How to make a peace with your past?

Posted by ineta on Sep 23, 2010 in starting over

How many times do we make trips to our past? Ah, memories. Some of them are sweet, bring a smile to our faces, warm our hearts. “Those were the good old days, ” we sight. However, for some of us the past was not that sweet. We cringe even thinking about it. It haunts us like a bad nightmare. We carry it with us like the heaviest baggage; or we bury those memories in the back of our minds. We lock them and we loose the key. Our minds shut it off and we forget, until something triggers, and we find ourselves in pain again.

What to do with this haunting hurtful past? How to make it all to go away? How to start a new?

To go on, we need to make a peace with our past. It is not easy. It might take a moment, months or even years. We got to be ready for it. It is something we can not push it. It depends what eats away at us, and severity of it. Possibilities could be:

1) regrets;

2) sorrow;

3) people

Regrets usually come equipped with “what ifs.” What if I would have done it differently? Each of us have different experiences in our lives. If we chose to be one way, that means we were not experienced enough to make different choices back then. We all make mistakes. That’s what is learning all about: it gives us lessons and new experiences. Now we know better from it. We cannot change our past, only now and the future. Because of those mistakes, now we can make better choices which we should be grateful for. There is no use to have regrets about our past decisions, when we can make a better ones now.

We lose someone we love, or someone leaves us. In our lives, people and pets come and go. Instead of concentrating of losing them, we should be grateful that they were a big part that touched our lives. We should feel fortunate to know them and love them. Each person and animal leave a footprint in our hearts, and we are better because of them.

Then, we meet people who hurt us, betray us, even in some cases abuse us. These memories could linger for the longest time if we let them. It keeps hurting us when we look back as if it is still happening now. That’s where a beautiful thing comes in – being in control of our minds. We can stop our memories at any time. Bad thoughts and remembering do not serve us. It only gives us a headache. Anger does not serve us either; it only hurts us. Each person we meet bring something to us: lessons needed to be learned, a cause of being a stronger person, new experiences. We might not seen it then, but after time, we can find the reasons why we encountered these people, no matter what painful experiences we had. The key to these negative situations is to never feel like a victim. Going back and remembering is like putting ourselves in “victim” mode over and over again. Now there will be a time where remembering will not affect us that anymore – then the true healing begins.

We all have our minds. Therefore, we can choose to have thoughts. If we choose to be angry, depressed, resentful, we only hurt ourselves with our thoughts, and we may even reflect that on our loved ones and not be aware of it. Now if we choose to make a peace with our past, knowing that past stays in the past, and we only can change now and future, we open ourselves to new possibilities and experiences. We know that we do not need to make the same mistakes again and let anybody treat us badly. We can start a new without heavy baggage of our past.

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How to forgive your past?

Posted by ineta on Apr 21, 2010 in starting over

Do you want to feel several pounds lighter? Do you want that huge stone out of your chest? Do you want to go forward despite your hurtful past? There is the way.

We all been hurt by our past at some point in our lives. I know I was. We all had somebody who treated us unfairly, badly and in some cases in horrendous ways. Some of us might been mistreated in physical, some of us in mental and emotional ways. Physical scars most likely healed, but emotional and mental scars are really hard to heal. They say time is the best healer. It’s true. However, the right attitude makes healing faster.

When you are mad on a person who wronged you, you have all these hating thoughts. You think all the ways what you would do and say, if you ever meet him or her again. You might even plot a revenge, or at least you want something bad happen to them, so they would know what pain they caused you. You work yourself up. How could they hurt you? You are in so much pain.

The thing is these thoughts only hurt you. You run through your past over and over again. And, people who you hate are going about their business, not even aware of your thoughts. They even might not be aware of how they wronged you. The only thing that hurting you is you – your own thoughts and memories. We all are controlled by our thoughts. What we think is what our reality is. Now think of this: our past is powerless in regards to our now and the future. The only person that is responsible for our thoughts and feelings – we, and not the person who hurt us. Would we in the right mind choose to hurt ourselves? By blaming and hating other, we only are causing pain to us. We let that person in our minds to still control our thoughts without consciously aware of it. When in fact, we are the ones who make ourselves miserable. It’s time to put our past where it belongs – in the past, clear our head and make a space for now and future. It’s all in our thoughts and choosing.

Some of you might be protesting: “But he or she did this to me!” Let me make this clear. Forgiving is in no way condoning and accepting the hurt you or others received. It does not justify the wrong doing. Forgiving is accepting that all of it happened in the past, and it does not hurt you right here, right now. Forgiving is the healing of your own heart. It is letting go of the past hurts and have a peace of mind. The wrongdoer only knew how to be according his own dealing with his own reality.

Now, look at your memories this way. They are the reminders for your own protection that you would not get into the same situation again. Memories are something to learn from. All the rest – the past – is history and not here anymore. You are not being hurt right now. So, why to torture yourself with thoughts of hate or dislike? Why to bring your past to now and the future?

When you forgive someone, you have the most lightest feeling. As if someone took away that heavy stone out of your chest. When you have no one to blame, your heart is filled with nothing, but love.

I made peace in my heart and got rid of the stone that was crushing my chest. Thanks to my hurtful past, I learned many lessons and I know that it made me the person I am today – the strongest I ever been in my entire life. I even made friends with people who I thought mistreated or insulted me. Some of it was just misunderstanding. Now, as long as I stay present, I’m not going to let anybody to treat me like a dirt.

My heart is full of love and forgiveness.