If you find yourself constantly thinking about the past, overanalysing every mistake and decision, then this post is for you. I’m here to tell you that there is a way to accept your past, without regret, and move on to a bright and positive future! Are you coming?
Let’s be honest, we’ve all made mistakes. No one is perfect, and anybody who tells you differently is lying. Without mistakes, we cannot learn and we cannot grow, there can be no success without failure.
It’s natural to self-reflect, in fact, it’s absolutely essential for self-development and growth, however, when the past begins to consume your thinking and you can’t move on, it’s time to take action!
Signs You’re Living In The Past
- You would ‘give anything’ to go back and re-do certain periods of your life
- You have lots of regrets about the past and remind yourself of them often
- You regularly think about all the ‘what-ifs’ and -could-bes’ if you hadn’t done XYZ.
- You catch yourself replaying negative memories a lot
- You have conversations in your head with people from the past thinking of all the things you wish you’d said
- You have a lot of anger/pain/sadness when you think about the past
- You keep repeating the same negative cycles in life (toxic relationships, addictions, thought patterns etc.)
If this sounds like you, it’s okay, I’ve been where you are, I have spent far too much time dwelling on my past, and I can tell you firsthand that it does not help. No amount of worrying or wishing it was different will change it. There is no do-over in life.
The only way to move on is to learn to accept your past, mistakes and all, forgive yourself and be free to move on without carrying around all this guilt and regret.
The Effects of Living in the Past
Holding onto the past can have disastrous consequences in the present, it’s like living with a dementor slowly sucking all the happiness from the world around you.
The reality is that negative thoughts equal negative emotions that lead to negative actions and negative results in your life, so the more you dwell on past pain, hurt, trauma and sadness the more of those emotions you will experience in the present.
It’s impossible to look to the future when you can’t stop ruminating over the past. All the goals you want to achieve will be far less attainable if all your mental energy continues to be drained by the past. Save your energy for where you need it and where you can actually change things.
When you worry and regret the past and the choices you’ve made, it can be easy to lose trust in yourself. You may find it difficult to make future decisions as you fear you will make the wrong one. Learning to accept your past will enable you to move past this and begin to take back control of your life. Here’s how.
Write It Out
You’ll hear me say it till I’m blue in the face… journal, journal, journal!
Writing down your memories, thoughts, feelings and experiences can help you make sense of what happened, and why it happened, to help you break the cycle and move on in a more positive way.
Try these Journaling Prompts for Processing Past Guilt if you are struggling with what to write and how to process these feelings.
You can also read this blog post for more details on how journalling can change your mindset and improve your mental health.
Forgive Yourself
One of the most significant lessons I’ve learned about accepting the past, without regret is that life is far from being just black and white. I know it might sound overly simplistic and cliché, but let me explain.
In this crazy journey called life, there are moments when all we seem to have is a collection of not-so-great choices and circumstances that push us onto the wrong path.
Take, for instance, one of my most profound regrets – a time when I found myself in a downward spiral of excessive drinking, drugs, and making some really questionable choices. This version of me was light years away from the person I’d always envisioned myself to be, contradicting everything I’d believed in while growing up.
Picture this: I was just 16, out raving with people twice my age, indulging in more than my fair share of class-A substances, and pretty much overdoing it on the booze every day of the week. The result? I got myself into some pretty scary situations and made decisions that haunted me for a long, long time.
But here’s the thing…
I was also a 16-year-old girl, living in a hostel after being kicked out of home (yet again), feeling utterly desperate, profoundly alone, and seething with anger.
My “best friend” was a 29-year-old woman who took me under her wing after we met in a B&B while I was waiting for a room in the hostel. She’d take me out, dress me up, lend me money when times got tough, and introduce me to all her friends and I genuinely believed she cared about me – something I was desperately seeking. She herself had recently come out of hospital after a mental breakdown and had a history of substance drug and alcohol abuse so I don’t blame her but it didn’t take long for me to start handling my problems the same way. It seemed like a wild adventure, and I was desperate to escape my bleak reality.
Could I have said no? Should I have said no?
Looking back, I truly wish I had said no. But when I reflect on it, what were my choices really?
I could’ve chosen to stay in my tiny room at the hostel, all alone, in the depths of depression, angry, and quite honestly a danger to myself. Or, I could go out with these seemingly cool people, laugh, dance, forget my worries, and feel like I belonged, and like I was wanted. I could fake a confidence that made me the life and soul of the party, and it was intoxicating because it felt like everything I’d ever wanted. I’d never been popular or part of the “in” crowd, but, this felt like I’d always imagined it to be.
If I had known where this path would lead, the depths I’d plunge to, and the awful decisions that awaited me, I’d have locked myself in that lonely room and faced my demons. But hindsight is a remarkable thing, and at the time, that wrong path felt like my only path.
Seeing it from this perspective has made it much easier over the years to come to terms with my choices and, in turn, forgive myself for making them. At 16, I was still way too immature to see the bigger picture, and that’s perfectly okay. I was vulnerable, had already been through the wringer, and was just trying my best to navigate the storm with what I had at the time.
It’s crucial to understand that poor decisions don’t define us as bad people. We are not reduced to a single moment in our lives, nor should we endure a lifetime of punishment for a single moment of lousy judgment.
Remember…
just because you forget something doesn’t make you stupid, one cranky remark after a sleepless night doesn’t make you mean or rude – we’re human, as Sirius Black once wisely said, “We all have light and dark inside us.” We are not all one or the other.
So, don’t let a few rough chapters spoil your whole story. Accept it, let it go, and permit yourself to move forward.
Focus on the Lesson
Even the very worst moments of our lives hold important lessons and focusing on these instead can have profound effects on how we view the past.
It could be the smallest lesson or the biggest lesson, it doesn’t matter, there will be one.
One of the worst decisions I made in life was staying in toxic relationships with narcissistic men because of how desperate I was to feel loved. I let people treat me appallingly and paid the price for it.
One such relationship was with a guy (we’ll call him K) who was extremely controlling and physiologically abusive. There were so many red fags but at the time I either couldn’t see them or didn’t want to. K sold me a dream, a life where we moved away from everything we knew and started a dream life together. There were a lot of conditions to this life, things I needed to do first and ways I needed to prove myself worthy of such a life. One of these conditions was that I HAD to learn to drive. If I didn’t then I wasn’t “successful” or “mature” enough to stick around for.
So I did, even on the days I wanted to quit or the days my anxiety was eating away at me, I stuck to it and I learned to drive. The fear of being rejected and alone again and the consequences of arguing that I didn’t want to do it pushed me out of my comfort zone.
I did what I thought I couldn’t.
Luckily it only took me around 18 months to wake up this time and get out while I still had some of myself left. I packed my bags, left and never looked back.
I beat myself up for a long time for not seeing the red flags or for allowing myself to go down this path again but then I stopped focussing on that and started focussing on the lessons I learnt. Without this relationship, I may never have learnt to drive, and learning to drive opened up so many doors for me, one door eventually led me to meet the love of my life so I wouldn’t change it for the world.
So instead of being angry and ashamed, I chose to focus on the positives that I gained as a result and was able to move on without all this regret weighing me down.
So grab a notepad and try to turn the negatives into a positive. Write down the bad, what you regret or why you’re angry with the situation, then try to think of something you gained from it, it could be a new friend, a skill, a hobby or a TV show you picked up from a person you’d rather forget or something you learned about yourself, whatever it is, retrain your brain to think about that one positive thing every time a negative situation plays out in your head and allow yourself to accept the past, without regret, because of what it taught you.
Act Like Your Friend
Another powerful tool in learning to accept your past is to approach things as if you were advising a friend.
For some reason, kindness, compassion and acceptance come much more naturally to most of us when it’s directed at others instead of ourselves. It’s time to break this cycle and start caring for ourselves in the way we would those we care for.
Imagine that your close friend was coming to you because they were in your situation. What would you say to them? Would you tell them this one thing defines their whole person and they should be condemned for eternity? Or would you tell them to give themselves a break? That we all make mistakes and we all deserve the chance at forgiveness and freedom?
Take your own advice!
Be kinder to yourself, remind yourself that you are only human and you can get past this. Be your own best friend and not your own worst enemy.
Write Letters
If you’re struggling with the past, try writing letters, either to yourself or others to get all of your thoughts and feelings out of your brain.
Get out everything you wish you’d said, how they made you feel or what you want to say sorry for. Let it all out. Write freely and without fear.
This can be helpful as when we allow our thoughts to be put onto paper we give our brain permission to move on as we have addressed and processed the issues it is presenting to us. When we keep everything in and only voice these fears internally, our brain doesn’t feel satisfied that we have adequately dealt with the problem and will continue to go over it time and time again.
When you’re done you can keep the letter, throw it away, rip it up or even burn it (this can be a very cathartic thing to do but please ensure you do this in a safe and controlled environment!) and then remind yourself that you have done everything you can, said all you need to say and now it is time to move on and accept your past without regret.
Set Future Goals
Finally, it’s time to look to the future!
As we discussed earlier, one of the biggest benefits of accepting and moving on from the past is that it allows you to focus your mental energy on the now and achieve your future goals.
By defining clearly what those goals are and how you can take steps to achieve them, you give your mind something positive and helpful to focus on instead.
Check out this article by Fingerprint for Success on how to set life goals to help you with this.
So now it’s time to put into practice what we have talked about and start living your best life!
This isn’t an easy thing to do, remember that it will take time to retrain your mind, be patient with yourself and accept that this isn’t an overnight fix. If you catch yourself slipping back into old ways just take a deep breath and start again.
As long as you don’t give up, you cannot fail!
