Meditations for Preventing the past from driving the present

M. Diane Pearce, Ph.D., LMFT

Finding myself having an intense reaction to others, because I feel slighted, discarded, overlooked and without value warrants a renewal of practicing meditations on truth. This calls for an adjustment of my auto-pilot or muscle memory reactions. 

When someone says or does things that hurt me, it is time to consider and think on what I know to be true.  

Help me to remember and rest in the awareness that…
I know that God values me as His own, because He made me.
I know that God calls me by name, because He rescues me from myself.
I know that God calls me to do for others, because He equips me. 

Help me to remember and rest in the awareness of these truths, especially when I am hurt by the unavailability, abandonment, forgetfulness or unkindness of others. 
Help me when I am hurting to admit it to you, my heavenly Father, and to the other person when appropriate. Help me to do this without blaming, accusing, or labeling them or their actions. After all, I do not answer for their actions, I answer only for my own. Have mercy on them, as they do not know the effects of what they have done. 

Give me courage and strength to change my reactions to others.
Give me serenity to accept where they are at and what they are capable of in this relationship.
Give me discernment to know the difference between what I can change and what I cannot change. 
Give me wisdom to only invest my thoughts and energy in changing what I am in control of…nothing more and nothing less.

If I am granted the right amount of courage, serenity, and discernment, I will be equipped to invest with those who are receptive, and I will also be able to ‘shake it off’ with those who are not receptive.

Help me to listen to the voice of truth and reason while never underestimating the power of my emotions. 

To ignore my emotion sets me up to have a spillover reaction towards others. To place too much value on emotion will lead me to isolate in hopes of avoiding discomfort. So, there is a delicate balance that I am incapable of managing on my own. This is the reason for me to be conscious of the ever-present help of my creator, my heavenly Father.
To be conscious of His presence, I choose to be mindful and fully tuned into His words more than any other.  

For further study: Scripture adapted from NIV Holy Bible, Hosea 6:8, Zephaniah 3:17, Matthew 10, 12 & 13.