Stop Letting Your Yesterdays Steal Your Todays

Your past mistakes are not meant to be a life sentence. If you’re tired of the endless mental replays, the guilt, and the self-doubt, you’re not alone. That exhausting cycle is stealing your most precious resource: your present life

If your relationship with aspects of your past somehow continues to interfere with you living your best possible life today, this article will show you how to shine a light into that darkness and emerge resiliently.

I suspect I’m not the only one who would love to change something from their younger years. More importantly, I’d love to get back all of the time mis-spent while endlessly imaging doing things very differently way back when and how infinitely better my life would be today.

There are probably as many different ways to relate to the regrettable aspects of earlier experiences as there are people on the planet.

We all carry old baggage: the shame of a major failure, the guilt of missed opportunities, or the pain of not meeting our own impossible expectations.

If everything hadn’t happened the way it did, the blessings and opportunities in your life today wouldn’t exist.

We can’t change the past. What we can do is change our relationship with it.

It starts with Awareness

It is generally accepted that 90% of what we think about is done subconsciously. We just aren’t cognizant of most it.

So when you do get the opportunity to become aware of deeply imbedded feelings such as guilt about the past-don’t ignore it. Embrace it. It is coming to your attention for a reason. It needs to be acknowledged and dealt with.

In my experience, the way most people prefer to live is in their happy comfort zones, a place where uncomfortable and disturbing thoughts about the past are carefully hidden away, never to be trouble them again. The fact is they don’t go away. As you well know, those thoughts come up time and again in the form of self-doubt and highly negative self-talk.

We must allow ourselves to be aware of all of the major influence on our ways of thinking, as uncomfortable as some may be. It is how we grow. How else could you take feelings that have negatively distracted you and usefully transform them into a healthy platform you can build on?

Be thankful that you are now more self-aware than you may have been in the past and are able to recognize thoughts such as these when they come up, just as you would if you were celebrating your past successes.

Your past mistakes don't define you today, unless you let them.

Integrity isn't about perpetual remorse; it's about not allowing old errors to distract you from living your best possible life now.

The first step is to drag those thoughts out into the open in the harsh light of reality.

Awareness is the entryway to personal growth.

Action Step:

- Make a list of the typical blasts from the past that regularly get your attention and take your focus away from what really matters.

Radical Self-Acceptance

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. What we can do is find the meaning in what has happened.

Self-acceptance is accepting all of what you have done-the bad with the good. You can let go of feelings of guilt about the past without condoning some of the things that you’ve done.

Know that you are not the same person today that you once were.

Time goes by too quickly to not make full use of your capabilities, maximizing your energies on your highest priorities in life. That means not allowing yourself to burn up energy by continuing to be distracted and overwhelmed with regrets about the past.

Like it or not, your subconscious mind remembers everything, including the way you have come to associate certain memories. Whatever you may have done-or not done-you own it. It won’t go away because you don’t want to think about it.

Radical self-acceptance is the practice of completely immersing yourself now in finding what’s actually true about who you are today. The time you invest in the practice is an investment in your future. It is intended to take the time in the future that might have been wasted on distracting blasts from your past and use that same time to flourish in a life that inspires you to be the best you can be.

Begin a deep conversation with yourself about these feelings of guilt. Write about it in your journal, digging as deeply into your thoughts as you can to see what role they are playing in your life today.

Action steps:

Pick 3 from your 1st list.

-How does this memory make your feel?

Using your journal, answer these prompts and go deeper into what else is coming up for you:

-What does your negative self-talk usually say?

-What do you actively avoid thinking about?

-What is actually true about you?

-What do you like and appreciate about yourself?

-What do other people like and appreciate about you?

-How have you or will you atone for your past mistakes through future actions?

Asking these questions is not a one-time thing. You will benefit from asking them over and over writing in your journal.

Talk about it with trusted friends or a therapist. The more you get your feelings out in the open, the less power they have over you.

Re-Frame your Reactions

Looking back at your 1st list, line by line-ask yourself:

-What is true about you today that is different from the person who made those mistakes long ago?

-How have you grown, despite what happened?

-What didn’t you know then that you do now?

When the old thoughts come up, as they will, accept them and then ask yourself what else is true? Put as much energy into what you have learned as you can.

-Instead of regretting what you didn’t do-What can you still do?

-Rather than dwelling on where you never travelled to -where can you still go?

Next Steps

For the next two weeks, make it a daily part of your practice to refer back to your 1st list and continue asking yourself what else is true. Keep writing about your answers in your daily journal.

In the future you will know what to do if those old thoughts come up.

Making Peace with the Past

Everyone has made mistakes in the past. If your relationship with them is interfering with your ability to be as completely engaged in your life today as is possible, this is your opportunity to change it.

Radical self-acceptance is loving yourself just as you are.

Awareness and the willingness to be open with yourself about the past may be one of the best investments you can make in your future. The discomfort that might initially arise will be short lived.

Embrace the discomfort. It’s a small price to pay for a totally free and fully engaged life.