I used to visit a support forum online for people recovering from various types of trauma. It felt like a wonderful place, and I know it does a lot of good for people. But after I was there for a while I started to wonder, “why don’t I see anyone getting well here?” Out of all the people there, you would see lots of people having “insights,” but the insights didn’t seem to translate into anything but small improvements in their actual lives. The more time you spent there, the more you saw people repeating the same patterns. Once in a while people would suddenly quit coming and I’d wonder, “what happened to them?”
I really wanted people to get well and to feel better myself so I kept thinking what to do next, what was the next step? …and then suddenly one day it occurred to me:
You can’t become happy and healthy without doing the things happy and healthy people do.
And happy, healthy, people didn’t spend hours every day reliving the most tragic and painful moments of their lives! Instead they were out playing with their kids, taking a class, going to the movies, working, whatever. They...