Just because an experience has ended doesn’t mean it’s over.
We store unfinished and unresolved emotional experiences within our bodies. Cognitively, we often find that we are stunted by the time in our lives in which we were damaged, or traumatized. We got scared, we never got over the fear, and so we stopped growing.
Often what we don’t realize is that the experiences that hurt us most aren’t usually the ones that we are indifferent about: there is something within them that we deeply wanted or still do desire. We weren’t broken by a breakup, we were broken by wanting love that wasn’t right for us. We weren’t devastated by a loss, we were devastated because we wanted, so badly, for that person or thing to remain in our lives.
We mentally become trapped in these places at which we still crave an experience. What we don’t realize is that we have to sort of free ourselves from it so that we can go forth and create it in real time.
Instead of accepting the ways we think life did not work out, we have to be able to see what was at the core of our desire, and figure out a way to still give ourselves that experience now.
Reentering the memory
If you truly want to let go of a past experience, you have to reenter it through your memory. Close your eyes, and find the feeling in you body that is uncomfortable. This is your portal to its root. Follow the feeling, and ask it to show you where it started. You’ll remember a time, place, or experience. Sometimes, the memory is fresh enough that you don’t need to do this, and you can simply reenter the memory consciously by imagining that you are back where it all began.
Now what you have to do is superimpose a narrative to your younger self. You need to imagine that you, your healed and happy older self, is imparting some wisdom.
Imagine sitting next to your younger self as they got their heart broken and giving them very specific instructions about why this is absolutely for the best and that though they cannot know it yet, there is another relationship out there far, far better. Imagine sitting next to your younger self when they felt really down and giving them the exact instructions regarding what they need to do to feel better: who they need to call, where they need to go, what they need to begin doing, what they need to stop doing.
Most importantly, imagine telling your younger self that absolutely everything — yes, everything — is going to be okay. That their fears are largely unfounded, that good things are coming, and that life will turn out well in the end.
You have to do this in order to release the old attachment, and allow that part of yourself to reattach to the present moment, and what exists within it.
Though you cannot actually change what happened in the past, by shifting your perspective of it, you can change how you are right now. You can change the story, and you can change your life. You can stop holding onto the old life in which you were required to be someone you inherently are not.
The truth is that when we are unhealthily attached to something in the past, our perspective of it is often distorted. We aren’t seeing reality for what it was, and we need to assist ourselves in being able to broaden our mindset, and open up to the truth. Instead of longing for what we didn’t get then, we have to release ourselves from the past, and start putting our energy into building that experience right now.
When we do this, we become free to step into the field of infinite potential. We become free to be who we always wanted, to create what we always wanted, and to have what we always wanted. The time is now, and the place is here.
