Leave Your Past Where It Belongs

Donna SLam — Leave Your Past Where It Belongs

Leave Your Past — In The Past

For many of us, it is not easy to leave our past where it belongs, in the past. For an eternity, humans have shown a systematic tendency to visit the past.

All too often, depression is associated with past negative events such as an unsuccessful project, emotional abuse, the loss of the loved one, and so on.

All of us have things from the past that haunt us. This is a very uncomfortable feeling which leaves us more devastated when a new problem occurs. Often we blame ourselves because it reminds us of some event or action in our past.

Psychological studies show that 60% of human beings remain more inclined to negatives things about their past rather than positive incidences. In the majority of such cases, the negative things tend to become a part of their personalities and make their life difficult to live.

Leaving your negative past behind is important if you want to live a stress-free and depression-free life. Holding on to pain or incidents which have emotionally hurt you is normal, but after a certain “point in time” leaving your negative feelings behind is crucial to your peace of mind. Leaving these kinds of thoughts behind will vary with the situation. For example, if as a child you were continuously abused for years, you might face some difficulty overcoming this pain. So the “point in time” is expected to be more in this case, compared to the one where you did not get loving attention or care from your parents during your childhood. The intensity of pain leading to depression is different in both cases and so the time for recovery will vary.

Some unfortunate things, if continued for years, become a part of you, making the world a scary place for you to live in.

But, the most important thing for your mental well-being is to put your past behind you and move on with your life.

Silver Lining

First and foremost, remember, nothing in life comes on a silver tray! In other words, nothing in life is easy to achieve. You need to really work hard to overcome your past experiences that overwhelm you today, leaving you in an unhappy, depressed state. The culmination of your negative past has left unhappiness and traces of pain in your mind contributing to your depression.

1. To start with, give mindfulness a try. Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.
2. Get honest with yourself and decide who you want to be — a victim forever or an emotionally strong and timely evolved person! Even though you have been victimized, you do not have to remain a victim.
3. Understand and remember that what has happened in the past cannot be changed. The emotional trauma you have experienced has changed you as a person and has made your life different from others but you do have a choice. You don’t have to live in victim consciousness forever; you can move through it if you’re ready to do the mental work that’s needed.
4. Now, close your eyes for several minutes and imagine how your life would look if you don’t visualize yourself as a victim. A life where you see only the positive things from your past life around you — your friends who have supported you through thick and thin, the hobbies and the activities that you enjoy doing, for example — dancing, visiting the places that make you happy and gleeful, and more. These thoughts will reveal that you are really fine and you were never at fault for whatever bad happened with you in the past. You are a lovable person and just because a few people failed to understand you doesn’t mean that you have to jump through hoops to be loved by others.
5. Another thing which you need to focus on is that — time does not stand still, and neither do people around you. Today is different from yesterday and tomorrow will not be the same as today. So, if your past was bad — at least a couple of incidents were — doesn’t mean that your future will also be the same. The same logic applies to the people around you — if a few folks have mentally harmed you or caused pain, doesn’t at all mean that all your friends or future friends will treat you the same way. Things change, situations change and so do people, with time. If you live with your fears forever, you will always be away from the most wonderful feeling in this world — LOVE. It is a powerful feeling that you associate with everything around you — the people, the animals, the plants, even the inanimate objects. And without love, there is no meaning to life. Love chases life and life should also chase LOVE.

You are just a decision away from making your present and your future better and trust me if you are reading this article you are already on your way to making yourself better.

Depression is bad, but our thoughts and actions have the power of making them even worse. In some cases, the best thoughts even have the power to heal everything. So the choice is yours!

“The past has no power over the present moment.” — Eckhart Tolle

This article was originally published on my site at https://donnapresents.com/leave-your-past-where-it-belongs/.

Meditation is a habit that may come easily to some. I have been meditating for over five years, but there were many days I found myself slipping. These days, not so much, not since I completed the no-cost Action Habits Challenge by Connie Ragen Green, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, independent publisher, and serial entrepreneur. You can check it out here.

If you’re interested in revitalizing your life through meditation and would like to learn a virtually risk-free, and cost-effective practice, that people of all ages can do with a little patience and guidance and that will serve you for the rest of your life, I would love to connect with you. You can connect with me here.

I’m Donna SLam, who loves to blog about how meditation brings self-compassion, peace of mind, and clarity to my life and others by sharing tips and strategies to live a fulfilling and purposeful life. I enjoy championing others to lead a healthy and happy life through meditation, walking, self-development, and spending time with loved ones.