Why is This Happening To Me Again? It's 2 a.m. and you can't sleep. You're remembering the heated exchange of words your friend / collegue / relative / partner, etc. and you shared earlier.  Perhaps you made a mistake at work and your boss or supervisor corrected you. You ask yourself, "why did I make that mistake? I knew better." You are baffled. Your mind plays the event over and over again, until you find yourself staring at the television just to get some peace. And how did the incident make you feel?  Weak, resistant, angry, rebellious..."Why does this always happen to me?" you shout. How do you handle these feelings? Agressive Response: You can get angry, lash out, and say, "that's the way I am, and I'm not about to change. So get used to it."  That ought to win friends. Passive Response: You can say, "that's the way my Dad always handled the situation, I'm just like him. It must be genetic."  No hope there. Hopeless Response: You can curl up on the couch and say, "I just can't help myself. It's pointless, I'll never change. OR  You can observe the situation just as if it happened to someone else and look for that familar, reoccuring reaction.
Now What? Observe your responses and reactions for about a week and then review your journal. What are the common themes?  Condense the messages into one core statement or belief about yourself. What feelings do these situations elicit in you?  How does this statement make you feel? If you dig deeper, you will find you are reacting to a statement made by someone at a much earlier stage of your life.  Maybe the discussion parallels a statement that one of your parents made when you were much too young to intellectually defend or explain yourself. Or perhaps a teacher you admired (having a bad day) laid it on you. Regardless of who said it, you believed him/her to be true and let your subconscious absorb the pain. Now what do you do?
Time to Forgive and Forget Once you've found the reoccuring theme, it's time to forgive yourself and the person who laid it on you so long ago. Think about it. Are you the same person you were 10, 15, even 20 years ago? Of course not, no one is. The only constant in life is change and that you've done plenty of over the years. Actually, the Universe is much more forgiving than we are, every day we emerge with a clean slate. A perfect day set before us, a day of unlimited potential. And since everything is energy - in a constant state of flux, it's time to forgive. Now is the time to change and you're just the person for the task.  Blessings, Cynthia
If you find you are having trouble forgiving... Get help, there are plenty of resources out there. Let go, you deserve to be free.