The Secret To Moving Forward Is To Start Over

Moving forward without looking back is not always easy. Not when the sadness is heavy and we have pain and wounds from so many struggles. Sometimes it is necessary to make a stop on the path to healing, rebuilding, and even reinvention. Only when we have formed a new and better version of ourselves will we be ready to go.

So we can equate life with an embroidered fabric of beginning and end. They are two sides of the same coin, full of conflicting emotions that we cannot always deal with, fears and worries that weigh on the creation of opportunities. Our approach undoubtedly determines the integrity and quality of what may come.

Experts on this topic, such as Denise Beike from the University of Arkansas (Arkansas, USA), point out that our life cycle is less about the effects that events of greater or lesser importance can have on us, but rather the way we deal with them. It is therefore important to have a clear and objective view of certain aspects.

For example, it is very common that at a difficult time someone tells us that “we need to look ahead” . But how can we do that when we are faced with so much burdens and emotional torment? We understand that we need to look ahead, but it is not always easy to make this progress, this real progress.

Because the pain takes root and we can’t just uproot it, we just can’t go to another room, to another place and draw a line under everything. We have to be able to repair and transform. To create a new matter based on what we are, what we have lived and what we have learned. This process may take some time, but after that we will have the opportunity to start over in the best possible way.

“Sometimes things fall apart so that better ones can be made.”

Marilyn Monroe

Trying to move around with excess baggage is not a good option

We can do it. We can keep our eyes on the horizon, put one foot in front of the other, and move forward as if nothing had happened. It is even possible to put time in full responsibility for emotional healing. Believing that by removing pages from the calendar we will also tear away our worries and memories. However, there will come a day when we must realize that none of this works.

Albert Ellis, a well-known cognitive psychotherapist, reminded us that people are often guided by certain beliefs without considering alternatives. They are what he called “irrational ideas,” the ones that may put us in unhealthy and even problematic personal states.

So whenever we are forced to make some sort of transition or face a moment of great hardship, it is imperative that we think about the following dimensions.

Moving forward emotionally

Moving forward is not the same as moving forward. For example, it is common for people to turn to a psychotherapist because they are determined to move forward after a breakup or the loss of a loved one. In doing so, however, they forget one aspect: grief.

It is necessary to include a very simple concept in our personal register: move forward. What this word implies is this:

• To move forward means not to stand still.
• Moving forward means understanding that we need to adopt a new life strategy.
• Generating a feed requires starting from the inside without running away.
• It’s about accepting what we feel, understanding it, dealing with it, having to heal it and give ourselves a new chance. In this way we move forward emotionally and psychologically.
• We also need to be aware of one detail: the sadness or pain of loss does not go away. Nobody can extinguish that kind of feeling. We have to create a space within ourselves and learn to live with it.

Transitions take time

As a study by Dr. Mark A. Thornton from Cornell University (New York, USA) shows that every change brings a series of emotions with which one has to learn to move. Returning your head and heart to these states to move forward easily puts you at risk of developing some kind of mental disorder like depression.

We need to be able to cry out of grief, channel anger and frustration, stand still next to disappointment to learn from it.

Start over with a better version

We humans don’t change, we move forward. Man transforms himself as often as he deems it necessary, not out of pleasure, not out of a whim, but in order to face the adversities of life and to rise up as a more resilient, skilful and prepared being.

We recognize that moving forward is the only important option we have. The opposite option is to get stuck. However, let’s do it in the best way: without running away from ourselves and from that interior that, like a disordered and dark room, demands our attention, order, oxygen and more than one change.

So let’s start all over again with an updated, strong and hopeful version. As Charlotte Brontë once said, we should “ stop invoking the past: the present is safer and the future even brighter”.