The Mission of PAIRS is to teach those attitudes, emotional understandings and behaviors that nurture and sustain healthy relationships and to make this knowledge broadly available on behalf of a safer, saner, more loving world.

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PAIRS Museum Tour Exercise

Past Hurts and Disappointments

Confiding the hurts of the past in another person can be frightening because we may fear that if we share them, somehow they may be used against us. We need to use our ability to take a risk of confiding, and to listen with empathy and understanding when it is a loved one's turn to confide.

To change the present, it can be helpful to confide the hurts and disappointments of the past, whether they are connected to our current relationship or from other periods in our lives.

• We understand each other better when we share what hurt us in the past and how that affects us now.
• Often when we share these hurts with a sympathetic listener, the feelings of hurt are relieved.
• Understanding by another can help us let go of the past.
• When it comes to issues about our own relationships, sometimes our loved ones have little or no idea of our feelings.

To take a Museum Tour of Past Hurts and Disappointments:

1. Sit directly opposite each other with your hands touching.
2. Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a large room, seeing or recalling past hurts and disappointments. Each of your past hurts is a picture on the wall.
3. Imagine those pictures in your mind's eye and look at each one.
4. As you're learning and becoming comfortable with this exercise, choose a picture that is not about your partner to share for the sake of understanding and healing.
5. Open your eyes and share a picture from your museum by completing each of these sentences to your partner:

When I look at the pictures in my museum:

• I remember...
• What upset me was...
• What angered me was...
• What hurt me was...
• What scared me was...
• What I really wanted or needed was...
• What I regret...
• What I realize...
• What I appreciate...
• What would help me in the future is...

As the listener, while your partner is sharing a hurt, just listen with empathy. When your partner is finished, embrace him or her and say something like, "Thank you, I'm glad you told me." Add a sincere statement of understanding, empathy and validation such as:

• I can understand how...
• I can see why...
• I’m sorry that...

After one partner has reviewed a hurt from their museum, change roles and repeat the process.

PAIRS Joy Museum Tour exercise.