Why does something that happened years ago still hurt so much?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “trauma isn't what happened to you. Trauma is what you keep living every day.” The event itself is over. The real problem, he says, is that “it's still happening inside of your head.”

You are still giving it space. You are still reacting to your spouse, to your kids, to your life, because of something that happened five, ten, or twenty years ago. That, he says, is not trauma: “that's being stuck.”

He points to Shlomo HaMelech's words that there is “a time to forget.” Healing starts with realizing that what happened then is not what is hurting you now. “What's hurting you is the fact that you never let go. Your past doesn't hurt you. Your attachment to it does.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The pain does not come from the event that happened. It comes from living it again every day.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

The old event shows up in how a person reacts to his spouse, his children, and his life, years later.

What may be behind it

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that we need to separate two things people usually mix up: the event, and our holding on to it. The event no longer hurts us; the holding on is what hurts.

Deepest human truth

There is “a time to forget.” The past cannot be changed, but the attachment to it can be released, and that is where healing begins.

More questions from this teaching

• Why do I overreact to my spouse and kids because of things from my past?