Living In The Past

Don't Look Back, Unless It Makes You Smile.

Glorious morning!

Today's quote that we will expand on is from Will rogers.

“ Don’t let yesterday take up too much time of today “

Will Rogers was an American performer, actor and humorous social commentator. He was born in 1879 and died in 1935. What this quote says to me is, don't live in the past because it's already gone. While it's good to learn from the past through introspection, dwelling in it keeps us stuck. When we hold resentment and unforgiveness for someone, we are holding on to the past. We as human beings are supposed to let things go. To let things pass through us. When we can do that, we keep not only our bodies healthy but our emotional health healthy. Our mind is the culprit. When we hold on to lower vibrating emotions, it suppresses the vitality of our cells. That's when disease creeps in and can take hold. Also when we constantly relive past events, we stunt our spiritual growth. The only way to expand our souls and evolve into more conscious beings, is to make room for higher vibrating experiences. We can't do that when we are crowded and bogged down with old stuff. When we learn to let the past go, ( the negative parts ) it frees up space inside of our spirits to feel love and joy. Living in the past can also be the perfect conditions for developing a victim mindset.

A victim mindset is one of the most damaging things we can do to ourselves. When I say do to ourselves, I mean it’s a choice. Imagine a flower that is programmed to live in the past as a bud, it would never bloom. A tree doesn't get too attached to its leaves because in the autumn season it needs to let them go to prepare for the new season of winter. It knows it needs to adapt if it wants to thrive. We need to learn the art of letting go in order to make room for any new challenges that we may face. If we constantly hold on to the past we simply overwhelm our lives unnecessarily. Back when I was in a relationship, I often re-lived the past with my partner, in fact, over and over for decades, repeating the same problems because we did not learn the art of letting go. I often think what we could have created something grand, had we healed those repetitive issues and cleared them up once and for all so we didn't fall back on them. No doubt we could have created great things together. A good time to relive the past of course is when we are thinking about a good time we had like a celebration or just sharing our love with loved ones. When someone surprises us or helps us. Those are the kinds of memories from our past that are worth reliving and or repeating.

I am just recently learning how to let go of things quicker and quicker. I have learned I mostly hurt myself when I hold onto things, although it can absolutely spill over onto other people. We can get overloaded and be short with people when we hold on to stuff that needs releasing. I had a friend invite me to stay at her house for an event we were going to attend for a couple of days. She mentioned not only can we hang out together but I would save a decent amount of money instead of getting a hotel. It turned out when the event got closer I started to look for airline tickets and texted her , hey what date am I coming to your house? Any earlier than the actual date so we can have more time outside of the event dates? She texted back, “ oh gee an old friend is coming and I told her she could stay with me” I mean wow, right? I was definitely not ok with it, but I decided that it is her karma. Dr Wayne Dyer once said, ‘ What someone does to you is their karma, how you react is yours “  I am choosing to not get angry and hold on to the resentment. But I am however being extremely careful going forward with how much of my energy I will give to the friendship going forward. I am not sure if I will want to spend any length of time with anyone who is that careless with their friendships. That friend never even apologized or cared about my stay at the event. By me not choosing to respond angrily and hold on to the past, I free myself up to love myself more. Instead of expecting her to change, I am changing myself. That's all we can really do.

Do you find yourself brooding over past events? Are you stuck in a cloud of unforgiveness with someone? Backpack therapy can help free the negative past. Make a free discovery call. Peace be with you, Dawn