Stop letting the past affect your future!

Used successfully with hundreds of corporate and private clients, The PEAR Process is the perfect tool for helping you to let go of the past. After all, it's only when we've dealt with the issues from our past that we're free to be able to create the future of our dreams...

If we're to be happy, healthy and wealthy we have no choice but to learn to let go of our negative feelings. When you're happy, you don't waste time feeling angry, guilty or rejected. You also have no interest in playing the ‘blame game’.

Every time you’re unhappy, or become aware of a negative feeling in your body, you can be sure that your emotional and spiritual selves are out of kilter. When you’re unbalanced in this way, you’re not able to function as a ‘whole’ human being, which means that you’ve lost your integrity (having integrity is by definition about being ‘entire’ or ‘complete’). Loss of integrity equals loss of personal power.

Our negative feelings can be aimed towards others – or turned inwards to ourselves. Popular psychology tells us that depression is anger turned inwards. Of course, we all have to learn the lessons from our mistakes – but for the sake of our health – let alone our relationships – we have to let go and move on.

All the time that we’re holding onto negative feelings, we’re being controlled by them. Worse, there’s an all too human tendency to hold onto a perceived ‘slight’ and repeat it over and over again in our minds. While the event happened once – or maybe more often – in the past, each time we replay it in our minds we’re the ones perpetrating the abuse!

Recognise that your anger doesn’t affect someone else, it only affects you! (You may feel that you’re successfully punishing someone by remaining angry with them – but the punishment to yourself is far worse. Try feeling angry and happy at the same time! For that matter, try frowning and smiling at the same time. You simply can’t do it!)

Forgiving someone who’s hurt you isn't easy. Far from it. But until you do, your life is going to be continually affected detrimentally by someone who doesn’t even have any idea how you feel! The less you feel like forgiving, the more you probably need to do it. Remember, you’re worth it! Here’s a great question, ‘Is it better to be happy, or right?’

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So, what exactly is The Pear Process and how can it change the negative patterns that are driving your behaviours?

The PEAR process takes the form of an imaginary conversation between you and the person who has caused you pain – and because, while doing it you’ll naturally and automatically find yourself in a slightly altered state of consciousness, what seems odd when you read about it makes perfect sense when you actually do it! And don’t worry, an altered state of consciousness is much the same thing as day dreaming!

How I personally experienced a version of The Pear Process...

I first came across a version of this process when I decided to go for counselling – something I’d always turned my nose up at! (It only happened because a very cool, calm, collected male friend of mine decided to have a couple of counselling sessions himself. After a month or so when I bumped into him again, I noticed that he was even more cool, calm and collected – and I decided there and then that I wanted whatever he was on!)

My beloved grandfather had died six months previously and the counsellor had suggested that before I could move on, ‘I needed to let my grandfather go’. There was nothing I wanted to do less. After all, the memories were all that I had left.

The counsellor was pretty insistent, and because he seemed to have his heart in the right place (and if I’m really honest, I thought that it would speed things up if I simply agreed with him!) I went along with his suggestions. We started the ‘letting go’ process and I was directed to have an imaginary conversation with my grandfather – and worse, I had to do it out loud, apparently because my subconscious mind would be better able to believe in what I was doing. I felt both self-conscious and foolish, but only for the first minute or so. It wasn’t long before I really started to get into it, and I soon found myself sobbing my heart out.

There were a number of steps to the process - culminating in the decision that I had to make to let him go. The counsellor asked me to imagine my grandfather walking away from me and over the brow of a hill, out of sight. I thought my heart was going to break. As the session came to an end, I felt bone tired but strangely peaceful. When I got home – it was early evening and I went straight to bed, sleeping solidly until noon the next day. When I awoke everything seemed different. Not only did I feel as though I was really ‘alive’ for the first time in ages, but I was also able to picture my grandfather ‘alive’ too, when previously, I’d been continually accompanied by the nightmare of him lying on his deathbed.

I sensed that something had completely changed in my life. What I had been through was not only powerful – but in my case life-changing, as I knew that I wanted to be able to help people in the same way that I’d been helped. In a paradoxical way, my grandfather’s death had helped me see what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Later that morning, I called the counsellor and asked him to teach me what he knew.

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Below, you'll find the five-step process that over the years, I’ve adapted and enhanced according to the needs and experiences of my own clients. The PEAR Process works for all negative patterns and problems within relationships…

The PEAR (Personal Enlightenment and Release) process:

1. Expression of anger, hurt or grief
2. Forgiveness
3. Acceptance
4. Unconditional love
5. Letting go

1. EXPRESSING ANGER, HURT AND GRIEF...

Often we tend to bottle up our anger and hurt, with the result that it creates a “pressure cooker” effect on our minds and bodies.

As we don’t want to look at the cause of our pain, we seek to avoid it. Yet by burying these feelings deep inside, we’re not stopping them from affecting us. While anger, grief and hurt aren’t negative feelings in themselves, when they’re unresolved, they start to turn bad, causing us to become bitter.

And it’s the bitterness that gets us by eating away at our ‘essence’ which affects not only our personality but also our behaviours. Worse, over time anger, hurt and grief that remain unexpressed tend to leak out into our physical bodies, causing us physical pain. Psychosomatic pain is very real, although it has tended to be a term used to dismiss someone’s pain as ‘just being in the mind.’ A better description for psychosomatic pain would be ‘pain that originates either in the mind or soul’.

Sadly, in today’s culture, we’re usually encouraged not to express our feelings. Think about it for a moment, when someone is visibly upset, the first thing we do is to try to stop them crying by trying to make them laugh! While I’m all for seeing the funny side to life, there does come a point when sadness has to be acknowledged and felt.

When people cry around us it tends to make us feel bad, which is why we do all we can to cheer someone up. Less selfish behaviour though, would suggest that we encourage someone to express their feelings.

You might also want to note that if someone else’s sadness triggers you to feel the same way, then you’re also storing some unresolved pain of your own. You can only get triggered by other people’s feelings if you harbour similar ones yourself.

However, it’s also important to recognise that the expression of our pain is only the first stage in the process towards resolution. Simply stirring up feelings that make us feel bad is pointless, we’ll just feel worse. In fact, wallowing in self-pity guarantees to turn you into a victim faster than Superman can change his clothes!

Be aware though, that you can’t avoid the first stage of the PEAR process in a bid to avoid feeling pain. Feeling – and expressing – is the very necessary first step in the emotional healing process!

2. FORGIVENESS...
Unfortunately forgiveness isn’t something that just "washes over" you after a certain period of time has elapsed. In fact, time really isn’t a healer.

Forgiveness is the healer and forgiveness is a decision. Only we can make that decision. And it’s only when we decide to forgive others - or indeed ourselves - that we become free from negativity and give ourselves the opportunity to grow.

Until we choose to forgive, our negative feelings direct our behaviours – which in turn affect our energy. When we’re harbouring negativity, it’s as though there’s a dark negative, ‘cobwebby’ energy around us which stops our inner light from shining!

Forgiveness isn’t about condoning – and it’s certainly not about turning the other cheek. We forgive in order to free ourselves. We can only affect ourselves through our anger and hurt, not anyone else. For example, while you could be seething with anger, the other person could be playing golf, blissfully unaware of your feelings. If you choose not to forgive – whether it’s someone else or yourself – you condemn yourself to living in a constant state of unhappiness.

3. ACCEPTANCE...
Again, acceptance is a decision. It means that we choose to accept what is, and what has been. It also means that we choose to look at the situation as it really is, without bringing our ‘story’ into it.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we condone what happened – nor that we shouldn’t do all we can to ensure the same scenario doesn’t occur again in the future. And it’s absolutely not about making ourselves into doormats for other people!

Forgiveness and acceptance go hand in hand, enabling us to jump clear of the negative ties of resentment and anger. Indeed, as we become increasingly comfortable with ourselves, we’ll be more inclined to prevent people from treating us badly.

4. LOVE...
As the Beatles would teach us, “All you need is love!” Love is the great healer. Remember, the opposite of love isn’t hate, but fear. All of our negativity arises through the ego’s fears – and love is the antidote!

The kind of love I’m talking about isn’t of the ‘hearts and flowers’ variety but is to do with forgiving, accepting and appreciating someone for all of who they are, even if their behaviours aren’t the ones we’d adopt ourselves. This kind of love is unconditional and non-judgemental.

When we love unconditionally, we want the best for the other person and have no envy or jealousy for another’s success. Unconditional love is the prerequisite for happiness, let alone enlightenment!

If we all adopted an attitude of unconditional love, there’d be no wars, no conflict, and no poverty. As the adage goes, ‘To heal the world all you need do is heal yourself.’ I’d add that healing only occurs with the salve of unconditional love.

6. LETTING GO
The final step is to let go, which is once again, a decision. We can't change the past but we can change how we feel about the past. Simply deciding to let go of our negativity isn’t always easy but it is the only way to liberate our psyche!

When we let go of negative memories, we’re no longer driven by them – leaving us free to focus our energy on achieving our life ambitions, rather than wasting our time being bitter about the past.

As with many things in life, the first time is the hardest and the PEAR process in no exception. It’s not that the work itself is hard, it’s just that it feels like an alien way to go about things. But once you’ve applied the process to a particular situation, you’ll feel so fantastic that you won’t look back.

Rather than jump in the deep end, I suggest that you try the process in connection with a not-to-serious conflict, just to get the hang of it. (Of course, I should say at this juncture, that if you’re suffering from serious mental health issues, you really must register with your doctor or other appropriate professional.) And remember, each step of the process is vital - don’t be tempted to skip a step.

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The PEAR process can help you with "future" conflict too...

The PEAR Process doesn’t just work for dealing with relationship issues in the past – but it can also be used to help you deal with potential difficulties in the future too.

If you’re facing a situation with someone who somehow always knows which buttons to press, just by using The PEAR process in advance, you can take the sting out of their poisoned arrows. (Make no mistake, at first they’ll still fire the arrows but instead of hitting you straight in the solar plexus, they’ll sail straight over your heard! After a while, sensing there’s no fun in pressing your buttons any more, they’ll simply scratch their heads in bewilderment and leave you alone!)

Using the process with yourself…

Sometimes it’s us that we need to forgive more than anyone else. We tend to give ourselves far harsher sentences than a court would ever dish out! Guilt and a sense of personal shame – together with our anger at finding ourselves less than perfect – prompt us to begin an ongoing cycle of self-flagellation.

When I first started studying this kind of stuff, I had to undergo a form of the PEAR process of myself. I was given a mirror to look into and told to “talk to the person in the mirror as though it was another person.” At first I thought the facilitator was simply well, simple – but I gave it a go and soon got into it.

If I’m honest, I found it really hard to look myself in the eyes – but by the time I’d forgiven myself for past mistakes it got easier. And by the end of the process, I was able to look at myself – possibly for the first time in my life – and see that I wouldn’t mind having someone like me as a friend!

It’s fascinating how good we are at burying those things which really cause us to feel ashamed, as I was to find out when a friend asked me to take her through The PEAR process - in a bid to stop the self-sabotage that she seemed to be continually experiencing in her life. To my surprise, when we had got to the end of the session, she’d not shed a single tear. I was perplexed and told her so.

“Well actually,” she’d replied, “I found the whole exercise really easy. I mean, the only thing that I’d never be able to forgive myself for was the abortion…” and as she’d said the word ‘abortion’, her hand had flown up to her mouth.

It transpired that she’d never told a soul about the abortion. When we reapplied The PEAR Process to the abortion, the tears had certainly flowed then! Over the next few weeks and months, she completely blossomed – free from all the guilt that had been weighing her down for so long.

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