Letting Your Past Experiences Rest in Peace

I was watching How I Met Your Mother tonight and one of the lines really hit me. One character, Ted, has a crush on another character, Robin, from the beginning of the show. Later in the series, Ted is forced to repress his feelings for her, and when they eventually resurface, someone suggests that the feelings had been 'buried in a shallow grave'.

Bare with me, the post ahead is rather abstract!

The line brought up images of our past feelings, thoughts and events living underground, buried in whichever way we choose to bury them. Whether it's in a shallow way through temporary means of burial, or deep underground, dispersed and digested to reduce their emotional blow.

Obviously the way we deal with our past experiences has a big effect on us. Traumas might be far from laid to rest. They could be buried so shallowly that their tentacles reach up above ground and affect our every decision.

Being deeply buried doesn't mean refusing to let it enter our lives. It might seem that saying things like 'no I don't care about that anymore. It means nothing to me' moves the experience so far away that it can't 'get you'. But really, in a traditional rom-com sense, 'I don't care', can mean the exact opposite. It's like trying to put a plaster on something that needs stitches.

So I've put together my thoughts on how a trauma we want to bury can be best put to rest:

• Feel the feelings.
  
  Sad? Try sitting with the sadness for an evening. Journal about it. Talk about it. Think about it. Cry about it. Drinking it away or eating food or sleeping a lot will only delay the feelings until later, when they inevitably resurface in perhaps in a more indirect way.
  
• Grieve.
  
  Bear with yourself. Grief is a long process which can take a long time. And your emotional needs don't just include grieving when someone passes away. Leaving your job is still a loss, even if you hated it! Changes require us to process them, and allowing yourself to do just that will stop the feelings being delayed or coming out sideways. See my post about grief here.
  
  It might take a long time, and going through the stages can feel never-ending, but when you get to the end and you are able to gently and acceptingly reflect on your experiences it is really rewarding.
  
• Be kind to yourself.
  
  There is no 'correct' way to deal with traumas, despite the things I've written here. It's different for everyone. On a wider scale, in some areas of the world grieving involves dancing and wailing. The only thing I think is 'right' is to be kind to yourself. Going on a night out and ending up crying to your friend at 1am eating chicken nuggets might not feel ideal, but try to be accepting of your behaviours. 

If you can keep yourself safe, be accepting of your feelings and sit with them, I believe that is the route to a deep burial of your difficult past experiences. The kind where they do not creep up on you and come out sideways. The peaceful kind.

Image from here