5 Simple Techniques to Help You Release the Past…
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Written by Jimmie Burroughs 
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Everyone has past experiences that they wish never happened, but not everyone is able release those experiences; therefore their present as well as future is marred by them. We all would like to be able to release them but the question is, how? The method that is most often used is suppression. Suppression is only putting it out of our conscious mind; we simply store it in the subconscious mind were it continues to produce life affecting viruses. So a better technique is dealing with past events and rendering them no longer harmful to our present and future. Here are 5 Simple Techniques to Help You Release the Past negative events from your life:
Accept reality
The impossible term to deal with is “What if”. Just what if it had not happened? What if I had done differently and it would never have happened. Those are impossible suppositions. The past has happened; it is real and there is no possibility of ever changing it. The only thing we can change is our emotional attachment to it. Only then can we be free to create our present.
Sufficient for today are the cares of today: “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:36). To carry yesterday’s bad experiences along with today’s challenges is too much of a heavy load for anyone. Life is somewhat like an uphill climb. Mountain climbers want to pack as little weight as possible because they know that extra weight will cause them to tire quickly and hinder their climb. So it is with life, the extra emotional baggage adds enough extra weight that it becomes almost impossible to continue the daily climb. By releasing your past emotional attachment, you are now free to enjoy your life and meet the challenges that each day brings.
It is hard to think about fulfilling your future dreams and goals while you are still struggling with the past. Building your future depends on how well you meet today’s challenges and you can’t meet those challenges well if you are struggling with the past.
When we are able to face each new day with the attitude that today is my opportunity to start with a fresh new slate and write a positive good day without the lingering thoughts of if only yesterday had been different, it adds a new dimension of purpose that is unaffected by what happened yesterday and is only contingent on what we do today.
The future takes care of itself when we take care of today. Another bad trip is living in the thoughts of the future; that also can affect our present. Sometimes people think only of the day they can at last retire and then everything will be OK.
There is nothing further from the truth. What you do today is securing your future. If you can live happy now and be content, then you are going to be able to live happy and content in retirement but on the other hand if you aren’t happy and content now, you are not likely to be happy in the future either.
If we make good consistent health decisions today, it will help us to enjoy better health in the future. If we make good financial decisions consistently today, we will be more likely to live well financially in the future. But beyond all that, we really only have the presence, so enjoying the moment is key to happiness. Like the song says, “It is the climb…” It isn’t past successes and failures or reaching the top of the mountain but is meeting the everyday challenges of life day by day that adds purpose and fulfillment too life.
Realize that it is impossible to change the past
Realize that the past is gone; it is what has been and should have no bearing on what is and can be. All we can ever count on is the present moment but that is the only time we can live anyway. We can rehash what we lived yesterday over and over in our mind but we can’t live in yesterday. In his book “How to stop worrying and start living” Dale Carnegie suggests that we live in day tight compartments; like a ship can be portioned off into separate compartments, we need to shut out yesterday and tomorrow and live just in today.
No matter how much one dwells on past events, they will never be able to change one thing. No matter how much you wish it hadn’t happened or regret it happened, it still remains the same. The only thing we do have the power to change is how we view the past.
I knew a person who could never deal with the loss of his wife; after she died, he lived out the remaining years of his life crying and grieving over his loss. He actually died the same day she did in mind because he was never able to enjoy life again. I was determined if I should ever lose my wife, that I would not let it ruin the rest of my life. As it happened, I did lose her within six months and I must say that it was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with, but deal with it I did and was able to continue a life with not only happiness but also with meaning and purpose. No, it wasn’t easy, but it was doable.
Millions of people over the course of time have been able to overcome the greatest of adversities and go on to accomplish great things. There is absolutely no reason why you and I can’t do the same. We don’t choose what life often hands us but we can choose not to let it control us. If we so mind, our past can take over and control our present and our future. But if we refuse to accept the life situation handed us, we can continue on with a happy and meaningful life.
Learning from the powerful lessons of the past
Realize that there are some powerful lessons from your past that can teach you better how to live now and in the future. Have you thought about what your past experiences have taught you? If you haven’t, you could be missing out on the greatest leaning tool in existence; it is called the school of hard knocks. Our past teaches where we went wrong and gives us opportunity to make necessary corrections as well as teaching us how to cope with the most difficult events life can toss at us. Corrections are the key to better life experiences.
In order for the Lunar Space Ship to reach the moon, it had to make thousands of corrections. In fact it was off course over 90% of the time and needed to constantly make corrections. That is true with life also; we must make corrections constantly in order to keep our life on course, and it is our past off course circumstances that make the corrections necessary; they tell us where we went wrong and what corrections are necessary to get back on course.
Don’t fall into the trap of staying where you are, trying only to be tolerant of the circumstances that make you upset and unhappy. Use your past experiences as a learning tool to make the needed corrections. Discover your mistakes and where you went wrong; don’t hesitate to make the changes; your future will be far brighter place if you do. Don’t let your past be an excuse to tolerate the circumstances which make you unhappy!
Our past is a mixture of good and bad experiences. From that mixture of experiences we are what we are today. The good as well as the bad has helped to mould our character. All that you are today, the knowledge, love and strength are a direct result of past experiences.
I met the “Through the Bible” radio teacher, J. Vernon McGee, several years ago. He told about when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and had to spend several days flat of his back in a hospital bed. He survived the bout with cancer and said it was an experience he hoped never to undergo again but he said it was also an experience that was of great value to him; it taught him things he could never have learned otherwise.
The bad experiences sometimes can have a greater impact on forming a stronger character than the good ones. As difficult as losing my wife was, it had a greater impact on me for the positive than just about anything else I had ever experienced.
I realized that there were a lot of changes I needed to make in order to continue on with any degree of meaning and happiness. I wrote down a long list of things I needed to accomplish and set out to do so. One by one I marked each item off the long list until I got down to the very last one. It took years but a consistent determined effort finally paid off and today I enjoy more freedom than any other time in my life. The stress, financial worries, incomplete jobs etc. are all taken care of. The secret was to stop dwelling on the past that I had no control over and could not change and start changing the things that were affecting my present and future.
Accept the help others offer
No man is an island. Friends and family can be a great support system when dealing with the bad events of life. Never try to go it alone when you have others who love you and want to help.
God is the greatest help of all to release the past
Many secular writers have written about releasing the past but leave off the most powerful help of all and that is God. God is omnipotent, all powerful; therefore there is nothing impossible with him. His presence in our life gives as a majority rule over anything we face in life and the ability and strength to continue on through every storm.
I had a friend who quit smoking and he said for three years he craved a cigarette every day. So he decided one day to resume smoking and said he would never quit again until he died. Another friend of mine also quit smoking but the difference in him and my other friend was that he prayed that God would take away the addiction. He lived over 50 years after that to the age of 97 and never took up smoking again.
The greatest proven cure for drug addiction is a faith in God. God can do what therapy and drugs can’t do; He can take away the addiction.
When we focus on God’s power and his presence in our life, that is what characterizes our life but if our focus is on ourselves, our past mistakes and hardships, we get a continuation of that. It is easy to use past experiences as an excuse to become stuck in life in an unending holding pattern, but God’s plan is always forward motion. His plan is an ever expansion of joy, peace and purpose for our lives. He does not promise easy going; to the contrary, he says the going might even be harder, but he promises the power of his presence, “lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Read “How to have a spiritual connection with God”.
Conclusion
When you decide to leave your past behind where it belongs and focus on the present, you will find yourself in a powerful position to take back over your life. It can be a feeling of great release from a heavy burden. It can be a new lease on life, a new beginning with a new found freedom from a self-imposed bondage, a freedom to create a base of happiness and purpose in your life.
One last important thing; if you feel completely overwhelmed because of your past and feel inadequate of dealing with it, get help from a professional counselor. I would recommend a Christian counselor who understands the power of God to change things in life.
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Jimmie Burroughs is the author of JimmieBurroughs.com ; get more tips on personal development: www.JimmieBurroughs.com
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