Are you still holding onto the past? If you have any twinge of guilt, anger, resentment or bitterness toward anyone about something that happened in the past, then you are not done with the past. If you are still thinking about what you could have done differently in the past, then you are not done with the past. If you are regretting the past, then you are still living in the past. Every time that you relive the past, you are strengthening your emotional connection to it. If you still have a strong emotional reaction to anything in the past, then you are still being emotionally charged in this moment by a past experience. It is time to be free--really free of the past so that you can experience the fullness of the present.
We cannot carry the past and move forward at the same time. We have to let go of who we used to be and how we experienced life in the past. The past is not some far away concept of years--it can be as small as hours and minutes. Spiritual teachers Eric Butterworth and Raymond Charles Barker have emphasized the need to forget all the past slights, injustices and negative experiences. Holding on to the past is an act of self destruction. Everyday that we hold onto the bitterness, anger and resentment associated with the past, then we are poisoning the present and even future moments of our lives.
Our thoughts have the power to create our future experiences. If we are thinking about old negative experiences, then we are creating more of the same for the future. We are creating the very experiences that we do not want to have. We owe it to ourselves to be mentally and emotionally free of the past.
It is time to let go of the past. Just how can we let the past go? Forgive the past and forget about it. Sounds simple, but it is something that we have to teach and train ourselves to do. We have probably learned to dwell on the past and to use the past to define our present and future experiences. Now we have to re-train ourselves that the past has nothing to do with the present or future unless we keep dwelling on the past. How can we let go of something that is still represents an emotional event in our lives?
Finding the positive lessons in the people and their actions is one way to begin the process of letting it go. The people who come into our lives are always teachers. The lessons that they teach us may not always be pleasant and fun, but they are still our greatest teachers. There are no meaningless experiences. Our teachers are helping us to understand some aspect about ourselves. They may be mirroring a quality that we need to change if we are to get more out of life. An experience is simply a lesson for you to grow and the people involved are merely teachers who are passing through your life. Your teachers are always blessing you, even if their lessons are difficult and painful.
When I experience something unpleasant, I ask myself, "What am I thinking to attract this person and experience into my life?" I take responsibility for the experience and work to learn from it in a way that supports my personal growth. Taking responsibility does not mean that I blame myself for everything wrong. I understand that experiences do not just happen to us. We have a hand in creating those experiences with our thoughts. If we want better experiences, then we have to be willing to do the mental work of working on our thoughts and releasing limiting thoughts.
It is wise to stop seeing ourselves as helpless, powerless victims caught up in the drama of living. Bad experiences do not just randomly happen to good people. Find the lesson in each experience without casting yourself as the victim and the other people involved as the villains.
Judging my experiences as good or bad often creates a strong emotional connection that can be difficult to break. Whatever I judge as bad seems to stay in my thoughts. Now I try to remind myself that every experience is nothing more than an opportunity to learn something --it is neither good or bad. The experience is not right or wrong--it just is an experience. I have the choice and power to use the experience for my betterment or as a tool to undermine myself. As I view my experiences in a more constructive light, then I am able to move on quicker from them.
Often, we cannot let go of the past because we are still angry or disappointed with ourselves. We were not good enough or perfect in our past actions. We feel that we are to blame for how the past turned out. If only we had done this or not done that, we believe that the past would have been different. We think we would be better off today if we had done things differently.
"What if" thinking serves no purpose except to undermine our trust and faith within ourselves. Nobody ever tries to fail in life. We are always doing the best that we can with what we understand. After an experience, we gain a greater understanding of life and ourselves. We can now see other options or other ways that we could have handled the situation. We forget that fact that we could not see those other ways without the benefit of having experienced the situation. All our experiences are vehicles for personal growth and learning. Our experiences can help us to grow and do more with our lives if we approach life with the belief that life is always supporting us.
We can learn to let go of our negative experiences and the charged emotions that go with them. We can choose not to keep reliving the hurt that we felt from an incident that happened ten years, ten days or even ten minutes ago. Reliving the hurt will not erase the incident or change what happened. We are not victims of the incident. We are survivors of all our experiences. The attitude of a survivor is "I survived that experience and it is over. Now I am ready to move on to better days ahead." We have to learn how to cultivate a victorious attitude that allows us to see ourselves as being blessed by all our experiences instead of cursed by them.
Know that the past does not define the present or future. A difficult past does not mean that your future will be more of the same. Know that you will have difficult periods within your life that will serve and benefit you in some way. Discover the lessons hidden within those periods and open yourself up to accepting more from life. Tell yourself that you are over and done with suffering and struggling. You are now open to experiencing more joy in your life. Create a shift in attitude from helpless victim to victorious survivor. Expect more from life instead of less. Believe that you truly deserve to get more from life. Understand that you are a new person with new potential in every moment. What happened fifteen minutes or even fifteen years does not matter in this moment. Open yourself up to experiencing all that this moment has to offer you by letting go of the past.
Copyright©2009 Jeannine Robinson All Rights Reserved