What if the thing hurting you today... actually happened years ago?
Not because it is happening again but because you keep replaying it again.
The conversation.
The betrayal.
The business failure.
The money you lost.
The person who disappointed you.
The stupid decision you wish you could go back and undo.
The moment you should have spoken up but didn't.
We humans can be incredibly talented at this. We can be sitting safely in our kitchen drinking coffee on a perfectly lovely Tuesday morning and mentally transport ourselves back to something that happened years ago and get mad all over again!
And the person we're mad at may be somewhere happily eating pancakes, completely unaware they're starring in the movie currently playing in our head!
Here's something I've come to believe: You are not meant to erase your past. You are meant to stop allowing your past to keep wounding your present.
There is an important difference. Your brain isn't a delete button, you don't need amnesia to have peace.
You can remember what happened. You can learn from it. You can even decide that you will NEVER put yourself in that situation again. But you don't have to emotionally move back into it every time the memory appears.
The past should become wisdom... not a prison. I had to learn this one myself!
Years ago, I experienced a huge betrayal by someone in my immediate family and it hurt me to my core. But as painful as the original betrayal was, I eventually realized something that wasn't particularly comfortable to admit, I was keeping the wound alive.
I kept thinking about what had happened. I was sad that it had happened. I was angry that it had happened. I was frustrated that there was still no closure.
I kept mentally revisiting something I had absolutely NO power to go back and change. The original experience had hurt me once.
My thoughts about it were hurting me over and over again. At some point, I realized I had a choice. The betrayal was in my past. I couldn't change that, but did I really want to drag suitcases filled with anger, frustration, sadness and betrayal into every new destination of my life? Because that's exactly what I was doing.
Imagine trying to board a plane to a wonderful new destination while dragging six enormous suitcases behind you.
One marked ANGER.
One marked BETRAYAL.
One marked WHY DID THEY DO THAT?
One marked IT WASN'T FAIR.
And the biggest one of all: I NEVER GOT CLOSURE.
Good grief. No wonder we're exhausted!
I finally understood that letting go didn't mean what happened was okay. It didn't mean I approved of it and it didn't mean I had forgotten it. And it certainly didn't mean I had to invite the same behavior back into my life.
It meant I was no longer willing to make MYSELF continue paying for what someone else had done. That was the shift. I could take the wisdom with me without taking all the luggage and maybe that's what letting go really is.
You don't have to deny where you've been. You just don't have to pack it for where you're going.
5 WAYS TO STOP LIVING IN THE PAST
1. STOP REPLAYING THE SAME PAINFUL MOVIE
You cannot change yesterday by repeatedly reliving it. Yet sometimes we replay painful experiences as if our mind believes that if we examine them just ONE MORE TIME, we'll finally get a different ending.
We won't.
When an old memory comes up, you don't have to fight it. Simply notice: "There's that old story again."
Then deliberately bring yourself back to what is happening right now.
Ask yourself: What deserves my energy TODAY?
Because every hour you spend arguing with yesterday is an hour yesterday just stole from today.
2. FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR WHO YOU WERE THEN
We look back at ourselves with today's knowledge and judge the person we were five, ten or twenty years ago.
"I should have known better."
Maybe, but maybe you couldn't have known what you hadn't learned yet. You made choices with the awareness, information, courage and resources you had at that time.
That doesn't mean every choice was a good one. It means you can learn from a mistake without sentencing yourself to a lifetime of punishment for making it.
Take responsibility where responsibility belongs, make amends when appropriate and learn the lesson. Then stop beating up the former version of yourself who had to live through it so today's version could become wiser.
3. STOP WAITING FOR THE APOLOGY
This can be one of the hardest forms of letting go.
Sometimes the person who hurt you will never apologize. They may never understand. They may remember the entire situation differently. They may not have enough self-awareness to recognize what they did.
And—here's the really annoying part—they may not even CARE.
If your peace requires someone else to finally say the exact words you've been waiting to hear, you've handed that person an enormous amount of power.
Closure doesn't always arrive with an apology. Sometimes closure is simply deciding I am no longer waiting for you to understand my pain before I give myself permission to heal.
I learned that one personally.
4. PUT YOUR ENERGY WHERE YOUR POWER IS—TODAY
Yesterday is finished. Tomorrow isn't here. Today is where your power lives.
Today you can make a different decision, today you can establish a boundary. Today you can make the phone call, today you can choose a healthier relationship. Today you can start over, today you can create a completely different experience.
Think about how much mental, emotional and even physical energy gets consumed carrying around old resentment, regret, guilt and anger.
That's energy you could be using to BUILD SOMETHING.
A better business.
A healthier body.
A happier relationship.
A more peaceful home.
A new chapter.
Don't keep investing today's energy into something that has already happened.
5. GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO MOVE FORWARD
Sometimes we unconsciously believe that letting go somehow means what happened wasn't important.
Or that we're letting someone "off the hook." It doesn't.
Moving forward doesn't change history. It changes your relationship with history.
You are allowed to heal.
You are allowed to laugh again.
You are allowed to love again.
You are allowed to trust again with better boundaries and better judgment.
You are allowed to succeed after failing.
And you are absolutely allowed to become someone your past could never have imagined.
So maybe today it's time to look at the emotional luggage you've been dragging around and ask:
Do I really want to take this where I'm going next?
You don't need to throw away the lessons. Those are valuable.
But the anger, resentment, endless replaying? The demand for an ending you may never receive? That luggage can stay behind!
Take the lesson, release the weight and keep walking because your past may explain some of who you are but it does not get to decide who you become next.
YOUR ALIGNED ACTION
Ask yourself today: What am I still carrying that has already taught me everything it came here to teach me?
And then another question: What might become possible if I finally put that suitcase down?
You don't have to forget what happened, you simply get to decide that it will no longer run today's show.
Success Really Is an Inside Job,
Lee Milteer
P.S. And if today's message made you think of someone who's been dragging around a few old suitcases of their own, please share this ezine with them. Maybe it's time they traveled a little lighter, too.
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