| "Get over
it," people tell us. "Let it go."
"Move on." "Don't let it keep getting you
down so much." And they speak with wisdom.
They know that when we brood over something that has happened
to us, something that has gone poorly, something that someone
else has done for us, we're hurting ourselves by keeping our
minds focused on something that can't be changed and that
keeps us down. When we brood over something, we're
allowing our negative thoughts to control our lives, to
determine how we feel and how we approach life.
That's not to say that bad
things don't happen, nor that they shouldn't affect us.
I've had some truly awful things happen to me, and those
things have brought me down and made me feel terrible. I
have learned in life, though, that I do tend to get through
them, and I do tend to recover and let them go. The time
I spend brooding, though, keeps me from living my life well
while I'm focused on the bad thing that has happened.
If somebody hurt me last
week, I have the choice of continuing to be bothered by it or
of moving on and letting it go. If I continue to dwell
on what that person did, I'm going to feel awful mentally and
emotionally, for my thoughts are caught in an action that made
me feel awful to start with. I'm going to add to it all
sorts of extra negative sentiments, possibly focusing on what
I see as my own lack of worthiness, on the way I see other
people as treating me, and even on other, similar things that
have happened in the past that seem to make a pattern.
Of course, it may take me a
week to get over something that you can get over in two
days. That's okay, and we need to know our own
limitations concerning healing. But we also need to
shift our attention away from the negative thoughts concerning
an occurrence in order to allow the healing to happen.
We can recover from a burn until we actually pull our arm from
the fire, after all.
Gloom and darkness are
inviting, especially if we have tendencies towards depression
or self-pity. Brooding allows us to stay in touch with
the darkness and to keep it strong in our minds, but we don't
always have the presence of mind to consider the cost of
constant brooding on our spirits. Banana splits taste
wonderful, but if we have one every day we'll soon see visible
evidence of what we're doing to hurt ourselves. Brooding
feels good in its own sad way, but the only evidence that
we'll see of the harm it's doing us is in our aspect, in the
turned-down corners of our mouths, our sad or angry eyes, our
lack of cheerfulness.
The first step to fighting
this tendency is to recognize it, to see what we're doing to
ourselves and to the other people in our lives. Do
people avoid being with you because you're constantly focusing
on the bad things that have happened to you? Well, then,
focus on something else! And if you can't find anything
good in your life to focus on, then focus on some of the
wonderful things that are happening in your neighborhood, your
city, your state, or our world. You will feel a
difference in the way you see the world and in the way the
world treats you, and the difference should be positive.
Don't let the darkness have
you. Don't let it hold you in its grasp whenever it
wants just by controlling your thoughts. Let things go,
and let them be. Whatever has happened is over, and
while you may know that you can't trust a certain person any
more, that doesn't mean that you have to keep focusing on
something awful that that someone has done. Then it's no
longer that person hurting you, but you hurting yourself.
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