Why Be Crushed Anymore By Past Hurt?

A HURT LIFE IS AN INCREDIBLY SAD THING. How does the person contend with life from that standpoint? Life can appear sharp; too hard; fear-ridden. Yet, how is this so when it wasn’t you—the “now” you—it happened to? Before you jump all over me, let’s just explore this with an open mind.

Past realities do cut deeply into our psyches, yet their lasting sting needn’t hem us in, today, if we recognise the truth. The metaphorical “today” is different than the metaphorical “yesterday”; we must believe that things have changed and those things that hurt us badly yesterday have now a different effect on us today. Yesterday’s power over us is (or can be) reduced.

And this “power” is only what we give it; an activator for our psyches. Power is a very abstract thing. Power so often occurs in our minds—it begins there and ends in the same place. We give things power—positive power and negative power. Relational effects might start in some way with the other person, but it always ends with us. We choose our response.

Things have changed. We have changed. We are more aware. We’re wiser on the issue of trust, hopefully. We’ve also attained more personal power I’d suspect; it is our nature in life to improve upon our stocks. In other words, we’ve learned a thing or three. The perpetrators of our hurt, too, have changed. They’re generally not anywhere near as powerful as we once ascribed them to be. They’re not positioned in our lives, perhaps, as they once were. They could be that pathetic in this new light and perspective we have, they’re worthy more of our sympathy and compassion than our fear, derision and distrust.

We must be careful that we don’t allow our carnal imaginations to dream up improbable possibilities. Why would we even go there?

Instead, we can almost as easily train ourselves to think forwardly. The extra effort required in getting out of this hurt rut we face is infinitely worth it.

In this is the key to life as ‘it can be’ for any of us. We give ourselves this purpose for living and we inevitably reap a certain fascination with life. It’s all there to be seen. So much to see, hear, taste, touch and smell—all good and great stuff. This is that life that enriches for us the present, through our very casting aside of our pasts; those that cannot any longer hem us in.

And we smile.

We look ever forward, considering the present and the immediate, hope-filled future. And how wonderful that future now looks considering where we’ve come from and what we’ve gained victory over. We’re suddenly better for the hurts—imagine that!

This is our gorgeous fun-filled reality, without the faintest shred or skerrick of fear to be seen.

And in this God is praised!

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.