However, when they get accumulated over time they become monsters that can end up making us feel terrible.
Why misfortunes never happen singly
Later, when we face a major problem, these consciously ignored problems resurface and their combined effect along with the effect of the major problem results in a major mood swing.
When we face a major problem, our mind gets fine-tuned to scan every other issue in our life and when it finds a huge a pile of unsolved problems, it makes us feel very bad (Bad mood is just a warning).
You see our mind works very much like Google. When you enter a keyword in the Google search box, everything related to that keyword shows up in the search results. Similarly, when you feel bad due to some reason, your mind scans your life for every other possible reason that can make you feel bad.
Just like we remember happy past life events when we are feeling happy, we remember sad past events when we are sad. Bits of information that are stored in our mind are linked to each other not only by virtue of their similarity but also by virtue of the common emotion associated with them.
For example, when you come across the word “apple”, you may not only remember the red colour and the round shape that it has but also how it ‘feels’ to taste it. If you eat an unknown fruit that tastes like an apple, you will recall the apple because your mind had associated that taste with an apple. You are likely to say, “This tastes like an apple”.
To cut the long story short, when you feel a certain way (whether good or bad); your mind tends to keep you in that emotional state by using information from the past.
You may, however, remember a few negative events from the past but they won’t bother you at all if you’ve already dealt with those issues.
Changing your perception of the past
Let’s say you searched a lot to figure out the psychological reasons behind bullying and finally understood that you were bullied not because there was something wrong with you but because the bully who bullied you was feeling inferior inside (The story of most bullies).