Make Peace With Your Past
There's a moment I see again and again in my counselling room. A client is telling me about something that happened years ago, and I watch their shoulders lift, their breath shorten, a hand drift to their stomach. Then, a little embarrassed, they say, "But that was so long ago. Why does it still feel like this?"
If you've ever asked yourself that question, I want you to know something, nothing is wrong with you. Your past isn't being dramatic. It is being remembered, not only in your mind, but in your body.
Why the past doesn't stay in the past
Many trauma researchers describe how difficult experiences are often stored differently from ordinary memories. Rather than a story with a beginning, middle and end, they can linger as fragments of sensation, image and emotion that feel as though they're happening right now. Large studies on adverse childhood experiences have also linked early hardship with later effects on emotional and physical health.
This is why a tone of voice, a smell, a certain look, or a sound can flood you before you even know why. Your nervous system isn't malfunctioning. It's doing its job: protecting you from something it once learned was dangerous.
What making peace is, and what it isn't
Making peace does not mean forgetting. It doesn't mean forgiving what doesn't deserve forgiveness, or telling yourself it "wasn't that bad." It isn't positive thinking. Research on acceptance-based approaches and on self-compassion, including the work of Dr Kristin Neff, suggests that meeting painful experiences with kindness rather than self-criticism is associated with less anxiety and depression. Making peace means allowing the past to be true, and no longer letting it run your life.
The body remembers and the body can release
As a Somatic Experiencing therapist, much of my work rests on an approach developed by Dr Peter Levine, which begins with a simple observation. Animals in the wild shake off a threat and return to calm. Humans often don't. The survival energy gets frozen mid-stream, and we carry it for years as tension, numbness, hypervigilance or exhaustion. Trauma, in this view, isn't only what happened to you. It's what remained unfinished in your nervous system.
So in session, we don't rush to dive into the story. We go slowly. We notice the tightness in the chest, the heat in the hands, the urge to pull away or curl up. We move gently between what feels uncomfortable and what feels even a little steady, perhaps the weight of your feet on the floor. Over time, the body learns what the mind already knows: it's over now. I'm safe enough. Research into this approach is still growing, but many clients describe a profound sense of relief and lightness when they stop trying to think their way out of what the body is holding, and surrender to what the body knows and is ready to heal.
The parts of you that carry the past
Parts therapy, as in Dr Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems model, offers another way in. It proposes that we're not one single voice inside but a kind of inner family. There's the part that works tirelessly to be perfect so no one can hurt you again. The part that goes numb. The part that snaps at the people you love. And often, quietly underneath, younger parts still hold the fear, shame, or loneliness of what happened. In my sessions, I like to bring parts work and the body together. When a part shows up, I might invite a client to notice where they feel it, perhaps as a tightness in the throat or a heaviness in the chest, and to stay with that sensation while getting curious about what the part wants them to know. The body often tells us what words can't, and a part that feels heard in the body tends to soften far more readily than one we try to reason with.
Here's what I love most about this work: no part is the enemy. Each one is formed to help you survive. Early research on this approach is encouraging, and in my experience, the moment a client becomes curious about a part instead of fighting it, something softens.
I think of a client I'll call Sally. Her harsh inner critic had followed her for decades. When she finally asked it, gently, what it was afraid would happen if it stopped, it answered: "That you'll be hurt again." Sally wept. Not because the critic was cruel, but because she suddenly saw it was a frightened guardian who had been on duty since she was a child. Then she noticed a heaviness behind her breastbone, the younger part it was protecting. She placed her hand there and said, quietly, "I'm here now." That was the beginning of her peace.
A gentle way to begin
If you'd like to try something small, here's a practice I often share:
Pause and notice. Think of something mildly difficult, not your hardest memory. Where do you feel it in your body? Just notice, without trying to fix it.
Name the part. Try saying, "A part of me feels afraid" instead of "I am afraid." That small shift creates a little space between you and the feeling.
Orient to now. Look around the room and name three things you can see. Feel your feet on the ground. Let your body register: this is today, not then.
Offer kindness. Place a hand on your chest or belly and say something you'd say to a frightened child you love.
Go slowly, and stop if it feels like too much. If your past holds significant trauma, please don't walk this path alone. A trained therapist can help you move at a pace your nervous system can trust.
Peace is a relationship, not a finish line
You may never love what happened to you. You don't have to. But you can change how you stand in relation to it. You can become the steady, caring presence that your younger self needed and didn't have, and in doing so, loosen the grip the past has held for so long.
So I'll leave you with a question to sit with, perhaps with a hand over your heart:
If the youngest part of you, the one who has carried this for so long, could finally put it down, what would it most need to hear from you today?
Carmela Pollock is based in Mornington, Victoria, where she operates a successful private practice offering holistic services, including individual counselling and group workshops. She brings a compassionate approach to every service, helping clients discover their blueprint by guiding them to explore their inner world, dismantle unhelpful patterns, and build a new, values-based foundation. She inspires clients to reach higher and find their peace by supporting them until they confidently walk their own journey alone. If you want to know more about Carmela's services, visit 'Work With Me' services page.
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