by Carolyn Dickman
I often get the question, “How do I get over my past?”This can be especially difficult for those who deal with feelings of depression, guilt, and anxiety that come from things that happened in the pasts.
Dr. Susanna McMahon, in her book THE PORTABLE THERAPIST, answers: “Letting go of our past may seem impossible. How can we let go of something that is so much a part of us? And why let the past go? Aren’t we what we are because of our past lives?”
We Are Who We Are in the Present
The answer to this last question is the reason why we need to let go of the past. Yes, to a great extent, we are what we are because of what happened to us in the past. But we are more than that - we can only be who we are right now in the present.Clinging to the past in order to affirm or to excuse ourselves in the present is as dangerous as living in future illusions. Neither one is the reality of ourselves. Neither one is in our control. They are distortions that can create feelings like anxiety, sadness, and guilt because we believe that we are something that we’re not.
Letting Go is Not Forgetting the Past
Letting go of our past does not mean forgetting our past. Memories are part of us, but they are not the reality of who we are right now. The now we can choose; the past we could not. In other words, we cannot be held responsible for things that we could not control. And we cannot control our past. It is done. We cannot go back and do it again. That is why it is important to let go and move on so that we can build better lives free of anxiety and depression right now.The Weighty Bag of the Past
Nothing seems to keep us more stuck than hauling the past around with us. It may help to think of our past as a huge garbage bag full of good and bad things. Carrying around this bag only weighs us down and impedes our present movement. We cannot function to our best capacities when carrying around a heavy bag…Dr. McMahon suggests that we open the bag and sort through it, that we “honor all of our past,” but put back in the bag only what we need in order to go on.
But you can change the influence that your past has on you right now, in the present. To do this, you must stop trying to make the past something it was not. If you were abused or rejected or unloved in the past, you can stop being abused, rejected, and unloved now so that you can start recovering from the guilt, fear, anxiety and depression that you might associate with these events. Only if you are stuck in the past will you continue to repeat the patterns of your past. To be free of these patterns, you must let go.
Taking Responsibility for Today’s Choices
Loving yourself when you have not felt loved in your past may be difficult but can be done. If you choose to let your past write the script for your present life, then you must take responsibility for that choice and the feelings it creates. It is your life and you are more than what you have been before. Be the best you can be. Let go of what is holding you back. Be free. The past may feel like a prison, but you do have the key and you can walk away whenever you choose to let go. The trip might be long, but this is one of the biggest steps on the road to recovery from anxiety and depression.Perhaps the most effective way to let go of the past is to become aware of the inner child and to learn to parent this child with love that decreases anxiety and depression.
There is more discussion of letting go, parenting ourselves, and leaving the past in the past, in her book. All of us at the Midwest Center are reading THE PORTABLE THERAPIST, as a “project.” We are finding it very helpful in our personal lives and in our work environment.
Carolyn
