Hey, Tam9, I've said it before (a few times!) and I'll say it again: events have occurred. I'm not in favor of denying that things that happened, happened. I agree with you that it would be a very good idea to accept events and especially, what we make events mean, remember and evaluate what needs to be remembered and evaluated. If you "forget" traumatic events, you still carry them with you into your current moment, and they can run your life without you realizing it -- just like the people you mentioned. I do not advocate trying to "forget."
If you still have a traumatic event making your decisions for you, I think it's important to "deal with it" -- and the most important part of that, I believe, is accepting that it happened. There's no real freedom in the current moment without acceptance of what's real -- and again, I'm saying events are real, it's the past that is all thought. Something else is happening right here, right now, and that is real. If it is not happening right here, right now, then the only way it exists is in the realm of thought. And one way that takes "fantasy" shape is: "that did not happen! that should not have happened! I'm not going to ever let that happen again!"
That's what I call sweeping things under the rug. The event happened, but what is real in this moment is what you make that event mean, over and over again, till you die. You can't change the event (Max probably disagrees!) but you can change what you make the event mean -- you can change your thoughts about the event.
Acting as if past events were real here and now -- that is fantasy living (like Daumer and Manson). Accepting that events happened, and that you are making them mean something now, and that you're free to think different thoughts if you choose to, THAT gives you the freedom to live boldly in the current moment. It really is easy!
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