“Get over it.” “Just move on.” “Put it behind you.” If you can, you do. Of course. And it works well. But if it doesn’t work, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. It’s basic human dynamics.
“Denial certainly works to feel better in the day-to-day, but ultimately, it gets in the way of having a good life. That’s basic Freud on ‘repression,’ Clark University Lectures, 1909. Here’s how the theory goes: let’s say you have a stream and you put a rock in the middle of it. The water can’t flow through it anymore, so it will flow around it. Currents of energy just find another path.” Sheftel, Luiz, 2013.
Sometimes you just have to dig out that rock…and make a sculpture from it. Sometimes you pulverize the rock…and use it just like Hansel and Gretel did to find their way out of the woods. (Pebbles work better than breadcrumbs…birds…remember?) But the rock isn’t “bad.” It has its uses. Just not in the middle of that stream maybe. Whatever you do, don’t try to get rid of that rock. You’ll knock yourself out, because you can’t really get rid of it. It’s a teacher, there for a purpose.