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Module 1: Why It’s So Hard To Let Go Of The Pain
Why It’s So Hard to Let Go of the Pain There isn't a person in the world who hasn't been hurt by someone. Releasing the pain from these wounds is difficult for many, if not most. In this module, you'll learn how releasing the pain from the past is more complicated than just "getting over it." There are emotional, physical, and mental reasons why letting go of the past is so difficult.
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Module 2: Understanding Forgiveness
The number and type of hurts suffered in the past, combined with thoughts and beliefs, can make it difficult to release the past. When you add the biochemical response the body has to hurt, it's a wonder anyone can forgive another. In this module, you will learn that you view of forgiveness can add to the difficulty of putting the past behind you. You will what forgiveness is and what forgiveness isn't. This knowledge will assist your journey to letting go of the hurt and moving forward with your life in joy, peace and happiness.
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Module 3: Strategies To Let The Pain Go
I believe you now know why it is difficult to release or forgive the past. Also, WHY forgiveness is so very important for you. The question that you may now be flirting with in your mind is this, "If forgiving is so good for me, how do I let all the pain go?" In this module, you will be introduced to a number of activities and techniques to assist you in forgiving and releasing the past.
Understanding What Happens Physically
Not only do your emotions from similar past wounds combine with your most recent hurt, your body has chemical reactions which make releasing the past difficult. Your emotions trigger parts of your brain and the body’s stress response increasing the difficulty.
This lesson is to show you that your emotional pain has a physical cause and difficulty releasing it isn’t a weakness of character.
Your Brain Reacts Immediately
When you discover you’ve been betrayed, rejected, or your loved one is gone, your brain and body react immediately.
Your brain activates a series of physical responses resulting in chemical production that affects your thoughts and feelings:
- Your limbic or emotional brain reacts to your emotional pain or trauma. This activated the stress response producing fear and anxiety.
- Extreme emotional trauma can result in PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder). PTSD can makechanges to the brain which can be long-lasting. The result is extreme emotional sensitivity affecting relationships with others, yourself, and your environment.
- Your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, is stressed. This makes it difficult to think clearly and may cause problems with your memory.
Emotional Pain Triggers Your Stress Response
Your body’s response to loss and betrayal is ancient. You need people to survive both physically and emotionally.
Your body developed physical responses to help you stay alive. Many of these make it difficult to release painful feelings.
See how:
- Your stress response, also called Fight-Flight-Freeze, activates stress hormones:
- Adrenaline, produced by your adrenal glands on top your kidneys, is released. Being rejected, betrayed, or losing your loved one is certainly stressful.
- Adrenaline focuses your attention on the painful experience. This focus makes letting go difficult.
- Norepinephrine, produced by the adrenal glands and the brain, is similar to adrenaline. Norepinephrine combined with adrenaline are designed to help you run away or fight to save your life.
- The challenge with emotional wounds is that there’s no place to run to. You end up “stewing in your own juices,” making it difficult to let go of what happened.
- Cortisol, activated by the brain and produced by the adrenal glands, is the stress hormone which does the most damage. It weakens your immune system, can mess up your digestion system, and can cause weight gain.
- These stress hormones can save your life when you need to react immediately, like jumping out of the path of a speeding car. With emotional pain, they interfere with your health and make it difficult to let go.
- Sex hormones are affected. You might not think that emotional pain would affect your sex hormones, but it does.
- Estrogen increases in both men and women, making them more sensitive to stress. Since women have more estrogen to begin with, this affects women more.
- Higher estrogen levels in men lead to a decrease in testosterone.
- High estrogen levels in both men and women lead to an increase in depression. When depressed, it’s more difficult to let go of the hurts and pains of the past.
- Neurotransmitters: Chemicals produced by the brain. Your brain reacts immediately to every change in emotion. Your brain responds to your painful feelings by producing neurotransmitters which act with the other body chemicals discussed above.
- Dopamine, when you’re stressed, acts on the very front part of your brain (prefrontal cortex) and makes it difficult to think straight. When you can’t think straight, you can’t logically think through what is happening to you.
- Acetylcholine can interfere with your sleep. When you can’t sleep, you can’t think well, you’re more sensitive emotionally, and have greater difficulty handling the “ordinary” stresses of life.
- Glutamate is crucial for your brain and your health. When you have too much, which can happen with the stress of betrayal and rejection, depression can be one of the side effects.
- Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is wonderful for being calm and relaxed. When you have too much, as with extreme stress, the reaction is opposite, resulting in anxiety.
Summary
In this lesson, you’ve discovered some of the physical changes which occur during extreme emotional pain. These are changes you had no control over. Your body responded immediately to your emotional reaction to what happened.
The difficulty you’ve been having in releasing the past and moving forward is not your fault. You’ll learn strategies to overcome what’s happened in a later lesson.
Your Mental Reactions to Being Hurt
In the next lesson, you’ll explore what happens mentally when you’ve been deeply wounded. This includes how your thinking processes have been affected.
Reflection
Before moving to the next lesson, spend a few minutes reflecting on how the emotional pain you’ve experienced affected you. Prepare for releasing the pain, by saying aloud the statements given. This prepares your subconscious mind.
For each question, think back to before you were hurt. Evaluate how much the following emotions have changed on a scale of 1 to 5.
1 – Not at all
2 – About 25% more
3 – About 50% more
4 – About 75% more
5 – 100% or more than before the hurt
- Anxiety: _____Say aloud: Anxiety was chemically created by my body and I will be able to reduce it.
- Depression: _____Say aloud: Depression was chemically created by my body and I will be able to reduce it.
- Hopelessness: _____Say aloud: Hopelessness was chemically created by my body and I will be able to reduce it.
- Mental Confusion: _____Say aloud: Mental Confusion was chemically created by my body and I will be able to reduce it.
Download Additional Resources – I give myself room to grow and heal from past wounds