From time to time, foreign debris may appear and you may feel uncomfortable. Perhaps you can take it as a re-learning lesson that you have encountered with a certain situation or person. But people and situations will always exist, whether you accept what happened to you or not. And so maybe it’s not about you, but rather a fact of life. Or as Danielle LaPorte puts it so beautifully in her book How to be loved“We can let someone be who they are to us today, not a hologram of yesterday’s number.”

And even then, that doesn’t mean you have to accept that person or situation in order to prove to yourself that you’re healed. Personally, I don’t like people when they are high, rowdy and drunk. I never liked being in these situations before, but they made me feel especially unsafe after a previous narcissistic relationship. Aware of my safety needs, I choose to distance myself from people when I see them drinking too much, and I usually get out of those situations anyway because I don’t like staying out too long to drink either.

The point is, I don’t judge these people for what they do, nor myself for feeling and reacting the way I do. Likewise, I prefer to sit in an aisle seat when flying, and don’t beat yourself up about it.

You may still feel re-triggered at times, and that’s okay. In such situations, ask yourself, what is happening in your environment? A place or thing is remembered by a bad memory, and you want to return it? If so, you can start making better memories with safe and kind people or yourself.

Or do you constantly encounter people who make it difficult to feel at peace? For example, do you often hang out with toxic family members out of guilt or obligation, and therefore continue to walk on eggshells? Or have you recently encountered a naysayer who shamed you for what you’ve been through—that you’re stupid, naive, or immature? Just as we do not intentionally expose our lives to danger or discomfort—for example, we will walk away from dark alleys or streets filled with garbage—we can make this exposure temporary.