I’ve gotten a lot of letters from people who are dealing with painful issues from the past, and are struggling to finally move past them and look forward to a much more enjoyable present and future. Often these painful issues seem of such magnitude, that often they seem insurmountable.  Obviously, dealing with painful wounds is necessary to finally healing and moving on, but how can you do so when the pain is still so real?

Probably the best kind of therapeutic method available to deal with this situation is something called Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.  Using the techniques from this therapy, you would continually challenge and question your underlying beliefs that are preventing you from moving ahead. There are two main thought patterns that prevent one from leaving a negative past that I will focus on in this article. These two harmful thought patterns are:

a. Awfulizing (or catastrophizing)- this is the act of overreacting to adverse conditions by continually telling yourself how awful or terrible something is. If you keep focusing on the awful bits, you will never be able to move on. Instead of focusing on the terrible aspects of some negative event, the correct way to challenge this disturbed thought pattern is to tell yourself something like “Yes, it was unfortunate that x event happened, but it is not the end of the world, and I have a lot of other positive things to look forward to.” The act of reframing the event in more positive terms can do wonders for the way that you start perceiving your difficulties.

b. All or none thinking- this is the kind of thought process where you tell yourself that something has to be a certain way or all is lost. For example, you could tell yourself, x and y should have happened a certain way in the past and because it didn’t happen that way, then there is no further use trying. Or you might think that you absolutely have to succeed or have people like you or be loved by everyone or have everything go smoothly and if you don’t, then everything else is pointless. A correct way to challenge this kind of thinking is to tell yourself, “I would prefer if x happened a certain way or if y person liked me, but it doesn’t have to be that way and it doesn’t change the way I feel about myself at all.” Once again, you are actively challenging negative thought patterns that leave you stuck in one place and prevent you from moving on.

Using the kind of Socratic inner dialogue of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to challenge your negative inner thoughts is probably the best way of burying a difficult past and creating the emotional foundation to be happy in the future. Remember- something can’t hurt you if you don’t care about it.