There is a tendency to assume that, simply because we try to have a positive, effective learning environment in schools and elsewhere, that the only learning we can do is as a result of positive experiences.That is not so. If, as a child, I am burned, I learn that fire can be dangerous, and that is actually a useful lesson. Mind you, yes, it would be better if I had simply listened, but some people NEED to learn “the hard way”. (sigh ... :) )
The other thing to keep in mind is that we do experience a form of learning or training from negative experiences in life that may be less useful - in most cases, it seems that being disappointed or hurt by others (especially in love - e.g., having a partner die on them which, despite our best attempts to be rational if the death was accidental or from illness or other causes out of direct control, can still be perceived as abandonment) can contribute to being wary or reticent about being involved with others in future. That is a form of learning. Counselling will help overcome that to an extent, but then determination and effort is required to unlearn the habits that have been set in place by the negative learning.
This also applies to negative experiences from past lives. As an example, if you had been burned to death as a witch, you may be reluctant to get involved in anything connected with Wicca/witchcraft/paganism - you may, in fact, seem to be irrationally and vehemently opposed to such matters. The perception irrationality is simply because so few of us can perceive from one lifetime to another. In this case, a past life regression will help, and is the equivalent (if properly done!) of counselling now. Having done that, however, some persistent effort is required to break the habit that was taught and ingrained by our past, negative learning experience (look up Trauma Encoded Emotional Memory, or TEEM, which I think was developed by the author of the Neanderthal Predation theory).
Personally, I look further back (see here and here), to see if I had that experience because of a wrong I had committed previously - i.e., was this a negative karmic return? If it WAS, I celebrate - because undoing karma is actually a lot easier than having to do the learning that is required if the experience was to force you to look at some part of yourself that you've been avoiding.
Of course, it could simply have been due to, in modern lingo, “randomness” ... I suppose :)
To put this into context, consider the following, from “Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World” by Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall:
“Positive attention, in other words, is thirty times more powerful than negative attention in creating high performance on a team. (It’s also, if you’re keeping score, twelve hundred times more powerful than ignoring people)”
