Objects in the rearview mirror…

Anyone that drives knows how the rest of this statement goes. Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.

Does this describe you? I’ll bet you that it does…sometimes.

For most of us the past has almost a strangle hold on our lives. We live in the past. Past regret, past failures, past loves, past joys, past hurts, and on and on and on. For some people it seems that the past is more important than the present or even the future.

"Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

Remembering the past does have a purpose for us. However, most people take it a bit too far and attempt to LIVE in the past. People become obsessed with the past. They stop living in the present and fall into their past.

The purpose of remembering the past is to learn from it. Plain and simple. If you were hurt, then you need to be able to objectively recall what happened and figure out what your part was in that event. Then you can begin to understand what you can do to avoid that kind of hurt in the future. Let’s take a simple scenario…

You get burned by putting your hand on a hot burner. :-)

YOUR part in this event is placing your hand on the burner (dumbass!) So, what can you do to prevent that from happening in the future? Well…you could be REALLY extreme and say you’ll never go close to a stove burner ever again. That will make cooking a bit difficult for you…trust me. A more reasonable response would be to pay closer attention to whether or not the burner is hot and be aware of the world around you. Was someone just cooking? Does the stove feel hot if you’re close to it?

There’s really TONS that you can learn from your own past. However, it takes you looking in an OBJECTIVE way. You can’t simply take anything that’s happened to you and deny any sort of involvement in it. Think of it this way…if it happened TO you, then you were involved in some way.

”Those who remember the past tend to get the story really screwed up.” - Chuck Palahniuk

Memory is a funny thing. Very rarely is it perfect in recollection. This causes us even more problems if you remain attached and emotionally invested in events that happened in the past to you.

The only way that we can effectively USE the past for our benefit is to take a step back from it. Detach. Look on the past as an outside observer. Honestly see the mistakes that you made, or the different ways you could have responded. Then you have a starting point to change the outcome of future events.

The past truly has no hold on our lives. Its power comes from what we give it. Nothing in the past can be changed, nor can it reach into today and affect you, UNLESS YOU LET IT!

The past has no more power over you than the future does. Neither of them is the here and now, where you live.

Let’s do something together…grab the past moment that you think about the most. Look at what happened, your part in it, discover some things that you might have done differently. Now…forgive yourself for the event. Forgive whoever else was involved. And LET IT GO. Know that you’ve done everything about it that you can and let it go.

It might take a couple times to finally be able to let it go completely. That’s OK. It’ll get easier as you keep going. Now you can start to work through the past that you hold on to so tightly. The past can now be put where it belongs…behind you.

"Learn from the past, Hope for the future, Live in the present." - Ken Lancaster