It feels like I’m reliving the pain all over again.

I can’t believe I’m still going through this.

I thought I was over it.

The pain caused by a loss can be strangely comforting because it keeps us attached to what we lost. So…we keep nursing the past instead of tending to our dreams. And then the pain can become part of our identity and letting go of it feels ridiculously vulnerable. Pain-comfort-pain-comfort-pain…it’s a vicious cycle and it requires incredible courage to lift out of it.

But there’s another reason we keep reliving certain painful situations. And it’s actually healthy progress.

Sometimes we relive a painful event in order to look at it from a new perspective. We revisit it withan expanded consciousness. And with that hard-earned wisdom (which comes from moving through things), we can see there’s even more to gain from the pain. Which means, there’s even more wisdom and strength to take from it.

It’s like this: Pick a painful situation that you’ve done some work on. It could have happened months or years ago, but it’s something you’ve done a lot of processing on. Say…a break up, getting fired, losing big, or any kind of betrayal or humiliation will do. You’ve been in therapy, you’ve been talking it through with your besties. You’ve plowed through a lot of journals or sweaty hikes. With all of your care and attention, the emotional wounds are healing up nicely.

And then…snag. You bump into that person, or you hear something new about the old situation. You’re totally triggered and full of sick gross dark pukey heart-racing emotion. And you’re all like, Not THIS again. I thought I had worked this OUT. But there you are, hurting. Hard. Again.

Except! You’re not the same person you were when the wound first occurred. You have examined, and stretched, and raged, and cried and you know more now than you did then. You really have worked through A LOT. Almost all of it in fact. And now you can see the key subtleties. You can see ten more reasons it was a blessing. Or the REAL reason you were hurt. Or, best yet, you can now see how truly powerful, loving, loveable, immaculate, and awake you really are.

Feeling old wounds is the soul’s way of looking for what else can be healed. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)

You’re not a loser for feeling it again, you’re…soulfully thorough.

Can you see that?

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Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul — the book that turned into a day planner system, a top iTunes app, and an international workshop program. A Desire Map workshop happens every weekend somewhere in the world. Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and the wildly popular #Truthbomb series, Danielle is also the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and co-host of the Beautiful Writer’s Group podcast.

Entrepreneur Magazine calls her “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” A speaker, poet, former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over four million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. The Huffington Post named her Twitter feed as one of the “12 of Wisest Twitter Accounts Worth Following.” You can find her @daniellelaporte just about everywhere.