Thank you so much for sharing in details your experience. My turn to do the same for the purpose of presenting how dealing with past traumas with my mother was so liberating and that pursuing this approach for my DADs in particular the A (Aversions, fears, ill-wills) has been so liberating for me.
As a boy I received several traumas from my parents in particular my mother. I was for 40 years very angry and resentful towards her and of course with the mixed feeling, she is my mother I should not have these feelings towards her.
Then after seeing the transformation in my wife as result of just a week of intensive psychological work in a retreat setup, I decided to do it (It’s called the Hoffman Process). In that week I went through the process of making peace with both my parents something I thought I’ll never be able to do in this life time. The key aspect of the process corresponds to the “complete view” component of the 8FP. This is where I join you saying that the 8FP is a tool for every moment of our life. From the “complete view” then we go to “best intentions” which have now a chance to succeed because we have seen the situation in all its facettes (negative, positive, dukkha) then we put in place these intentions using the next five components of the 8FP.
The result of this process was that now I can look back at all the events of my childhood with total equanimity.
I have been using this combination of Hoffman Process and 8FP very successfully to “dry up the remain of my past”.
I have just started presenting this method here in Perth: see “Transforming Emotions” in the following link: https://www.mindfulnessmeditationhubperth.com.au/emotions-mental-development-perth-classes/