Time Passing Won't Solve Your Problems

You've probably heard the old saying that time heals all wounds. I used to believe that too, until I realized that I actually have to roll up my sleeves and work through my own challenges myself, even if that means effort and, sometimes, pain 🙂

It's true that, with time, you may forget certain painful things — or at least you think you do. Negatively charged events that you haven't worked through simply hide themselves deeper in your subconscious and end up influencing your choices and decisions even more, including who you are and how you relate to the people around you.

In one of my coaching sessions, a client once told me he couldn't understand why he still hadn't gotten over a certain resentment toward his partner, when five years had already passed since the unpleasant event.

Sometimes there are things you could do for your partner — showing appreciation, listening, being patient — but you're not really willing to do them.

Why?

One answer might be that you have some scores to settle with the other person.

What does that mean?

At some point, an unpleasant event — a lie, a betrayal, infidelity — that you never resolved, either with yourself or with the other person, creates tension between you. You end up lying in wait, ready to make your partner pay for the smallest mistake.

Other times, it might be about a past relationship that isn't actually over in your mind, even though you think it is. If you still hold resentment, or strong loving feelings, toward that person, the relationship isn't over for you — and that can keep you distant from other relationships, or from being fully present in your current one.

How do you know you've truly closed a relationship or situation?

Quite simply, you no longer feel negative emotions or intense feelings when you think or talk about that person. But this is also where denial of our own emotions can creep in, and we can end up lying to ourselves. That's why the best way to check is by observing yourself, and the people and situations you attract. If you look at your life today and don't like what you see, or worse, if the challenges you're facing resemble something from a past relationship, it's clear you're still living out the same scenario, and something needs to change.

Change Means Growth

If you look at even just one thing differently today than you did yesterday, the universe around you will change too.

For example: today you believe there are no more quality men or women left in this world.

The result: you don't even notice the ones who could be exactly that. With this belief, you shut yourself off in your own world and act as though they don't exist. You close every door to meeting someone who could be what you want.
I can tell you for certain that they do exist, because I doubt you've already met every man or woman in this world. Perhaps within your own circle of friends and acquaintances there are people who share the same belief, which is only to be expected: you attract what you are.

Sometime later, after doing intensive work on yourself — courses, books, seeing a psychologist, a coach, a mentor — you discover that the world is actually far vaster, with more opportunities and people you simply didn't see before. Suddenly you have access to a whole new world, and this is the clearest sign of your own personal growth.

Education makes the difference between fulfilled people and frustrated ones, who blame either the world or themselves without ever doing anything to change things, and whose lives look exactly like they did three to five years ago.

It's not about who's to blame; it's about starting, step by step, to work on yourself

Maybe you want a relationship, a job, a business, and it feels like you've already exhausted every resource without getting a result. Now is the time to do something different: talk to other people, take some courses in the field, read something you haven't read before, work with a mentor or a coach.

From my own experience, I can say that what truly helped me was working with a mentor, talking to different people who had aspirations similar to mine, staying open to hearing different points of view about what they wanted as they talked about their own dreams — and from all of that, I took only what resonated with me. Including the things that felt uncomfortable at the time, which I later reflected on and, through them, discovered parts of myself that were sabotaging me and didn't want to be found out.

Now let me ask you too: do you still believe it's not up to you to have the relationship and the life you want, and that there's nothing you can do to get there?

With warm hugs,

Raluca

P.S. If you're not yet part of my Coaching and Relational Intelligence group, you can join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/298274634313854/