Deciding that your past was exactly the way it was supposed to be is going to allow you to stop fighting with it. When you fight with the past you lose 100% of the time, because you can’t go back and change it. You can only start looking back at the past through a different lens. I know that if I asked you to tell the story of your past through the lens of it was amazing, it might be hard at first, but you can tell that story and share amazing things that happened. You can see how God was with you in it all. You can see how He moved mountains and took care of you. You can have an appreciation of who you were in the midst of it all. But it would take you making an effort to view it from that point of view.
But when you do the work of looking at it from a different perspective you are the one that gets to decide how you want to keep telling the story. And in telling the story in a way that really helps you and serves you and where you are going, your past stops having a hold over you. Leave it in the past, only take with it what you really want.
I was kicked off the volleyball team in college. I used to tell such a painful story. One where I was the victim. Every time I told the story I felt horrible. I was filled with all the emotions again. I felt betrayed, accused, wronged, let down, sad, and hurt. When we tell the story, we feel it like it is real, and our body thinks it is present. That is why when we go to counseling and relive a traumatic experience you actually do “relive it” in your body. I remember the day I decided I was no longer going to tell the story the way that I used to. I have rewritten it, and it feels so much better. I have chosen to still keep some of the negative emotions surrounding it. But I choose ones like sadness and disappointment, and let go of some of the other emotions like; robbed, wronged, etc… Because when I look back on that situation I do want to be sad. I wanted to play volleyball all four years and I didn’t. I wanted to stand up for senior night with my parents, and I didn’t. So, when I think about it like that, I am sad. But the thoughts that make me feel those other emotions are gone. I have let them go. I no longer tell the story like that. I tell it in a way that feels good. It was for me. Me being let go was actually a gift I didn’t know I needed. I am open to accepting how it happened exactly as it did. I accept how I acted, how the coach acted, how the assistant coach acted, how my teammates acted. And when I do that, I stop fighting it. I stop wishing it was different than it was. I start to believe that the way it was, is exactly as it should have been.
When we can go back and look at our past that way, we glean what we want from it. We allow what we want into our present and we take from it lessons and opportunities to grow with us. The past doesn’t hurt us, it propels us forward into who we are becoming.
So take your break up, your divorce, your childhood, your failed class, the money wasted or spent, the weight gained, and retell the story in a way that moves you forward.
Practicing going back even to yesterday or last week and choosing to rewrite the event in a way that works and helps you, and you learn from. Doing this regularly is so incredibly good for your brain. Your brain is constantly looking for danger and so it is easy to focus on all that went wrong, or was painful. Your brain does this because it doesn’t want you to feel the negative emotions that you did then ever again. It wants you to be prepared and change so you never have to be in that situation again. Instead of allowing that to be painful and hard, look at it in a way where you feel growth and gratitude. Practicing this will allow you to do this regularly and that will eventually create a quicker bounce back time during trying times.
Philippians 4 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.
God knew that our lower brain was constantly focusing on whatever is awful, hard, uncomfortable, scary, negative, and he knew we would need to practice focusing on the alternative. So do that continually. Take everything through the Philippians 4 filter. Take any scenario and just pull out what is good. It will take work, but it is so worth it.
I am getting so much better at seeing something and letting my brain know thank you for bringing all that negative up to me. I can see it, but I don’t have to believe it or act on it. I can say, “Noted, but thinking that way isn’t going to be helpful at all.”
Your past can’t hurt you now unless you let it by thinking those thoughts that make you feel pain today. Leave the pain back there and bring the lessons forward with you. It feels a whole lot better; I promise.
