Healing from the past, the first step to inner peace

Inner peace is a topic that I have devoted a significant amount of time examining, researching and practicing. Whether we are consciously aware of it, we are all searching for inner peace because we all suffer. We all experience feelings of sadness, hurt, anger, anxiety, disappointment, frustration, loneliness, restlessness, resentfulness and emptiness. We also are affected by external sources such as; daily stressors, finances, conflicts within relationships, which all impact us as stress. All of these emotions keep us from finding peace within our souls. However, we can learn how to find peace within.

When we embark on this journey of finding peace in our lives, we first need to heal those conditions that ail us. Most of us live our lives without ever understanding our thoughts and emotions, however, these thoughts and feelings prevent us from finding inner peace. Most theorists agree that the experiences we encounter during our childhood create our emotional and cognitive foundation. During our developmental years, through the experiences we encounter, we react with fear, anger, sadness, disappointment, etc. These experiences shaped our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. As children, we created fantasies about why things happen. Because we learned about ourselves and the world through these limited experiences, these perceptions are not always accurate. All these factors create inaccurate thinking. As we grow older, we continue to use these inaccurate paradigms and to distort our reality because we use our past experiences to try to explain our present reality. When we assess our experiences, whether internal or external, these produce thoughts which then create feelings. We continue applying our old paradigms, which recreate these feelings of fear, hate, sadness, hurt, anger, jealousy, disappointment, restfulness and so many others. These emotions come from two sources; our unconscious, which are unresolved emotions from past experiences and our feelings based on appraisals of the present. It impacts how we react to and feel about our current experiences as well as what we think and feel about ourselves and others. These emotional scars create current pain because present circumstances trigger these feelings that hurt so much.

Because we carry all of these emotional scars and dysfunctional thinking into our present, until they are made conscious, addressed and processed, they impact every moment of our lives and motivate our decisions. We carry these cognitive and emotional blueprints into our adult life and if not examined, they stifle our ability to live fully. Because how we have viewed our situations in the past, color how we view situations in the present and we are not seeing things as they truly are, which create emotional pain. We come into current reality with preconceived notions and react in certain ways that are no longer serving us. The factors that influence our emotional reactions include what we experienced, how we coped with our situation, what support we received, how we interpreted these situations and so much more. If our emotional scars are not healed, we will continually be affected by them, which prevent us from finding inner peace

Therefore, the first step of discovering inner peace is to heal from our past, which means examining and understanding the past and how it impacts us presently. The healing process includes processing the feelings that create our suffering and letting them go. This first crucial step is self reflection because we are reacting to situations, as well as our thoughts, without understanding why we do so. Although we seem to think that we have power over our lives, we tend to overlook the power of our thoughts and feelings. They are somewhat controlled by unconscious processes. The more introspection you have into this dynamic, the more power you will have over your thoughts, feelings and actions and the less power unconscious motivators have over you. By stepping outside of yourself, this process allows you to get an understanding of your internal and unconscious motivators and the conflicts that lie within; your desires, dreams, fears and wishes. You can now start the process of change by identifying the origins of your suffering. This process starts by being more conscious of your true feelings and thoughts and taking a good hard look at your-self, truly and honestly and assess how and why you feel the way you do and how and why you have the thoughts that you have. Once you become more conscious of your thoughts and feelings, you can relate them back to their origins. By re-examining your past, you can see how it has shaped your present. Therefore, it is important to find that link to the past that explains why you feel and think the way that you do.

Journaling is an exercise that can start this process of examining the things that cause you stress. You can reflect on the stressors of your day and write about the thoughts and feelings you experience and how you react to the stressor. After journaling these experiences, it is important to understand the origins of these thoughts. It is important that when a situation occurs and you feel stressed, to stop, pause and examine it. Then, ask yourself what emotional scar is this situation triggering? After identifying your stressors, it is valuable to search for the trigger which originated it. For example, do you feel stressed because you feel the need to perfect? Where did this come from? Was it created because long ago you believed that only if you were perfect would you be loved?

Another self-reflective exercise you can use is to examine a current obstacle that you might be facing and ask yourself, “What feelings is this situation triggering in me?” and “What is this about me that I need to learn?” We can explore the obstacles that come into our lives to learn valuable aspects of ourselves. As mentioned previously, it is not the external factors that cause us pain, but the thoughts and the feelings these external factors triggers in us. When a negative feeling arises, the first step is to get clear on what the thought and feeling really is. When you have identified a specific thought and feeling, you can ask yourself, “Where did I feel this before?” “Why is this situation making me think and feel this way?” Therefore, it is important to start looking for the process that is occurring within you instead of the focusing on the external event and blaming it for causing you to feel a certain way. External situations such as other people, jobs, etc. cannot cause you to feel a certain way. These external factors merely trigger feelings within you that need to be explored. The thoughts and the feelings that you have are your own, they are not created by an outside source.

The last exercise that will be illustrated is to examine your life script. During our formative years, we create a life script. It is important to examine this because often times, we create an image of ourselves or a role that we decide to play and we play this role over and over again. This image about our self is usually inaccurate as it stems from the experiences from our past, not our present. Furthermore, this role can lead us to feel unhappy, frustrated and resentful sine we are not true to ourselves. Are you still feeling like that awkward child that did not fit in or felt inadequate? Or are you the helpless person who feels like a victim? Or is your role as the caretaker or the people pleaser? Oftentimes these roles are not productive and cause us stress and unhappiness. These roles prevent us from doing the things we want to do and keep us from being authentic and create pain and suffering. By first identifying this life script, we can start re-writing it. As we grow, these scripts usually don’t serve us in a positive way. When we start to uncover these processes, we can start becoming the author of our own lives. We can as adults, decide who we are and how we choose to live our lives. What is your life script? What role do you play? Why do you think you play this role?