About

Getting Past Your Past - the blog! is an extension of the How To Get Past Your Past (GPYP) program.*

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GPYP is about making your life the BEST it can be. GPYP is about healing your wounds, past and present, and becoming happy, healthy, wealthy and successful. It is about finding life, love and happiness. It is about making ALL your dreams come true and reaching for the stars because you CAN have it all.

Life is NOT what happens to you but what you make happen.

GPYP is a systematic program that teaches you to address issues of the past while doing concrete, affirmative exercises in the present in order to change your life for a successful future.

The program is structured in a way to expand your comfort zones and frame of reference in a systematic way so that change not only happens but it is PERMANENT.

The techniques and exercises are based on cognitive, behavioral and psychodynamic psychology as well as mourning theory, attachment theory, 12-step programs and some Eastern philosophies (such as mindfulness) and techniques. The techniques and exercises are designed to work as a system so that change is balanced and therefore, permanent.

GPYP is a system of “observation, preparation and cultivation” that continually reinforces positive change using thinking, feeling, and behaving in the present as well as addressing past issues that influence today’s thinking, feeling and behaving.

GPYP materials are available as audio, in seminars, and speaking engagements. Also available are “Getting Past Your Breakup” material that is a subset of the GPYP program. The book “Getting Past Your Breakup” is in development and will be published in 2008 as well as a GPYP handbook.

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*GPYP is a unique program designed and developed by Susan Elliott over the course of 18 years and is NOT affliated with, associated with or the same as the book Getting Past Your Past published in 2000 by Susan Wilkinson.

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Susan J. Elliott owns the Getting Past Your Past domain name (http://www.GettingPastYourPast.com) as well as Getting Past Your Breakup domain name and operates GPYP seminars and events under Getting Past Your Past Productions, LLC which is a limited liability corporation organized in the state of New York.

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About Susan J. Elliott:

She writes:

I began life as a foster child in the Bronx, and was adopted into an alcoholic and abusive home. As a teenager, I gravitated to abusive people and dangerous situations and never thought I could overcome this grim beginning. From my first boyfriend at the age of 12 to walking out of my first marriage, I was in abusive relationships and never thought I would be with anyone but unhealthy people.

In 1987, with no job, no sense of purpose, no self-esteem, and 3 small children in tow, I ended a horrible marriage.

I felt like the world’s biggest loser, convinced that I did not have what it would take to make it on my own.

I was depressed, anxious and overcome with a sense of dread. But I started to change things. I went to therapy and support groups.

Desperate to raise my children right and to break the cycle of abuse, I had to find out what made a person healthy and then I had to do whatever I needed to in order to be healthy.

I worked hard to put together a life and to deal with all that happened to me in a healthy and functional way.

For years I worked through my past to put together a successful life. I not only participated in many different groups and programs on a personal level but started to learn how to help others. I became a certified Grief Recovery (sm) counselor and an Investment in Excellence facilitator.

When my life was on an even keel, I returned to school for my Masters in Counseling Psychology. I had been in therapy and support groups for about 7 years at the time and had read a lot of pop psychology. But now in graduate school, my goal was to understand how people changed and how that change becomes permanent.

I put together a program for my clients to address long-term and short-term issues while changing their attitudes and behaviors.

During my graduate program, I worked two semesters as an intern at a long term drug and alcohol treatment facility. Using everything I had learned, I developed a “Freedom from Relapse” class. It was an optional class for the residents and it started out in a large room with only 3 clients attending. Within a few weeks, it was standing room only.

Many of the treatment center clients were habitual offenders and hard core drug addicts who were court ordered into the program and were facing lengthy prison terms if they relapsed. Many of them had relapsed time and time again and really didn’t have any hope that they could stay straight once and for all. By the end of the semester long class, the residents were lining up at the end of class to thank me for the work I did with them or to share the “lightbulb” moment they had had in class.

During that first successful class, I observed that the residents who worked the program in conjunction with the psychodynamic work they were doing in individual therapy and 12 step programs changed in amazing ways. These were addicts who had been on the street hustling or committing crimes most of their life and I saw amazing changes in them as they worked on the emotional, the behavioral and the cognitive.

Their hard work and dedication to turning their lives around inspired me and I continued to research and develop the material I used in that first class.

If hard core drug addicts could use the cognitive-behavioral material combined with working through their past and unresolved grief to avoid relapse, and I could use it to change my completely screwed-up life, then I was convinced that anyone could use it to their benefit. Much of the material I used in my own life and to develop that first class is now a part of the GPYP program.

Another important part of the GPYP program is recovering from loss. When I was in graduate school I was fortunate enough to study with John James of The Grief Recovery Institute and to be certified as a Grief Recovery (GriefRecovery® ) counselor. I wrote my Master’s Thesis on Grief and Adoptees: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and researched mourning theory and attachment theory (Bowlby/Ainsworth). I attended several Stephen Levine workshops and began to incorporate mindfulness and meditation into my work.

After I graduated from my master’s program, I worked as an Emergency Services Psychiatric Clinician specializing in assisting people in crisis. I also developed a private practice as a family therapist and as a grief counselor, taught motivational seminars, facilitated women’s support groups and gave many talks and lectures on changing your life permanently.

Using my personal experience as well as years of academic research, I developed GPYP as a way to present the very best of what works.

While helping others achieve their goals and dreams, I began to understand that several goals of mine had been unrealized.

I had always wanted to become a lawyer but how does a kid from a blue collar family in the Bronx achieve that dream? I didn’t even know WHERE one began to become a lawyer.

I also wanted a degree in English and had never gotten it. I always felt that a degree in English was self-indulgent and unnecessary, but I couldn’t seem to shake it. Somehow I wanted it. People said it was a “piece of paper” and I had a career already. But it was a piece of paper that mattered to me.

How could I tell people to be what they want to be and NOT do it myself?

There came a day when I could not. I had to leave my practice and my jobs and even where I lived to attend to my own hopes and dreams as I encouraged others to do. It was exciting but VERY VERY scary.

First I went back to school to get my degree in English. I wrote my undergraduate theory on Mourning in Contemporary American Literature analyzing three significant works (Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Ceremony by Leslie Silko, and Final Payments by Mary Gordon) through the lens of mourning. One part of it, without footnotes, is available here:
Theory of Mourning. The thesis was awarded High Honors.

I went to a good school (another dream fulfilled!) and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and went to my dream law school, UC Berkeley. My law school thesis was called Payne, Mourning and the Sweet Hereafter which examined the 8th Amendment cases (Payne specifically) and a film (the Sweet Hereafter), victims rights and, continuing to build on my academic writing portfolio on grief, the place of grief in the legal system.

I then came back to New York City, my hometown, to practice law. (all these dreams fulfilled!)

But after I came back home, I realized that I could not just let “Getting Past Your Past” go. From my less-than-fortunate beginning, I had spent the last 18 years making all my dreams come true. By changing myself and working hard, I had become everything I wanted to be. I had realized every single dream. I had a wonderful life full of wonderful relationships. I made a lot of money and I lived where I wanted to live. This was the American Dream especially from where I come from.

I spent most of my first 30 years feeling abandoned and worthless…feeling that no one cared…being abused and thinking that I was the world’s doormat.

Now I was successful.

I was happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.

I have amazing relationships with my children. I am happily remarried to a man who loves me unconditionally. My life WORKS! From where I come from, this is all amazing!

But I couldn’t just enjoy the success and let that be that.

There were people out there–hurting people–who needed to hear the hope and the positive message, but most of all they needed the systematic GPYP program to show them HOW to do it.

I started teaching GPYP seminars and classes in New York City and the feedback has been phenomenol.

Shortly after I started “GPYP - The Blog!”, I posted an entry called “Getting Past Your Breakup” and it became the most popular post on the blog and remains so, having been read over THIRTY THOUSAND TIMES!

I received HUNDREDS of emails about it so I wrote “More Getting Past Your Breakup” and soon the focus of the blog became how to survive a breakup.

The blog is cited on many other blogs and websites and I receive new visitors daily.

I am SO glad you are all here and am honored to help you through difficult times. Believe me that it CAN be done!

I love being here because people were there for me when I needed them.

I continue the program even though its a challenge to teach the seminars, accept speaking engagements and write the books while practicing law full-time as a corporate attorney.

I’ve written the proposal for the “breakup book” that is the result of this blog: “Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss Into the Best Thing That Ever Happened To You.” I have an agent and hopefully a publisher (soon!) I’ve been asked to be a commentator for print articles, on radio and TV and have been invited on national talk shows. I’m not ready for the media tour yet, but maybe in the next few months I can work that into the schedule.

I LOVE being a lawyer and my legal career comes before all else. I do love it and it does pay the bills. But I have a commitment to sharing what I know to as many people as I can…because I was in the deep, dark horrible place with no hope and thought there was no way out…and I needed to hear hope from others. I needed to have someone share their wisdom with me. And so today I put myself out there as an example of hope, that you CAN do it…and here is how.

Yes, it is hard. As a big firm lawyer I work a LOT of hours. A typical day is 10-12 hours and I work some weekends every few weeks. My days are exhausting.

I do it because I want to be there for people who need it. I BELIEVE IN THIS because it works. It didn’t work for me because I am somehow unique. I am not. It worked for me because it works. GPYP works.

I don’t have a lot of time to teach and to speak but I do it as much as I can. Sometimes I travel around the country to speak. This is an investment of time, money and emotions and physical stamina. But I feel that I have to do it, to give back what was given to me.

I am a attorney, therapist, writer, seminar leader and motivational speaker, and I am happily married and have wonderful relationships with my grown children. Most of all, I have gotten past my past and live a contented, peaceful life where I know who I am and like who I am. I teach the seminars primarily in New York and Boston but do travel throughout the country when invited to teach or speak. GPYP seminars always sell out and I plan to do seminars in Chicago and London in 2009.

I hope you find something here of value. Please feel free to write me with comments, questions, criticism or thoughts. My email has gotten so heavy as a result of the blog’s popularity but I try to answer within a few weeks. If I don’t send me a reminder please.

My Credentials: I hold a B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College; an M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Cambridge College; and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. I am a certified grief counselor through the Grief Recovery Institute.

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What I’m Doing When I’m Not Doing This or Working or Hanging Out With My Family

On the internet, I typically only read baseball blogs Pinstripe Alley, River Avenue Blues and Phil Hughes’ Blog but also read the silly I Can Has Cheezburger on a daily basis. I know it is a very limited universe but it’s where I can veg out and not think about lawyering or therapizing. :)

I also think that You Tube is crack and I spend at least an hour a night on it. Don’t even try to ask me what I’m watching. Old music videos, old commercials, stuff I watched as a kid like Diver Dan, Colonel Bleep, I watch all the Judge Judy episodes, I watch a lot of standup like Demetri Martin, Mitch Hedberg, Eddie Izzard, I watch The Soup and lots of other stuff…everything and anything…and the 4th quarter of the latest Super Bowl (over and over again). I’m very eclectic when it comes to my You Tube surfing. :)

In real life I read all the NY papers, yes even the trashy ones because they’re funny. I typically am reading one psychology book, one legal book, one fiction and a book on New York or on baseball at any given time. I make an attempt, at least once a month, to brush up on my Italian but it never takes. :)

I like movies (comedies: including old comedies like the Marx Brothers [my favorites of all time], Arsenic & Old Lace, that kind of thing), I also like photography, painting, motorcycles. I don’t watch a lot of TV but love Old Christine, 30 Rock, The Office, and anything with Ricky Gervais (including Extras and the British Office). I watch too much reality TV with my 14 year old daughter because I want to know what she’s watching: Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, Top Chef…. and we typically can do the weekend marathons together (much to my husband’s chagrin).

I love Broadway plays, off Broadway plays and revivals of old plays. I go to baseball games all summer and I love a good basketball game or football game in the winter but nothing beats a Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

For music I like mainly blues (old blues, new blues), R & B, some rock & roll and some hip hop. :)

I love Italy and the Italian language and Italian food. My husband is Italian and my kids are some.

I love riding a motorcyle and Harley Davidsons.

I love coffee but hate Starbucks (go Dunkin Donuts!), love bargains but hate Walmart (go Costco!), love fluff but hate Disney (go Warner Brothers!)and haven’t eaten in a McDonald’s or Burger King in over 30 years. :)

I love the Bronx and hate the “mallification” of Manhattan.