That “thing” that happened long ago

The natural response of the mind is often to shut-down vague recollections of some past event that you don't remember fondly but there lies the problem...we shut it down consciously, yet the body continues to harbour the irritation or pain, at the subconscious level, which then has no choice but to manifest as imbalance or some other symptom, that feeling of perpetuation in the body (on and on and on in perpetuity = "chronic") and, of course, where one "off-kilter" energy tends to linger, other sticky energies will attract, leading to escalation (the "snowball" effect).

Learning (and healing) from the past

The subtlest sensory cues may be the prompts that repeatedly set old feelings in motion again…but if you can shine some light on their source, and send some love and understanding back to the “you” of those times, great healing can be the result. As well as seeing that original event in all its glory - appreciating what the “you” of back then was subjected to and what they survived (which can bring massive healing all on its own), you could perhaps strive to make the current “offending” circumstances very different to the ones that hold the original wound since you know now what you are dealing with and what renews that sense of unspeakable discomfort in your life. Perhaps you could even delve into the wider circumstances of the trigger event to see if you can intuit what it was that helped catalyse the deeper trauma that took place. As ever, it is the light of consciousness that heals most powerfully in all these kinds of situation; allowing you to revisit what was only a partial and immaturely-assessed picture of circumstance when it first happened to you “in the past” and bringing a new depth of understanding to it with your current breadth and maturity of awareness.