Healing The Heart

How to get over a long-held hurt.

Dr Alice Boyes advice on how to get over long-held hurt

When a hurt or source of anger from the past is still bothering you years after it occurred, what can you do?

1. Act your way to feeling better

Many years ago, my now spouse pointed out loose skin on my upper arms. I was hurt and angry but at some point, I decided to wear sleeveless tops despite the excess skin. While the hurt still stings, it’s satisfying to have exercised my power.

2. Identify how you would prefer to have been treated

Traumas tend to still bother us when they’re not fully emotionally processed. You can encourage more complete processing if you identify how you would prefer the situation to have evolved. What support would’ve lifted you up? In an ideal world, how would you have responded? Be very specific in answering these questions.

3. Don’t repeat the patterns

You can’t always undo past hurts, but you can avoid repeating the cycle. If someone hurt you, how can you help others have a better experience?

For example, author Brené Brown has written about research showing that many adults feel long-lasting shame about having their creative efforts criticised when they were kids. If you’re a parent, you have an opportunity to cheerlead your kids’ creativity. And you can likely do this in your other roles too.

Someone who has been hurt or misunderstood themselves is in an ideal position to turn reversing the pattern into a personal strength. This type of post-traumatic growth aids healing.

4. Understand how hurts have shaped your self-perception

As a kid, I thought others saw me as selfish and difficult. I am selfish in some ways, especially compared to my mother. However, there are also ways in which I’m generous. You don’t have to wholly accept or reject ways other people have categorised you. You can see the nuance. This can help you feel less like you have a catastrophic flaw that will make rejection or failure inevitable.

5. Understand when hurts occur because of other people’s limited skills

Perhaps someone didn’t support you the way you needed, or you didn’t feel welcome in a group, or someone got frustrated with you instead of understanding you better. These hurts occur because of other people’s limited skills. If you can see that the person lacked the skills to provide what you needed, a hurt can feel less personal. You can also look for opportunities to help others gain the skills you needed or still need.

6. Assess the validity of your memories

In some cases, we create a story about hurt that doesn’t reflect the reality of what happened. Each time we ruminate, we reinforce the story and our memory of what actually happened becomes murkier. For example, you recall someone as having not liked you, when they had a closer relationship with other people but didn’t dislike you. Since you can’t time travel back, sometimes it’s enough to acknowledge that your memory might not be 100 per cent accurate.

What’s the benefit of this tip? Sometimes fractures in relationships occur in a way that’s repairable, and you may have the desire to do that, but feel encumbered. For example, if you want to collaborate with a colleague now, but have a mistaken idea from a past interaction that they don’t like you.

Long-held hurts can hold you back, but they don’t need to. Try some of the above tips to see what works for you. Even if you can’t erase the hurt, you can lessen it, and take back your power.

Dr Alice Boyes is author of the books The Healthy Mind Toolkit (2018) and The Anxiety Toolkit (2015).