"Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard."~Dave Mustaine
Getting over
your past seems to be something most people cannot get themself to do. There
are things that happen in your life that leaves a huge scar on your heart.
Sometimes, so deep that you cannot forgive yourself or the people that brought
such painful memories with it.
You wonder
why you even made such decision in the first place. Maybe it is something that
happened to you and you have not been able to tell anyone about it. I have had
the privilege of meeting with people who have had countless issues with their
past that makes the life the live today nothing but a makeover. A “mascara”
covering the pain and anguish and the many regrets they still feel deep within.
A scar they hide beneath the many smiles, the trail of tears hidden behind the
thick covering of a makeup.
One
particular lady still remains a vivid memory on my mind. Something happened to
her in her past when she was a child that changed the whole course of her
existence. She lived in total bitterness. She had a huge hate for life. Resentment
hung over her face if you had eyes to see beneath the many smiles. She was in
real pains. Her summary of her story as she told me was that she was raped when
she was 16 years old and until date, the painful memory lived within her. She couldn’t
tell anyone about it and she couldn’t forgive herself either. She couldn’t open
her heart to love again. After talking with her, she decided to apply these
simple but very relevant lessons to her life, which made a completely new
difference. These are things I had to do some time ago to better a once
miserable and totally helpless self of mine.
1.
Stop Judging Yourself:
To get away
from your past, you must stop putting on yourself all that heavy judgments. It
doesn’t pay to give in to all that witnessing within you telling you could have
done something about it. As simple as it sounds, bad things happen. Stop asking
yourself why they had to happen to you in particular. Everything about a negative past hurts, but,
you shouldn’t allow it weigh you down. The only way your past can catch up to
you is if you continue judging yourself
and let the past be what it is, the past.
I was always
very fond of judging myself for every little wrong I did. Every little mistake
I made. Particularly when I was struggling with an addiction which, I will tell
you about but in a later post. I hated myself, and thought all possible bad
things to say in my head that only intensified the hurt I was already feeling
within.
2.
Forgive Yourself And Your Past:
If you must
get away from your past and move on, you have to forgive. Not just yourself but
also your past. Someone once wrote, “The weak cannot forgive, forgiveness is a
thing of the strong.” It is very true. The only reason you hate yourself so
much and maybe, really hate the people who wronged you in your past is because
you have not forgiven them. It doesn’t really matter what they did to you, it
doesn’t matter who broke your heart in time past, it doesn’t matter what decision
you made wrong in your past. Just because you are strong enough to live on with
the pain shows you can forgive them. Duncan Williams said, “What you don’t
forgive you become, but what you forgive you are released from.”
You are
strong enough to forgive yourself and your past, and everyone in the picture
you want to blame for the wrong that has been done to you. Let it go! When you
forgive, as I realized in the past, you are totally freed from a kind of huge
burden that weigh on your heart and you drive the dark gloomy cloud over your
heart and life in general away. Forgive yourself and your past.
3.
See Things Differently:
There is
something you can do to make that feeling you get whenever your mind reflect
back no yesterday go away. See it
differently. Yes, it hurt! Yes, you will want to blame where you are on
your past decisions or on people in the picture of your past. But, why not
choose to see things differently? See the
past as a lesson and not as a life determinant.
Whatever you went through in the past
came just to do one thing for you: Teach you a lesson. Open your heart to embrace that
lesson. Open your mind, free yourself of that burden of blame and see that
failed relationship as a lesson. Albert Einstein said after he failed
repeatedly at a particular experiment, “I
did not fail; I only discover another way not to do it.” You can take the
lesson of your past with much ease in this manner: You just learned a lesson
how not to do it or go about it! See it differently. Rather than fill your
heart with bitterness, embrace the past by learning it lesson. What is there in
the past that should be a lesson to you? Look and learn, then move on!
4.
Move On:
Move on! Move
away from your past. Sometimes, even after we have forgiven yourself of the past
and learnt it lessons, we still find it hard to move away from it. The reason is you still choose to allow
yourself to be locked up in the prison of the past. You have to let the
past be he past. Let it go!
There may be
need for you to get away from the neighborhood. You may have to move to another
town to help you forget about the past. If seeing the same things everything reminds
you of an ugly yesterday, get away from them. You may consider moving in with
someone for a while to help you heal completely. Someone you trust, who understands
you. You can try opening up to him/her. There
is this feeling of relief when you share the pains of your heart with an
understanding person. Moving on also means you have to believe things will not
always turn out like in the past. Open your heart and recover again the love
you deserve. Try again and believe it will be different. Renew your mind and think right, don’t judge everyone or every
situation based on the past again. Move
on with your life and be reminded that your past is not part of your life. It is
only it lessons that is a part of you.
Start Loving Again:
You have to
develop true and unconditional love for yourself. Practice to love yourself. The love you don’t give yourself, you
cannot believe you should receive. Start doing things to show how much you
care for yourself. Add color to your personality. Add something new to your
being. You can cut down a few pounds. Get a new hairstyle. Change your fashion taste.
You can add something that wasn’t there.
When you have learned just how to
love yourself, you can freely reach out to love others. Even the people that hurt you in the
past you have let go. Be careful, avoid those you do not really care about how
you feel and will want to remind you of your past. At least until you are
strong enough to handle such people. There
is no greater love than the one you learn to love yourself.
You will never know true happiness
until you have learnt to live always from your past and let it be what it is,
your past! Life is too short, learn to smile and laugh often while you still
have teeth in your mouth.
