As someone that never seems to move on from things, I understand the struggle of not letting day to day negativity ruin your week or even as far as your entire year. Now, I know that the whole year bit sounds over-dramatic and more of a stretch than say a month or two, but I’ve seen it happen. Let’s start with a bit of encouragement. I’ve learned that it is possible to move on from things that we may never get over.

That sounds a lot like holding a grudge, but that’s not what I mean at all. Holding a grudge occurs with a heart of revenge and malice. Not getting over something is allowing it to drive further decisions and not make the same mistakes. Moving on from something allows one to not let the negative thoughts follow you around everywhere, a dark cloud above your head, raining on every opportunity for happiness.

Don’t forgive and forget

Number one on my list is don’t forgive and forget. That sounds harsh and horribly incorrect, but I mean it. Sure, forgive. I’m all about the forgiving part, in fact, I challenge myself daily with being able to forgive those around me and especially myself. I think it’s a beautiful thing, forgiveness. But, don’t forget anything.

Forgetting things allows one to forget the message learned from such experiences. But, if we remind ourselves every now and then, then we will never forget how much we learned. Moving on means letting go of those toxic emotions – the emotions that pull down your heart and make your mind over-analyze yourself and allowing yourself to see clearly what went wrong (on both ends of the situation) and avoiding similar issues in the future.

Step Back

Maybe, in your particular past, you’ll need to actually step back. I’m not one for physical violence, but I’m sure others aren’t as opposed. Here, I’m more focused on metaphorically stepping back. The only way to clearly see the issue at hand – to really see it, every corner, no blurry edges – is to step back.

I’m an enormous supporter of practicing understanding and looking at every situation through multiple lenses. Without that, everything remains black and white, and nothing is different, nothing changes. And honestly, that’s quite a boring world to live in.

It’s important to know that you might not completely understand or relate to the other persons point of view or what they were thinking or feeling during whatever interaction happened. Everyone lives a different, elaborate life and none are copies of another. However, if you look at the whole picture, every crook and cranny of the scenario, you can at least recognize that perhaps you don’t understand where the other person is coming from. Maybe there isn’t necessarily another person directly involved. Maybe, life threw you a tough hand, but stepping back might allow you to see what good came from it. Even in the most horrible of situations, I truly believe that there is a spot (maybe even a very tiny blur) of good. I just began realizing this myself when I went to college and lost some friends. I realized that even when life seems unfair or like you got dealt a bad hand for no reason, sometimes it’s for the best. No matter how long it takes you to see those results.

Look for the message

Let’s look back at those early years in your life when your mom said, “What have we learned today?”. Even typing that phrase results in an eye-roll. It’s annoying, because when we are hurt, or feel as if things are unfair, or we victimize ourselves, all we want is other’s sympathy and pity.

You might ‘hem’ and ‘hah’, but it’s true. We want validation that we were put down and we were in the right. I’m not invalidating your feelings, because that’s wrong, but victimizing ourselves is setting yourself up for negativity and holding onto to something you can’t control.

There’s a lesson to be learned from everything, and I mean everything. Maybe you’re going through something simply because in the future you’ll help someone in a similar situation. Or, maybe a toxic person was being taken from your life, or maybe a good person was, but you were too dependent on them to really grow yourself.

I believe there is a purpose for everything in this life – that things happen for a reason. Maybe you don’t, but can we at least agree that clutching onto situations and things we can’t control only leads to negativity and prolonged hurt. I’d rather live my life, taking the lessons I learned from such negativity, but leaving the rest behind. It’s better than being a victim, someone the universe owes. More times than not, we are to blame for the negativity in our life. We give our attention to the things that seem unfair or the people who are rude and hurtful, when if we would only step back, we’d see the whole, colorful picture. One that has a lot more beauty in it than pain.