Meditate. Sit down and talk quietly! The past that you believe is holding you back right now is nothing more than a memory. It is an image that lives in your mind and your mind alone.
The past is not a picture in a museum. This is not a portrait that you can look at and recognize every feature and shape. It is an image of emotions, a series of memories that become increasingly distorted over time.
Do you ever wonder why the things that get your heart racing are only there until you deal with the idea of what could happen?
Why does this experience of your entire life carry so much weight over all other experiences? Why have you focused the memory on its most horrific forms? Is this the complete truth of your story? Or are there more dimensions you haven't yet explored?
Feel it in your body. Feel the tension and constriction in your bones. Feel the weight of what you've been carrying all these years. Feel your feet and legs, hips and neck. Feel the contraction as your cells form your body as the first line of defense in a battle that is long, long over.
You feel it more and more deeply. The past is gone, all that exists is this moment.
Relax. Photo: Conscious design / UnsplashThe past is gone, and when we try to resurrect pieces of it without its full context, we are struggling for no reason. There is no wisdom in this way. No need to learn. Nothing is added to our present life or future, it is only necessary to take time.
The past is gone and when we try to let our most impulsive thoughts tell us what it was or what it means, we rob ourselves of the experience that was our life.
Because everything—every step, every opportunity, every person, every encounter, and even everything you think you've done wrong—has been building the person you will one day become.
And before you start thinking that good people can only be a collection of positive experiences, remember that you often have to realize what's wrong before you know what's right. You have to know what love is not to know what love is. You must be who you are not to discover who you are.
Instead of belittling the version of you who fought back in any way she knew how, thank her for holding the vision of your future in her mind. The weight of your life rests on her shoulders. You are here today only because of what they did to her and how they did it to her.
It's time to let go of the past even though it has already passed. There is nothing else you need to release but your ideas that these old experiences are still with you, because they are not. Nothing but the fact that your life is not just one thing.
Let go of the past. Photo: Amy Humphries/UnsplashWhen you bring the past into the present, it is because the experience seems unfinished. But what you often don't realize is that the only way to complete it is to take everything you wish you had then and make it happen in its entirety. It's the only way.
The most harmful way to live is hiding so the world never gets a chance to hurt you from time to time. Courage is to stand up and live.
The memories will keep coming for a while. They don't go away because you tell them to. They slowly fade away as you fill your mind with new things that are more attractive, compelling and worthy of your attention.
Do not let yourself stop in ruins, but by building new cities.
Take a deep breath and exhale! Express gratitude.
