Ask HN: How did you move on from past experiences?
One element is moral accounting.  You have to make peace with what you did.  Research on why some people come home from wars and are O.K. and others aren&#x27;t point to this as the difference<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Moral_injury" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Moral_injury</a><p>It&#x27;s traumatic to be hurt by people,  but devastating to hurt others or believe you hurt others,  particularly if you were driven to do it by group dynamics.  (Nothing hurts more than being part of a network of wrongdoers,  part of the problem is not knowing if the locus is inside or outside yourself.)<p>Last year I was involved in something almost indescribable, probably the best description is that I am rewiring myself to increase my ability to emotionally communicate with and charm people.<p>Many things went right and wrong,  but after charming many members of a group I said something really hurtful to one member.<p>It&#x27;s funny because I sometimes do a good job of telling stories and sometimes I don&#x27;t.  Sometimes I tell the punch line of a joke before the set-up.<p>This time I succeeded,  I wove together several threads to tell a powerful story about my own pain and loss,  another person&#x27;s suffering,  and the related problems in a wider community.  The effect on the other person was almost like a physical impact and that person hasn&#x27;t talked to me since.<p>I feel bad about hurting that person also feel bad because this mistake and a string of similar mistakes of lesser magnitude caused my self-interested plans to fail not just in a specific way (with that particular group),  but in a generic way (would have failed with any group and any goal.)<p>In the process of refreshing my practice it realized I hadn&#x27;t ensorcelled anyone since that day.  I&#x27;d left my power behind at that incident.  Even though it will be hard to open a dialogue with that person I have to apologize and make amends because I need my power back.