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 awful.  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.