I find it useful sometimes to realize the pain is a phantom, like a phantom limb; what caused the pain is gone. Holding on to the pain just doesn't make sense; in my case, it was realizing I was afraid of being afraid that I needed to let go of, not any actual, current realistic fear. We get so invested in the way things were/seem to feel and forget they are not the actual event itself, what I like to think of in terms of, "the map is not the territory". The damage has been done, the storm has gone through and we can get on with rebuilding instead of staying stuck with how bad the storm was and doing the "what if" spinning of our wheels worrying about the future which we cannot know.