I strongly believe that the act of forgiving someone who betrayed you or hurt you is one of the most selfless gestures you can think of, it Learning to let go and move forward with your life is one of the most valuable life skills you can have.

Here are 3 ways to forgive someone who has hurt you:
1. Don’t worry, the act remains unacceptable

Remember that just because you have chosen to forgive someone who has wronged you does not make the hurt that they imposed on you acceptable. It is okay to feel angry, to feel shattered and to feel betrayed. Your feelings are 100 percent valid. Emotions are neither right nor wrong, they simply exist. Being able to forgive someone makes you the bigger person and allows you to take control of your life and set boundaries for yourself. These boundaries are important because it will set the bar for what you are willing to accept in your future. You are allowed to say ‘I have forgiven you but I will not accept this behaviour ever again’.

2. Find the bright side

What are the advantages and disadvantages of forgiving someone? Think about it. It might help to physically sit down, grab a pen and jot down your ideas. To be able to see a physical list of pros and cons will help you to find the best reasons you should forgive someone for hurting you or causing you pain. Find the bright side, it might be easy to say, “I forgive you,” in reality but it takes a lot more than that. Try hard to find a positive outlook on forgiveness. It doesn’t happen overnight but with time, perhaps even with the help of professionals, your decision will be to your own benefit.

Practice self-love, always! Image courtesy: Shutterstock
3. Practice self-love

Take some time out for some me-time. Do things that make you happy. Being able to practice self-love will provide you with the much needed time to think about what is best for you, why you should forgive others and to do it in your own time. Go for a long walk, take deep breaths, perhaps try to pen your thoughts in a journal or take some time to make a cozy, warm, homemade meal. It is important to consider that a big part of loving yourself is owning who you are and accepting how you feel. Take the time to figure this out so that you can realise your true value. Understand yourself first with time and then you will be able to understand the other person and why they did what they did to hurt you. When we take the time out to accept, love, and forgive ourselves, we can do the same for others as well.

Remember, forgiveness for others starts with forgiving yourself for trusting them. You cannot control whether someone hurts you but you can control whether to forgive them.

how to forget a person who caused a lot of pain? - Question

how to forget a person who caused a lot of pain? — Questioner

SS

Svyatusya Smirnova

  • people

MS

Medina Samatova Samatova

Instructions:
1. Raise your right hand.
2.Pull it down sharply.
3. When lowering your hand, say: yes, fuck her or him. .
GOOD LUCK!!!

EP

Elena Rumyantseva

That's why you can't forget that you caused a lot of pain. this is how a person is arranged, he will delve into himself, where and who is to blame.

Yul

Yulia

agree with Aigul. hard at first. then

will pass

AR

Andrey Rybin

love yourself. it means that inside you are dissatisfied and unsure of yourself. therefore, in order to correct it, start admiring yourself and praising for any little thing, as a result, you will reorganize to other energies and this person, except for emptiness, will not cause anything else in you.

An

Anka

go to a psychologist. If you do not want, then read what is a recapitulation of the past according to Castaneda.

Marina Netkacheva

It's better to make up and be friends

Grigory Levkin

No. .. Only when someone better than him is found will he forget himself.

RB

Ruslan Bagirov

it's a matter of time

Sergey Emelyanov

caused a lot of pain) you know the brain has such an ability to forget the bad, that's how) forget what he did good for you or find someone who will do good for you even more, that's all)

Nur Smanaliev

Stop chasing him, stutterer.

MM

Mamaz Mutkin

Are you a masochist? You to a psychologist..

AYU

Andrey Yushchukov

To understand that with such an attitude nothing would have worked out for you anyway.
Because if you continued to communicate, you would suffer even more and life would turn into hell.
There was a parting - a way out of this hopeless situation, so it's time to move forward.
In life ALWAYS there comes a new light band after the black one.
One day you just wake up in the morning and think .. Well, I was a fool! Yes, well, his raztakoogo! I am free and happy

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How to forgive those who deceived us, betrayed us, hurt us, brought us grief?

Often we forgive others for their words or deeds, but there are cases when it is very difficult (almost impossible) for us to forgive someone who touched us to the very depths of our being. Cruel parents, a person who attacked us or a driver who knocked down one of our loved ones - we need to do a lot of inner work to forgive them. It's a long and hard road. For some, it is a courageous act, for others it is a recognition of their own weakness, since they would rather take revenge ... In any case, forgiveness in relation to those who brought suffering and grief does not go for granted ... However, everyone who was able to forgive their offenders, they say that this step brought them liberation, moreover, it filled their lives with new energy.

Forgiveness really frees us from suffering, pain, anger, contempt, malice. Regardless of whether we are asked for forgiveness or we forgive on our own initiative, this decision is always the result of complex internal work on ourselves, and the outcome of this work is never known in advance. We may sincerely desire to forgive another, but we will not necessarily succeed...

1. Decide to stop suffering

While the offender is torturing us, it is impossible to embark on the path of forgiveness. But how to put an end to this? The first step can be a conscious decision: stop suffering, stop experiencing pain, resentment, injustice. Sometimes this means breaking up or moving away from someone who hurts us. After all, next to the offender (a mother who ignored us for many years, a boss who broke his promise ...) we feel powerless, suffering simply paralyzes us. In special cases where our physical or mental health is in danger, the only way to get through this first stage and make the perpetrator answer for his act may be through a lawsuit. Forgiving someone who was cruel to us, and going to court, to the police do not contradict each other. After all, as the French writer and philosopher Simone Weil noted, “only that which can be punished can be forgiven.” Judgment in the name of society may determine the guilt and punish the offender. But only the victim can forgive him, and only if he himself wants it.

2. Recognize that we have been treated badly

The past does not disappear. It is useless to try to forget the offense. Thanks to the mechanisms of psychological defense, suffering, hatred and bitterness are forced into the unconscious, where they continue to act with even greater destructive force. We need to admit the guilt of the person who harmed us, this is necessary in order to live on. As Gabriel Reuben explains, this gives us the opportunity to “put the blame back on the offender and thereby reconnect with ourselves.” In addition, it will avoid the development of psychosomatic illnesses or behaviors that lead to repeated failures in work and relationships.

By forgiving, we take care of our health. Forgiveness brings relief to our soul. In addition, according to scientists, it is healing for our body.

By forgiving the offender, we receive new strength not only mentally, but also physically — this is confirmed by a study by Charlotte van Oyen Witvliet*, professor of psychology at Hope College (USA). More than 70 men and women were sequentially "immersed" in four states - the active experience of resentment, thoughts of revenge, sympathy for the offender and forgiveness - and measured the pulse rate, blood pressure, sweating and muscle tone. Psychologists have found consistent physiological differences between states of unforgiveness and forgiveness. At one memory of the offender, all the subjects disrupted the activity of the cardiovascular system. These changes became very significant when they thought about revenge. “If you are willing to put in the effort required to forgive, you will definitely feel the benefits of forgiveness for both your mental state and your physical health,” says Charlotte van Oyen Whitvliet.

3. Express your anger

Feel anger and even hatred towards your "executioner" - in other words, acknowledge and "let out" your suffering. At first, aggressiveness is even useful, it speaks of mental health, that the victim does not deny what happened and does not transfer the guilt of others. As Gabriel Ruben explains, “Hate is a very powerful feeling that cannot be made to disappear. If we do not direct it at the offender, then we will inevitably turn it on ourselves, risking starting the process of self-destruction. There is rarely an opportunity to directly express your anger to the offender, to express reproaches: he may not consider himself guilty or have such strong power over us that we will not dare to resist him. However, we can do this work ourselves: write down everything that you experience, tell about your experiences to a person you trust, and if the situation is very painful, consult a specialist.

This process is partly unconscious, and its "success" does not depend on the degree of the offense, but on the strength of our experiences. For example, two abandoned children will have different fates. Perhaps one will treat life as a struggle, while the other will perceive it as a battle lost in advance. It also depends on whether each of them can forgive their parents.

Main ideas

Forgetting is not an option. If we have been hurt, it is useless to pretend that nothing happened. Forgiveness takes time. Too hasty forgiveness is illusory and can turn against us. This is an inside job. It is not easy, but in the end it sets us free and gives us the strength to move on.

Stories of forgiveness are unique, and there are as many of them as there are of those who have been hurt. Despite this, we have tried, together with psychoanalysts Nicole Fabre and Gabriel Ruben, to identify the main stages that we go through on the path to forgiveness.

4. Stop feeling guilty

Paradoxically, most survivors feel guilty about what happened to them. Trying to figure out which side of our being has suffered the most will help to make the feeling of resentment and the suffering that accompanies it less acute, to look at them from the outside. What was hurt in us - pride, reputation, honor, bodily boundaries? “The answer to this question can help get rid of guilt, that is, to realize that we are not responsible for what happened to us,” says psychoanalyst Nicole Fabre. It's about giving up your ideal self, this fantastic self-image, and parting with obsessive lamentations "I have no forgiveness for not doing otherwise. " In some really dramatic situations, such as rape or incest, forgiving yourself is necessary in order to move on.

5. To understand the one who wounded us

Hatred and anger help to survive aggression, but if you experience them for a long time, it leads to self-destruction. To avoid this, it is useful to "get into the shoes" of the offender. Understanding his motives does not mean trying to forgive, our task is to see his weaknesses, comprehend the act that caused us pain, which (to some extent) will help to accept him. After all, a person is not equal to the sum of his actions, no matter how monstrous they may be.

6. Take your time

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness granted too quickly does not bring relief to anyone. Take your time, “let the time pass while maintaining an active attitude towards forgiveness,” advises Nicole Fabre. Forgiveness received too quickly can be perceived by the guilty as absolution. It will also become a trap for the victim, who still feels bitterness and anger (without even realizing it), because too little time has passed.


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