Are You Emotionally Attached To A Negative Past?
10 SIGNS YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO A NEGATIVE PAST
- Avoidance of the subject – when we have unresolved issues, we avoid discussing them. We try not to talk about the significant event that happened in our life. But our bodies remember. The more we push it down and not talk about it, the more it will come out in many different ways – anger, anxiety, depression, substance use, etc.
- Things trigger you – Our bodies remember. Anything that reminds us of our negative past will cause queasy feelings of dread in our guts because we are worried that something is about to go wrong just like in the past.
- You can’t be yourself – We tend to conform with what society or our family expects us when we are around them or people we don’t know and trust.
- You push people away – we project our fear of disapproval by pushing people away – friends, romantic partners, and even strangers.
- You treat your children or your partner the way your parents mistreated you – what we see and learn from our caretakers is what we do and show our kids. How our caretakers treated us or acted around us when we were children became normal for us that is why we repeat their actions towards the people we love like our children or significant others.
- You married your parent – We tend to pick partners who have the characteristics of our parents who we have unresolved issues with, subconsciously thinking that we will resolve our issues through them by changing the other person or make them a project, only to be disappointed that they are like all other men or women out there (pattern of dating).
- You deny, ignore and repress negative emotions – We are all emotional creatures and blocking our emotions is not healthy but most of us think that it is better to not express our emotions to avoid the pain. When we don’t express our emotions, we hang on to them. Denying, ignoring and repressing negative emotions make us attach to those emotions more.
- Impulsiveness – it’s hard to be self-aware and mindful of our actions and decisions if we are overwhelmed with emotions. We react negatively quickly or can’t control our temper, get anxious, exercise a lot and buy things we don’t need or drink more to forget our unresolved emotions or escape them.
- Limiting yourself – setting rules that limit ourselves is a big sign that we are not at peace with our past. We swear that we will not get a divorce because our parents got divorced or we will never trust anyone, or will always play it safe, etc. Limiting ourselves is not fulfilling at all.
- You have a pattern – when we have unresolved issues, we make the same choices repeatedly and we wonder why we always end up in the same situation.