The past does not define you for who you are and what you are and what you are going to be. We can't act wrongly beyond our inherited weaknesses and the unfavorable circumstances that lured us into the act, despite that we are wonderful creature from an awesome creator love yourself anyway. That is the first step to self healing.
Holly Brown put it this way:
"The problem with blaming others is that it can often leave you powerless. For example, you confront the person (your boss, your spouse, your parent, your child), and they say, “No, I didn’t,” or worse, “So what if I did?”, then you’re left with all this anger and hurt and no resolution.
All your feelings are legitimate. It’s important to feel them fully, and then move on."
Nursing your grievances indefinitely is a bad habit, because (as the title goes) it hurts you more than it hurts them.
People who hold on to these past hurts often relive the pain over and over in their minds. Sometimes a person can even get “stuck” in this pain, in this hurt, in this blame.
#1. You get a jump-start on releasing the past when you take full responsibility.
Once you see that the ball is totally in your court, you have set the stage for deep letting go. Your happiness is your responsibility alone, not anyone else’s. You might be very familiar with feeling like a victim. But this is a passive, unempowered position, leaving you waiting for words or actions from someone else, something you cannot control.
Taking responsibility means being open to recognizing how your own internal landscape is feeding your suffering. What thoughts make you unhappy? What feelings are stuck in your body and heart? How do you make yourself suffer by recycling negative memories through your mind? Being stuck in the past means that a part of your heart is closed. Take responsibility for going right into those bruised and tender places. Read on to find out how.
#2. You need to strive hard and accept the Past. Let go of what you can't change and embrace peace and harmony into your life.
What has happened has already happened. There is nothing anyone can do to go back in time and change it.
For this reason, the only viable option is to accept it. Leave the past in the past, and focus instead on where you are now: the present. Find the joy in the people and activities that are in your life currently.
#3. Telling stories keeps the past lodged in your mind, heart, body, and spirit.
We tell ourselves all sorts of stories that bring trouble to our lives. Want to be trouble-free? Here is the medicine.
*Notice how entranced you can be by the stories of drama and victimhood that appear in your mind.
* Just for a moment, let yourself lose interest in these thought stories.
* See that what is left is a pattern of physical sensations, maybe gripping, tension, or burning. You may never have noticed these sensations before, but they have probably been there for a long time.
* Now notice this: You are aware, and these sensations are appearing in your awareness. They come, go, and change, but here you are: aware.
* Take the perspective of awareness, and the sensations have the freedom to be. They aren’t ignored or suppressed. You aren’t so busy in the story that you don’t notice them.
* Now notice: Are you suffering? No, you are simply experiencing sensation as awareness.
This is freedom – no attention to the story, experience appearing and disappearing with ease. You: unchanging, clear, undisturbed.
#4. Never deny your feelings allow it and gradually detached from it by replacing it with another thoughts and new activities.
Just because you accept the past, doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it. Putting on a fake front or bottling up your true feelings will only exacerbate the issue.
It is one hundred percent okay to feel hurt, discouraged, angry, confused, or anything else. Take the time to acknowledge and feel your emotions without judgement. This is how they can eventually move on.
#5. Become clear on your morals and values as they are right now.
The reason most of us feel guilt or shame for actions done in the past is because those actions are not in line with our current morals and values. Our past wrongs can actually clue us in to what we hold important. By identifying our morals and values, we start to get a clearer picture as to “why” we're hurting over what we've done, or what others did to us.
#6. Create a “re-do.”
Never underestimate the power of a “re-do”. Write down how you would have done things differently if you could go back and do it again. In doing so, we affirm that we not only learned from our past mistake, but that if we had the skills we have now, back then, we would have done things differently.
#7. Stop being the victim and blaming others.
Being the victim feels good — it’s like being on the winning team of you against the world. But guess what? The world largely doesn’t care, so you need to get over yourself. Yes, you’re special. Yes, your feelings matter. But don’t confuse with “your feelings matter” to “your feelings should override all else, and nothing else matters.” Your feelings are just one part of this large thing we call life, which is all interwoven and complex. And messy.
In every moment, you have that choice to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling good . You need to take responsibility for your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of another person. Why would you let the person who hurt you in the past — have such power, right here, right now?
No amount of rumination of analyses have ever fixed a relationship problem. Never. Not in the entirety of the world’s history. So why choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to a person who you feel has wronged you?
#8. Focus on the present — the here and now — and joy.
Now it’s time to let go. Let go of the past, and stop reliving it. Stop telling yourself that story where the protagonist — you — is forever the victim of this other person’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you focus on the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the past memories creep into your consciousness (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a conscious cue, such as saying to yourself, “It’s alright. That was the past, and now I’m focused on my own happiness and doing _______________.”
Remember, if we crowd our brains — and lives — with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you’re making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy back into your life.
#9. The past isn’t really about the past.
When you look with great clarity, you will see that there is no actual thing called the past. Everything that happens happens in the present – it can’t be any other way. Memories of events are thoughts occurring in the present. Anger or hurt about the past is happening now. Your present moment experience in the now is what keeps the past alive.
What is amazing about this understanding is that it shows you that the way out of your suffering is always in the present. You can change your perspective – now, focus on something different – now, feel your feelings – as they are right now.
If you want to heal from the past, put your attention on your present moment experience.
#10. Memories are not the problem.
A memory is a thought, and a thought has no power or meaning whatsoever, unless you give it power or meaning. You have many thoughts about things that happened long ago, and these thoughts cause no problems. But some thoughts are sticky. You have an emotional reaction to them and you think them over and over. You may even have beliefs related to them, for example, “I am justified in thinking this” or “I need an apology so I can move on.” This keeps them very much alive, affecting your ongoing experience.
If you want to be free of the past, lose interest in these sticky thoughts . Know that it doesn’t serve you to repeat them and that thinking they are justified only delays your freedom. Be prepared to take a look at the pure experience of your feelings without the layer of thinking that solidifies them.
#11. “Healing” means letting go so the thoughts and feelings don’t impact you.
Your goal is to neutralize the story from the past so it loses its power over you. It becomes transparent, with no meaning and no effect. You change your relationship to your thoughts so they don’t sit like a dark cloud over you. Your goal is not to:
*Make yourself forget about the past (impossible)
*Stuff or ignore your feelings (creates other problems – addiction, anyone?)
*Wait for an apology or acknowledgment (postpones happiness)
*Wait for time to heal all wounds (you may need more than time)
*Wallow endlessly in your emotions (oh, so painful)
*Redo the past (you can’t change what happened but you absolutely can change your reaction to what happened)
Keep holding as possible: freedom…peace…sanity…freshness in the moment…fully alive now.
12. Forgive them — and yourself.
We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors, but virtually everybody deserves our forgiveness. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”
Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting something go. It’s also a way of empathizing with the other person, and trying to see things from their point of view.
And forgiving yourself may be an important part of this step as well, as sometimes we may end up blaming ourselves for the situation or hurt. While we indeed may have had some part to play in the hurt (see step 2), there’s no reason you need to keep beating yourself up over it. If you can’t forgive yourself, how will you be able to live in future peace and happiness?
I know this stuff is hard, that it’s incredibly hard to let go of one’s pain. If we’ve held onto it for a long time, it feels like an old friend. Justified. It would be sacrilegious to let it go.
But nobody’s life should be defined by their pain. It’s not healthy, it adds to our stress, it hurts our ability to focus, study and work, and it impacts every other relationship we have (even the ones not directly affected by the hurt). Every day you choose to hold on to the pain is another day everybody around you has to live with that decision. And feel its consequences.
So do everybody — and yourself — a big favor:
Let go of the pain. Do something different today and welcome happiness back into your life
#13. Relationship troubles relate to your past.
Unless you see through all of it, you are a product of your past and the ideas you have formed about how relationships work. This keeps the past alive in the present. Do you fear rejection or commitment? Do you feel you need approval and attention? Do you isolate or push people away? Do you need to be on top and in control? Do you have difficulty trusting? If these tendencies cause you problems in your relationships, here is your opportunity.
Untangle your thoughts and feelings about the past, and live in freedom from them as you move forward.
#14. The middle path is the intelligent path.
Dwelling on what happened and leaking your feelings all over the place will keep you suffering. Hiding, indulging, or stuffing your feelings doesn’t work in the long-term. Instead, bring intelligence and clarity to your direct experience. Cultivate a fire for peace and ease that serves you well.
#15. Finding out who you are is the ultimate freedom.
If you define yourself by your past, you will be living as a fraction of what is possible for you. Say you think of yourself as wronged or abused or victimized. Or you see yourself as having gotten the short end of the stick.
Defining yourself by what happened doesn’t help you now. It’s like wearing clothes that never fit. Is it time to take them off?
It’s easy to believe in a mistaken identity.
It feels so true to think we are the result of what happened or the sum total of our thoughts and feelings. But the truest thing about you is that you are aware. Life presents a passing array of experiences – thoughts, emotions, events, people.
These all arise in you but are not you.
Live as the awareness that you are – fully alive, here, not in conflict with anything. Know who you are, and the pain of the past will barely be a ripple…on the surface…of the immeasurable vastness of you.
BONUS
WHY YOU NEED TO LET GO AND MOVE ON
1. Someone’s negativity is rubbing off on you.You are the average of the people you spend the most time with. In other words, who you spend your time with has a great impact on the person you are and the person you become. If you are around cynical and negative people all the time, you will become cynical and negative.
2. You have grown apart from someone. Sad but true, no matter what you do or how much you explain yourself, some people will gradually evolve away from your core values. As time goes on they will prove over and over again that they are committed to misunderstanding you and clashing with your needs.
3. You are truly unhappy with your current circumstances. – It’s always better to be struggling at something you love than succeeding diligently at something you despise.
4. Your goals and needs have changed. What was right for you then is not necessarily right for you now. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather realizing that you have changed, and then learning to start over with your new truth.
5. Fear is holding you back.Part of letting go and moving on is facing the fears and disappointments of the past that are binding your spirit.
6. You catch yourself living in the past.If all you do is attempt to relive something that has already happened, you’re missing out. The mental space you create by letting go of things that are already behind you gives you the ability to fill the space with something fresh and fun.
7. An old grudge is still hurting you. Holding on to the weight of anger, resentment and hatred will not only hold you back, but also block your present blessings and opportunities. You’ve just got to drop some things to move forward.
8. You aren’t learning anything new.
Living is learning. All positive change is the end result of learning. If you aren’t learning, you’re simply dying slowly.
To your lovely healing light
Famous
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