297: Painful Anniversary Dates

In this episode I’m going to specifically talk about anniversary dates of things that happened that were horrible, awful or bring up a lot of bad memories. I thought this episode would be good to do, as my daughters death date is may 27th, in just a few days.

This idea is something that has not only helped me, but when I’ve applied it to my clients and taught them this, this is something over and over again they have told me, wow that has helped me so much. This has worked for clients with child’s death dates, but also clients with a painful date in their life for whatever reason.

So if you have a date, a anniversary day that brings up a lot of emotions, memories, and such surrounding the day, you may have had thoughts like, well the body keeps the score, my body is remembering this time, and so it’s a heavy time, or I’m reliving the last year. It could be a death date, or it could be a date of an event that was painful or traumatic, whatever.

Let’s think this way for a moment. That when an anniversary day approaches, you’ve likely been thinking about it, dreading it, thinking about what happened on that day.

And.

Mind doesn’t know the difference between past or present. So if you’ve been thinking about it…thinking this is what happened this day, mind doesn’t know the difference. And so, mind is looking at this day, let’s say for myself and Aria’s death date May 27th 2024 as if it’s the same day as april 27th 2016. And so when mind doesn’t know the difference, it thinks this same thing is going to happen again, and it’s trying to get you to do something about it.

So-

What happens? Mind starts causing emotions, trying to get you to take actions, like stop Aria from dying on May 27th. Or that Aria is going to die May 27th.

It doesn’t know that she died 8 years ago, it thinks I need to do something about her dying this year, right now.

And if we looked, is June 18th 2018, the same day at June 18th 2020? No. Is it the same is June 18th 2021? No.

They are completely different days.

And, I get to tell my mind, I can’t go back and make Aria alive. And, I also get to tell it, Aria can’t die again. She already died, she can’t and won’t die again on May 27th this year.

If you have date in might, this same thing on this same day in that same time can’t happen again on that same date in the same time in the same way. It’s literally impossible. Aria cannot die again, though my mind thinks she can because of the way I used to think about it.

I have no idea how this year will be. Obviously I’m not there yet. But I’ve had no anxiety, no worries thus far, and it almost just feels like a date on the calendar. It’s not the day she died. It’s a different day. And I also have no problems if emotions come up on the day or before or after. I’m not afraid of emotions. So if I get sad, that’s fine. And we always intend to have some family time together, and people have asked me if we plan on doing anything special, and this year we are going to be with my whole family at our family farm, and I don’t know- we have bought a nothing bundt cake on her birthday and death date for a while, so maybe we’ll bring that, and a sing a song for her.

So, I hope you try this out, and that your mind starts to understand that this day is not the same as that day. And that there’s nothing that needs to be done about this day.

Let me know if you try this out and what works for you!

If you’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety, triggers, and you find your body is in this state of fight or flight and you are tired of it, go check out my free training, where you will learn the secret to an anxiety and trigger free life. You can register for it by going to my website www.meganhillukka.com and you’ll find it there.