The Confidence Guy

“I would like your advice on how to keep my mind off of an experience that brings back extremely painful memories and lowers my confidence. I have moved on to become a better, more confident person but there are still painful memories and feelings of rejection that leave me feeling so sad, to the point that I cry.

I know this is something that I have to just “get over” but the dreams and the thoughts of the past are there every day. I wish I could just erase certain people and events from my memory. Do you have any advice that will help ease the pain of the past, which is disruptive to my present? Thank you.”

- Anna in London

Oh boy Anna. While it sounds like you’ve moved on from what happened in your past in some important ways, it’s still clear that the memories are still there and are as painful as ever. I’ve re-read your email many times and thought long and hard about it, but the simple fact is that I don’t think there’s something I can say that will help ‘ease the pain of the past’.

The fact is that that pain is there, and you’re feeling it.

It’s not a case of looking at this as something you need to ‘just get over‘. It looks like it’s very real and as much as you might want to erase it or move on, it doesn’t look like it’s that simple. The fact that you’re regularly feeling such strong emotions about what happened tells me that there’s still something or some things there that need to be resolved, accepted or forgiven.

You ask me if I have any advice that will help you ease the pain of the past, but the advice I have for you is likely to cause more short term pain. The way not to deal with this is to try and persuade yourself that it’s okay, no big deal or that it’s something you can move past simply by not looking at it. The emotion and memories will still be there and continuing in spite of them will continue to damage your present and your self-confidence.

The confident thing to do – and this is where some pain is involved – is to figure out a strategy that will minimise the impact of what happened or help you reach of point of acceptance.

That strategy is likely to have 2 approaches.

First of all is dealing with your relationship to what happened, and the perhaps the best way to do that is to find a counsellor or therapist who you can work with. This is about shaping a relationship with what happened in a way that works for you, rather than have that relationship run rough-shod over you.

Traditional counselling and therapy are often much better suited to resolving issues in the past than coaching. It might be appropriate to find a support group, support site on the Internet or books on the subject so that you can feel supported by people who have experienced something similar.

The second approach is to work on your relationship with yourself. This is about figuring out who you are aside from the pain and who you are if that experience was fully integrated. This is about connecting with what you’ve got , what’s most important to you and re-familiarising yourself with the you who sometimes you feel you’ve lost.

When you feel ready, start to take baby steps forwards, putting in place one action, then another, then another. It’s horrible, it’s frustrating, it’s tiring and it just plain sucks, but you can come out of this having learned a lot and be moving forwards towards something amazing.