Recycling old shit, and how to turn it into compost?

There are issues that seem to keep coming up, over and over again, biting you in the ass when you least expect it, or sometimes when you do. Those triggers that grab you where you live, drag you out, kicking and screaming into the face of your own insecurities and pain. You process, you do the work, you think you've got them licked, then they come back again.

How does one, or DOES one, finally, completely eradicate the old shit that keeps resurfacing? Is there a place where it at least becomes useful compost to grow something new from? Actually, I've found some of the least savory experiences in life to be the most formative, the most positive to motivate moving forward. Still, it would seem like there must be a happy medium, where you get the benefits from moving on a new tangent, due to an experience that shook things up, and yet don't have the trigger point pain stabbing you at unexpected moments.

Most of the interesting people I've ever met have had hugely nasty or traumatic things happen to them, usually as a child. Their childhood was shitty. People abused them physically, sexually or otherwise. They experienced major change on a regular basis. Someone very close to them died. In short, there was massive challenge(s) they lived through, and came out the other side stronger than they went in. This has been the case for me, and I wouldn't turn any of those experiences in on a more convenient and safely bland life path, but it sure would be nice to mulch them down a bit more!

So share your insight with me, tell me what's worked for you? How have you moved into stronger space, uncontaminated, but still wiser, for the experiences you've had? How have you turned the shit that life has shoveled at you into the fuel for your future?