The past is a wonderful thing to study, but releasing the past helps us live a more powerful life. We learn from the past, we do not have to keep dragging the past around on our backs like useless baggage.
How the past becomes baggage
Each experience we have becomes a memory. Some memories are joyful and light, other memories are heavy and burdensome. If we visualize a huge sack, not unlike the one Santa carries, this may help. Now visualize placing these memories in the sack and slinging it over your back. You can readily see how dragging painful memories can become a burden. Over time these heavy memories begin to slow us down. They prevent our climbing to new heights simply because they become too heavy for us to lug up the hill. Each time we choose to continue carrying a heavy memory the sack becomes heavier.
Forgive and forget?
Forgive those who helped us create heavy memories? Yes, by all means forgive them, and forgive yourself for your part in creating those memories. But forget? Trying to forget a memory is like digging a shallow hole to hide stinky, slimy trash. The stench does not go away simply by putting it in a hole. In fact the stench gets worse as the memory festers and rots. Those heavy, uncomfortable memories can actually help us move to new heights, but not if we carry them with us all the time. We learn from our experiences. We grow from our experiences. To deny our experiences is to deny who and what we have become. We begin to work against our own progress if we live in denial.
We are who we are
We are who we are because of EVERY experience we have had throughout our lifetimes. As uncomfortable as an experience might have been, it’s weight diminishes as we practice forgiveness. Now, rather than carrying a sack full of leaden memories, we carry a sack of positive, uplifting memories. We can climb to new heights based upon our past best when we travel light.
It is all in how we think
Yes, I am partial, but my book Think, Believe, Receive will be of great value to you if you want to move beyond your past. Click on the cover below and read a sample, then order your copy from Amazon.com.
