Breaking free from the past

Do you ever feel that no matter how many times you tell yourself, that you are going to move forward, start a new beginning and forget the past; that you seem to find yourself holding back?

This may be caused by fear. Fear of walking into the unknown, fear of success and being happy, or perhaps fear of the past repeating itself into your future.

Let me share with you a few points, of things I have learnt from my past:

· The past has been a test to see how you handle and grow from circumstances.

· Everything in the past happens for a reason, it happens to teach you a valuable lesson.

· The past is there to make you into a better person for your future, not a bitter person.

· We are all tested in life and encounter situations that are beyond our control sometimes, however, we have complete control of the state we put ourselves in when such things/events happen to us. We have control on how we interpret the event and we have control to choose the next step we will take.

· People make mistakes in order to grow and learn, and for those people who do not learn the lessons, they encounter repeated events and circumstances until the lesson has been learnt.

· God never put you in a situation he doesn’t think you cannot handle. He is testing your strength, your courage and your perseverance, helping you to become the person you were meant to become.

When we allow our past to affect us, we are closing doors on possibilities, new opportunities and closing ourselves off to grow and develop. When you make a decision to move forward, make a promise to yourself that you will do everything in your power to do just that, move forward.

Exercise 1 – It is time to face your past

Write down on a piece of paper everything that you can think of that has hurt, upset, or even traumatised you from your past, write down the people involved, the events, the time and what happened. Write down how this has made you feel.

Now, I know this task may be a hard task or even unsettling for you, but in order to be stronger and ready for your future, you must first face your fear of the past. When you have this all written down, read over everything you have written once. Now as you hold the piece of paper in your hand, you have control over what to do with your past, you are now holding the past in your hands. Take this piece of paper and rip it into a million pieces (or as small as you can, rip them into tiny pieces) or I like to get a candle and watch the paper burn, watch the past hurts, disappointments, grievances... watch them all burn away. When you are done either ripping or burning the paper, tell yourself you are now making a conscious decision to release the past, the past will no longer affect you or consume your mind. Forgive yourself for anything that used to hold you back. Release yourself from attachments to the past, tell yourself from this day forward, you will be stronger, wiser, smarter, motivated and determined to face your future with a grateful heart and will work every day to be more mindful of what your goals are and what you are trying to achieve.

Exercise 2 (follows on from exercise 1) – Creating your future.

Imagine that no matter what it is that has happened in your past has (hurt from past relationship, family or friend who has passed away, a traumatic event etc). Imagine that this has now been erased from your memory. Your thoughts that you now create from your past do not exist, it isn’t real. You are now standing on a blank canvas with a lot of colours to choose from to start an artwork. What colours are you going to choose? What colours will you mix together? Where on your canvas will you put these colours? Why are you putting these colours there?

Sometimes in order to get a particular colour we have to trial and error a few colours together to test if it will bring out the colour we desire. Sometimes the exact colour we want will not always appear first time we try mixing paints together. This is because we have not yet mastered the right consistency of which colours to mix together in order to get that perfect colour. When this happens, we simply put our paint brush in water, and start again and we will keep doing this until we have created and designed a beautiful picture that makes us happy inside and out.

You have the power now to design and create your future starting from today, this moment, this second. What are you waiting for?