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Happy Friday, people! Today

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I want to talk about one of the frustrating

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facts of life, that

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things won't always go your own

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way. But disappointment,

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and its extremes like grief and anger,

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takes a lot of mental strength. Which

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is why people ask me to talk about things like

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forgiveness, letting go of

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the past, moving on, letting

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go of resentment and anger. And

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although everybody's different, everybody's

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situation is different. Things

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need dealing with in your own way. I

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still think a lot of these things

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boil down to acceptance. Acceptance

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that something has happened. Acceptance

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that something hasn't or can't.

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Accepting of other people and

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their mistakes. If our brain

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expects everything to go according to

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expectations, it's going to create

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an emotional response when it doesn't.

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The fight or flight response, anxiety,

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anger. And in the extremes of

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these situations, it can be hard to let things

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go, even if the

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only one hurting over it is

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you. And I think one of

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the reasons we hold on to these sorts

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of things is because we sometimes think

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that in accepting things,

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we're also condoning it. We're

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encouraging it, and forgiving

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someone for something, which is proper

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hard, nigh on impossible in

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some instances, actually, isn't it? Because we

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can't forgive everyone that

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has ever hurt us. I don't know what

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you've been through, but if my therapy

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sessions are anything like the rest of the world

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then there's a lot of people out there that have been seriously

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hurt, neglected by

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people. So if we don't forgive,

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because we're not in the right headspace to do that,

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how can we let go of the emotion that our experience

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has created? Well, that's

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where acceptance comes in. And

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people make the mistake of thinking that

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it makes them weak or naive

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to accept and let go of something.

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But I see it as quite the opposite, in fact. It's

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actually really hard. It takes a lot

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of emotional control and focus

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and strength to deliberately

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think differently about something. That's

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not weak. It takes a lot of strength

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to be the bigger person, doesn't it? And actually

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say, you know what?

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The only one this is hurting is me. I'm

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gonna move on from that. But

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it doesn't mean you have to forgive and

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forget. There's a time and a place for that. And I get

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people in therapy sometimes because they've been

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cheated on by their partner or they've been

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the cheater themselves and it's themselves

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they want to move on from, it's themselves they want

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to forgive and move on from the past from. It's

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not easy for either of those people.

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They might not ever completely

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forgive themselves. There might always

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be some residual guilt over it

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or leftover anger from the other party.

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But we can move on and we can accept,

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but probably never completely forgive

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and forget. It's just that we can

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change the experiences we've had

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and the feelings associated with them into

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something easier to manage. Like

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simply knowledge. We

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can know that something

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happened, and we can remember it if

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we think about it, but we can feel

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that it's not real anymore, that it's

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the past. In

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time, we can change the meaning behind the

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experience and change I

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am hurt into I was

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hurt. I am angry

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becomes I was angry. I

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am worthless can become They

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took advantage. So that your brain can learn

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that it's outside of your control. To

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let it go. Once

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you've learned and accepted that something is outside

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of your influence. That

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it's about somebody else, rather than you,

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the brain starts letting go of it. The

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reason things hang around is so often

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because our brain's trying to relive

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the experience again and again to try

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and learn how to control it. Because

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if we can control things, then we can prevent

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them happening again, so it keeps us safe.

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But it doesn't really help. One

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of the best ways of learning that the past is

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the past, is to simply talk about it.

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And I know that I'm biased because I'm a therapist.

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I'm just not your therapist. But putting

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the experiences and the way you feel

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about it into words, just

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seems to do something weird to it in the brain.

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So that it begins to lose its hold over

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you. As if the brain catches up

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with the reality of it and begins to see

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it as the past. And

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when it's the past, it's something that can't be changed.

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It starts to become accepted,

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even if it's not acceptable.

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So if there's a way of getting the ball rolling on that

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acceptance, then do it.

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Journal. Write about it. Email

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people about it. Chat about it. As

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always, there's a lot more about this

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on my Patreon page. Link is in the description.

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Hop on board if you like. You can share your story

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on there with all the patrons on there.

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There's a 7 day free trial too, to get

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access to my stuff, so if you don't like any

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of my content after all, you can just cancel

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if you like. Either way, have a good

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week, Podfans. See you soon!