How to Let Go of the Past

The past is for looking back on pleasant memories, sharing stories with future generations, for making mistakes and learning life lessons.  It’s not meant for holding onto resentment or polluting your present or future with bitterness and regret.  It’s meant to shape you for who you are, but you get to choose how.  Will you hold onto every bad experience and every grudge?  Will you deny it completely until it creeps up on you unexpectedly and you're not prepared to deal with it?  Or will you hold onto it loosely, allowing it to make you stronger while ultimately choosing to live in the present?

Growing up in school, I really struggled to feel loved and accepted among my peers.  I felt isolated and misunderstood on a regular basis.  I felt invisible.  And with my current job, sometimes all these old feelings, all of the old pain, comes flooding back – and often feels unbearable. 

It’s so easy to judge these feelings.  I think things such as, “I’m an adult now, I should be over this,” or “I just wish I didn’t care” – but I do care.  I’m an emotional human being who feels deeply and that’s just part of who I am. 

A new approach would be this: The more you want to feel loved, try reaching out and loving others more.

It will often come full circle.  The more loving you are toward others, the more love you will likely receive in return.  Never expect it to return, however; that’s one way to set yourself up for disappointment.  We cannot control others, only ourselves, and if we choose to love others unconditionally, we can shield ourselves from the distress that comes with expecting anything from anyone in return. 

The more you want to feel loved, try being more loving toward yourself too. 

When I learn to love others without expecting anything in return – and I’m still learning that last part – I can avoid a lot of the emotional pain that I’ve caused myself from expecting others to respond in a certain way.  Remember, we cannot control others, only ourselves, and I am learning to be more loving toward myself by not judging myself or my past and reminding myself that I was only doing the best I could with what I knew at the time.     

There’s a phrase that I picked up in one of my therapy sessions that has stuck with me that I think of often: “Healing me today, is healing me in the past”.  I like this because it encourages me to be proactive.  It empowers me to want to do better, to be happier, and to be more accepting and loving of who I am because by doing so, I am helping my teenage self from the past (– from the dark times of my past, not my entire past – it’s important to remember the good times too.).  

Note that I don’t think that I’ve fully let go of the past.  It takes time, but, I am letting go of the past, as in, I am in the process of letting it go.  I continue to heal from it as I continue to take care of myself in the present.  I heal from it by accepting it and realizing that it has helped shape who I am today. 

When along for the ride, lighten your load by ditching unnecessary baggage from the past.   Accept the past, love and forgive others from your past, and love and forgive who you were back then too.  This will set you free.  Free to liberate yourself and journey on.