If you stop and look around for a second you'll see that almost everyone in your immediate environment is playing some kind of morbid game. Games that pull them back from living up to their full potential - surely you could name some of them on your Facebook feed. You see the negative patterns, how they hold on to their past, literally dragging the bad memories back to their present. In the meantime however time has gone by and they now live a different life. But still they just can't let go of things that hurt a lot in the past.
You could of course think that you don't have one, I mean pain-body - as Eckhart Tolle calls them - but that's self-delusion. We all have at least one of these. Let me explain so that you can better understand: imagine that a pain-body is a bag that you've been carrying for a while. When someone 'pushes a button' - regardless of what's your relationship with that person if there's any at all - that is from the time when you put the bag on your shoulders, well it hurts to put it simply. It hurts so much you just want to scream and cry. Why? Because everything that you have been busy hiding and ignoring will be exposed again to the pain that should have been felt way back when those agonizing things actually happened. All those heart-breaking experiences and rejected emotions.
Many simply can't cope with these feelings and memories; they are going to live their lives as prisoners of their own past. They are the ones who play the convenient role of martyrdom that they were born to this world to just suffer; they like to tire their environment with well-known clichés such as "I'm ugly," "Nobody loves me," and "I don't have enough money," etc.
What goes on in your head and everything you surround yourself with define the quality of life you have and transform it completely - in both negative and positive ways. However, if you introduce consciousness in your everyday life you'll realize these pain-bodies will slowly start to fade until they are deactivated. It's all about awareness. Let me tell you a personal example: when I grew up it was an accepted norm in my family that "We don't have money for this". I was a kid of course so I took my parents words as the ultimate truth until I slowly realized how wrong it is to limit ourselves with such statements. I am the only person who can influence my attitude towards life, money or anything that usually causes concerns in our everyday lives. I managed to change my relationship with these things, I paid special attention to information I receive and let in and surprisingly - not really in fact - the negative pattern disappeared, it won't affect me anymore. But it hasn't always been like this. As long as I gave credit to those limiting thoughts every time money came up I always thought life was about surviving, living from one day to another and that's it. It's just wrong; it doesn't have to be like that at all!
The pain-body is something everyone thinks they don't have until someone says something that activates it and the next thing is that they throw a hissy fit or have a breakdown. It's not a momentary meltdown out of the blue; it's the scars from your past you never healed and the pain you never felt. We've all been in a situation when a seemingly happy and bubbly girl in a party breaks down in tears out of nowhere. The trigger could be an innocent chat with someone who sheds light on something she was trying hard to ignore and bang. There's the pain-body for you.
You have to have a fresh start in everything: a new day, a new relationship, a new smile or a new friendship. You must not compare anything new in your life to something that happened in the past or even worse pigeonhole a new experience based on your obsolete failures and disappointments. Nobody said it was easy, but it's the only way to find true happiness. You shouldn't let your past influence your present thus your future but let things flow in their natural rhythm. Just because something didn't work out for the first time it doesn't mean it won't happen ever again. Nothing is the same; things have changed so why would you expect the same outcome? You meet new people who teach you new things, new messages and different lessons. Just learn to accept what they have to offer without skepticism and disbelief. Let life smooth the way in front of you making it possible for you to be at the right place at the right time, meeting the right people. But if you can't forget about the recurring bad patterns and don't even give a chance for something better to happen, then don't be surprised that you are going to be right... in the wrong way. I always say this, but life is always on your side - the only question is what you decide to believe in. Choose carefully!
It's very toxic to let your tired feelings live on, as your body will think the time and circumstances haven't changed. Your body will respond to whatever your mind conceives and thinks it's true. If you pretend your reality still roots from your past, your body will go through the same stress, and will focus on the same people that are not even the parts of your life anymore. This is a form of addiction: you have something from the past you don't need anymore but are still obsessed with. It has nothing good to add to your life; on the contrary, it will destroy you. You are in control; you decide when it's time to get rid of the past and change direction.