How I Learned To Forgive My Past
Letting go is hard to do…
Radical Acceptance For What It Is
It was Oct. 16, 2016, when I looked at myself in the mirror and said “I am an alcoholic”. It was time, I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired, it was time for healing. And healing is not an easy task for anyone, even physical wounds show the challenges of the healing process.
The evening prior I had drank an entire bottle of vodka and shit-faced is not even the word for the condition that I was in. In all honesty, it is a miracle I am alive today. I am sure I had some level of alcohol poisoning. I was at my rock bottom. There was nowhere else to go, I was forced to look at myself and my life. I was faced with my truth, to accept that alcohol was the reason for my inability to succeed in life.
Life Analysis and Self Assessment
After full-blown acceptance, you must take time to process and look at your life from the outside in. Start looking at the things within yourself that you would like to change.
Ask questions such as:
- why do I behave this way?
- why don’t I like that about myself?
- how can I improve _____?
- what do I need to let go of?
- who do I need to forgive?
- why do I need to forgive?
- what do I have to gain from change?
Always make sure your questions are asked in a positive manner, we do not want to trigger ourselves and process with negative energy. You may get some answers that may be difficult to digest, this is where radical acceptance comes back to play.
Remember forgiveness has no specific pathway, it is completely yours to create as needed. It will never look pretty so prepare yourself with tissues, ugly cries, and devil-eyed rage.
Self Analysis requires a deep desire to heal and change is a part of the process, without change, there is no change. Regardless of what your forgiveness process may look like, accept and embrace it, love it, tend to it, and care for it because it's your beautiful mess.
Take time to process all that is revealed to you, grieve, and forgive accordingly over and over until your feel that it no longer pains you. Most importantly be gentle with yourself, your inner child needs you to mother/father him/her. Speak kindly to yourself, as if you were speaking to your child self, the innocent 5-year-old boy/girl in you.
Letting Go Is Hard To Do
Human beings love to attach themselves to people, objects, ideas, and political and religious views. They hold on to it so tightly that it becomes them, they get lost in it. Without it, they do not know who they are, so they grasp these identities even tighter and tighter.
We tend to do the same with our emotions, we attach to and personalize other people's actions, perceptions, and views. Which can make us very sensitive to certain topics of conversation. This sensitivity can then lead to overreacting or lashing out at others.
In order to let go, you must go back to the beginning, finding acceptance of what is. Radical acceptance of all that can not be changed. When we ruminate we focus on the problem or event over and over. Combing through each moment in detail of what you did, should have, or could have done. This is a vicious cycle of self-victimization.
When you find yourself drowning in an eddy of self-hate, shame, and pitty … say out loud STOP. Literally, tell yourself to stop this thought process, it is the law of attraction. What we focus on you will attract, staying on this path of negativity and self-attack will only continue to get worse.
Stopping yourself in mid-thought confuses your brain, redirecting your thought to “what present danger is there that I need to stop”? Remember your brain is only a machine, your mind is what controls it. We can not stop our thoughts, but we can control what thoughts we chose to engage with.
Create your own plan of how you are going to attack your letting go process. Do research, try new things, let go of things that do not work for you, and follow your heart your intuition will guide you to all the resources your need for your healing journey.
Moving On And Finding Peace
For me moving on entailed therapy, really going within and seeking the trauma, the pain, the hurt, the betrayal, the loneliness, the depression, the anxiety, the disappointments, the abuse… going so deep that I realized I was only scared of myself.
I learned to move on by sending peace, love, and light to those who hurt me, every time I was triggered. This happened MULTIPLE times a day until it started to slowly dissipate. Mantras of love and peace kept my energy high when it was declining into negativity.
Meditation aided in my ability to calm my irrational monkey mind and really see all that occurred. It helped me see my darkness so I could understand others. Meditation helped me disconnect from the world and reconnect with myself, my spirit, my soul, my inner child, and my peace. Meditation calmed the anxious voices within, it helped me see my demons with peace so I can fight them with love.
