It may take time to grieve a loss, adjust to a major life transition or change, to adopt a new lifestyle or new habits, or to learn healthier ways of thinking, behaving, and coping. However, once you have reached a healthy level of acceptance and healthy coping skills it is critical that you consider divorcing your painful past. Each day that you allow the thoughts or memories of your painful past dominate your thoughts, feelings, and behavior you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to be happy, healthy, and successful. In addition, pain turns into suffering. Sometimes we can’t avoid or prevent pain, but most of the time we can prevent long term suffering by changing the way we think about the event or circumstances that caused the pain. Your therapist can help you learn this skill.

“RE” simply means doing something over or putting it back together. “Dis” means apart, away from, or to form the opposite of.

Rather than putting the painful events of the past back together you can learn to take those painful memories apart. Stop remembering, reliving, or re-experiencing your past, and dismember it instead. You may not forget the past but you can take it apart, peel back the layers, and unpack it. After you’ve done so, creating new and healthy memories is critical. Failing to create new and pleasant experiences will put you at risk for reverting to the old ones. This will more than likely perpetuate more suffering. Reverting to, reliving, and remembering the pain and trauma from the past is like returning to a long term toxic and dysfunctional relationship. You know how the story ends so let’s read a new book together. Don’t just read the new book, fall in love with it. Find ways and reasons to be grateful for where you are, who you are, and what you have today. After you’ve ended the commitment or marriage to the past and found gratitude for the present moment, start visualizing a healthier future with healthy habits, healthy relationships, healthy self-esteem, and improved mental and physical health. We look forward to seeing you create a new, healthy, and exhilarating narrative in which you create the beginning, the end, and everything in between. Life changes, time flies, but you are the author of your story. Pick up your pen and write! Change it!

_YEXL