What Can I Do to Get Better at Letting Go of Past BS?
We all hold onto things that don’t serve us. Letting go challenges us each differently.
Over the past month or so, I’ve been focusing more and more on identifying my self-sabotaging behaviors. Thus, I’ve learned that my self-sabotage is born of conclusions I’ve made about myself, other people, and life.
I recognize what these conclusions have been (for me, it’s that I’m not worthy, people are capricious and inconsistent, and that life is an unfair uphill battle). Now recognized, I have acknowledged these conclusions.
They are part of my past. As I’ve learned via lots of different sources, the past is the past. It has happened and cannot be undone, redone, or changed in any way.
So – to move forward in a way that leaves the self-sabotaging conclusions behind, everything must begin in the now. From this moment – and not from any time in the past.
Yes, the past teaches us many lessons both good and bad. But beyond that – we need to leave it in the rearview mirror and move onwards.
One challenge I keep running into with this is letting go of numerous matters from the past. It’s easy to say, “be here now” and “focus on the present.” But I’m only human. And there are things that I have done or that occurred that still bother me. And I find letting go of them difficult.
Hence the question – what can I do to get better at letting go?
It always starts with recognition
One of the slipperiest slopes of the past is that it’s seldom a clear, clean picture. Though I used to believe in the notion that hindsight is always 20/20 – I’ve come to realize that’s not true at all.
Why? Because the past as we believe it to be is utterly colored by us.
My beliefs, values, experiences, biases, prejudices, knowledge, and everything else in my head is going to color my past. How I look at things I did or that occurred outside of my control is colored by all the aforementioned notions.
What does that mean? For example – many years ago, friends I thought I was relatively close to didn’t invite me to their wedding. Nearly all our mutual friends were invited – I was not.
That was years ago. Overall, it’s far in the past and doesn’t bother me. Yet, once in a while, something pops up – like a notice of their anniversary on Facebook – and I am reminded of this.
Why does this still bother me, so many years later? Because I never resolved the hurt. I didn’t address it, I just buried it in my subconscious.
This – along with probably another half-dozen mistakes I’ve made, slights I’ve received, random happenings that went utterly not my way – still bugs me.
I know I’m not alone in this. But that’s not the important thing here. What’s important is that I learn to really recognize what these things are – as well as how and why they get to me.
If I don’t recognize them, I can’t release them.
But there’s a catch. Recognition stands alone. It must be divorced from any need for resolution.
Acknowledgment is the next step in letting go
So, I’ve recognized that this long-past thing still bugs me from time to time. Now what?
Now I need to do what I’m doing here. Acknowledge it.
This is important. Recognition is one thing. But if it’s followed by disregard or chewing on all the “what ifs?” that cannot be – we’re disempowered. So long as we allow past garbage to range from our subconscious to our conscious in a distracting way, we can’t let go.
Acknowledging it is more than just confirming that the thing is recognized. It’s also taking in how it makes me feel and what it makes me think.
Despite the years that have passed – I still feel a sense of hurt and rejection that I was not invited to that wedding. My sense of trust and comfort was eroded.
The award I feel I should have gotten years ago but haven’t? Hurt, anger, frustration, and feelings of being disrespected and disregarded.
That chance I didn’t take? Frustration, anger, self-loathing, doubt, and other ugly less-than-complimentary thoughts and feelings towards myself.
That’s acknowledgment. Beyond recognition of the past thing I find letting go of challenging – acknowledgment is the why. Why can’t I/don’t I let it go? Because of the thoughts and feelings still attached to it.
Subconsciously, I planted a seed. It’s growing slowly – but it’s a deeply rooted poison. Recognition is how I know what it is. Acknowledgment is knowing where I planted it and how it’s impacting the forest of my life.
Now what?
Forgive (myself, mostly)
How does this apply to the things I didn’t do to myself? The wedding I wasn’t invited to or the award I wasn’t given? Because the seed that was planted is tied to my self-sabotaging conclusions.
See how I didn’t get invited or rewarded? Clearly, I’m not worthy. Of course, since people are capricious and inconsistent – there you go. Next time you’ll have to not fu*k up however you did in those past matters as you face the next unfair uphill battle in your life.
That is a lot of ugly. How does letting go of all that hurt and unhappiness work? Forgive myself.
Who I am now is not who I was then. Whether the thing I find letting go of was of my own making or not – I blamed myself via the self-sabotaging conclusions. Whether it was of my making or not – it was. Past. Behind me.
Holding onto the past crates a tether to an anchor. When you drop anchor, your boat might bob along on the waves and drift a bit here and there. But it doesn’t move. That’s true of life. Anchor yourself to the past and you can’t move in the present.
Let alone do diddly about the future.
Recognize the issue. Acknowledge it. Forgive it.
Forgiveness is not forgetting. Lessons learned from past actions and inactions are important to who we are now. But that’s the ONLY important stuff from the past. Because we cannot change it, alter it, redo, or undo it. Period.
Cut the line and release the damned anchor.
How?
Letting go via action
This can be literal or figurative.
For example – I could meditate on this, envision that tether holding me to that anchor made of that past event – and see myself cutting it. A metaphoric but potentially cathartic action.
I could write it out. Put it all down on paper – the whole thing, all the feeling attached to it, and every last detail past and present related to it. Then – tear it to shreds, set it on fire, or do something else literal and cathartic.
Another action would be to act as if. In the now, act as though that thing from the past that bothers you didn’t go that way. Or has been otherwise resolved. Stop acting out the hurt and instead act as if you got what you desired and succeeded. This might be differently challenging because depending on the nature of the issue it might feel like a lie.
Literal or figurative – action sends the subconscious a message that I am letting go of this needless, self-inflicted wound anchoring me to the unchangeable past. The action of letting go in some way frees us from the past and allows us to be in the now.
From here and now, unencumbered by past BS, we can create without the self-sabotaging conclusions having an easy way to reach us. No anchor, no line, no path.
To sum up – what can I do to get better at letting go of past BS?
- Recognize what I’m holding onto
- Acknowledge what I’m holding onto
- Forgive myself
- Act to literally or figuratively let go
This is proactive, positive, and empowering.
Choosing actions for letting go of past BS isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
When we apply the above 4 steps for letting go of past BS not serving, self-sabotaging, or otherwise impeding our life progress – we gain a means for letting go. Knowing this, we can apply these steps at will to cut the line keeping us anchored to our unchangeable past and move forward with our choices and actions. That empowers me – and it can empower you, too. We can use this to stay more neutral subconsciously, while consciously choosing things leaning towards the positive end of life’s extremes.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – I believe shifts the concept in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between those extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Lastly, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experience will be. If that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and twenty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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