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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. John Trent 
 
 
Question: 
 
I tell people all the time that the past doesn't affect me but i know it 
does. How can I start to break free from some really bad "pictures" 
from the past? 
 
Answer: 
 
Hey, you’ve taken the time to click on this question about dealing with 
past issues, and maybe even saying, like I have at times, “Ah, the 
past! That doesn’t affect me.”  
 
But do me a favor. I know this will seem a little weird, but just do it 
anyway, OK? Take your right hand, and have your index finger here 
out there, so what you’re doing is you are looking at your fingernail. 
All right? So put it out in front of you. Now move your hand a little to 
the right, so you are still looking at your fingernail, and your finger is 
up and you are looking at your fingernail. Now do this, do me a little 
favor—I know this is a little a weird, but do it anyway—just pull back 
your arm and your finger won’t come back, of course. And now keep 
pulling back a little bit farther until it’s gone from your peripheral 
vision. 
 
Now do me a favor, OK? Wherever you are at—home, hotel, work, 
wherever you are watching this—just walk out and spend the rest of 
the day walking around with your arm like this. Now, don’t let it down 
for a second. Keep your arm up. Just for a second, OK? Keep your arm 
up. 
 
 
 
Now, why not walk around with your arm like that? It’s in the past, 
you can’t see it. But here’s the deal. Everybody else out there can see 
it.  
 
But now what has happened to your arm? As your arm still—keep it up 
there just for a second. Guess what happens with your arm? Can you 
feel it? First of all, it starts to hurt—right?—because you are having to 
hold it up at such a weird angle. But what happens if you continue to 
hold your arm up like this? Well, eventually, it will hurt, and then what 
will it do? It will go numb. So now you not only don’t see it, you 
don’t—what? You don’t feel it.  
 
Now, watch this, because this is so important. I make people in my 
counseling practice do this literally, and then watch was happens when 
you push your arm out. It is such a relief. 
 
What I’m trying to get at is, if you take the time to really look at the 
past—even if there are struggles, even if there are hurts—when you 
push things out, you begin to relax and release pressure. You begin to 
untie the knots in your life, because that’s what happens. We get all 
knotted up inside, and we think, “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” 
 
So bottom line is, deal with issues, get it out there, and that can be a 
powerful way to begin to really help growing instead of reacting to 
what’s happening to us.  
 
 
To download a printable version of this transcript, click here.