How to Let Go of the Past

What does it mean to forgive? This topic often comes up in conversations with clients who are holding on to so much pain from their past. When you hold tightly to something, much like having two clenched fists, you are not open to receive new gifts from the universe. It also requires a lot of energy to keep those fists closed tight. What does one need to do to let go of past hurts?

Every day you experience feelings over things that occur. When difficult and challenging events happen, do you address your emotional state or perhaps like millions of other people, you have no idea how to handle your feelings when they come up? When you don’t deal with your feelings completely, the pain remains in your cell’s memory until you are willing to face it.

Learning to acknowledge feelings that come up for you and then speaking up for yourself helps you to deal with things in the moment they occur so you don’t drag things from one moment into the next.

In order to lighten your burden in the present, you must deal with and let go of the emotional energy (the baggage) you carry from yesterday and yester-year. You need to come to terms with your past and leave the past behind you where it belongs.

Acknowledge Your Emotions

When you experience some feeling, it’s like having someone tap you on the shoulder; it’s a message bringing your attention to something. When you acknowledge the feeling by recognizing its presence and experiencing it in your body, the energy around it dissipates; you can think clearly again. You cannot think and feel at the same time so if you experience a feeling regarding some situation but do nothing, the story you create related to the event will be grounded in your emotional state. Immersed in your emotional energy, you create a kind of cocoon that does not allow for reasoning; there are different areas of the brain at work when you are emotional versus when you are rational. Within your cocoon, you are in judgment and closed to hearing anything other than your own thoughts on the matter, thoughts which are circulating in your mind trying to make sense of the emotion you experienced rather than the event itself.

Feelings and the situation need to be managed differently. In the case of past events, which this article is addressing, the event itself has already occurred; it’s over. It was what it was. While you cannot change what has transpired, you can change how you think about what happened. Your emotional state at that time needs to be revisited. Unless you deal with the emotions associated with that event, you will continue to carry them with you into today. Go back in your history, decade by decade, what events, people, or things still evoke in you some emotion? If you are still angry about what your mom did to you when you were 10, then there is still work to do; you have not acknowledged how your 10-year-old self was hurting and you need to do so in order to move beyond it.

The Benefits of Holding On

What are the benefits of holding onto your pain? I know what you’re going to say: there are no benefits! But the fact is that there has to be something you gain by holding onto your hurt or else you would let go.

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Your partner for success,

Coach Julie, RN ~ Nurturing Your Success

PS – Are you holding on tightly to your pain? Are you ready to let go? Contact me today to schedule a free coaching session.