For me is empowering to do so.

I don't seem to hold onto trauma or associate it with places. After my wife died I lived in the same house and slept in the same bed and never gave it a second thought. After my son died I drive past his apartment and the workplace where he died on a regular basis and while it reminds me of him, it's not traumatic. Both losses were awful, but I did not attach those losses to the places where they happened. I didn't feel I had to escape them or make some point to face something I had come to avoid.

My current wife on the other hand has "run to the roar" as you describe, most recently to visit her elderly asshat father and step-monster. Personally that wouldn't have been my style, but it did seem to be freeing for her. She had to do a lot of work on herself first though. I think a decade ago it would have unmanned her. Indeed, back then she was still on a doomed mission to try to please the old gasbag and placate the harridan he's married to.

Unfortunately yes, makes me sad for my former self, how dumb was I?!?

I do this in my mind. I don't go to physical places where bad things happened but my mind recalls the past things of myself and others and I see the changes (if any) in myself and them. I remember the words used in the past event. Sometimes I see how stupid I was. Other times I see it in the others. I can also use this to see how growth has come about. I know a few people who seem not to show any growth at all, but most people do.