How to Finally Let Go of The Past

And find peace in the present

I’ve been plagued with anxiety about the future and shame of the past for far too long. No More! I am done. Time to let go of my worries and move on.

I must admit, this is very hard for me to do. I’ve spent so much time living in the past and worrying about the future that my brain has been trained to do this by default.

I used to lay in bed every night, failing to fall asleep, with all my shameful past actions spinning around in my head like a highlight reel of my worst moments.

It’s almost as if I was trying to prove to myself that my past was not that bad. I was trying to justify all my mistakes and downplay all the bad things that happened to me. If constantly ruminating about the past was the way to do it, I would have freed myself from the past years ago.

I love this quote from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

You see, ironically, all my worrying and overthinking about the past and future was just causing me all this pain. Not only was it not fixing the problem, but it was also creating more problems.

I was neglecting the present moment, living in all my fears, regrets, resentments, shame, etc.

The answer to my problem was much more simple than I had thought. The way forward was radical acceptance. I could give the formal definition of radical acceptance but I will share something different.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This is the serenity prayer. It’s used a lot in my Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I’ve heard the serenity prayer hundreds of times. However, one day it just hit me in my soul. This is the perfect definition of radical acceptance.

I was essentially doing the opposite of this prayer. I was trying to change the things I could not change and doing absolutely nothing about the things I could change. I did not have any wisdom, definitely not enough to know the difference.

So, here I am, trying to retrain my brain. I have made a mental checklist of sorts to use when I find myself worrying about the past/future. Something rational I can rely on when my brain is acting very irrationally.

When I find myself struggling with ruminating. I run through this checklist in my head.

Is there anything I can do to change the situation?

If the answer is yes. I will do it. Then go back to the question. If I have done everything I can to change the situation, then I need to let it go. It is no longer in my power to change. I must accept.

If the answer is no. Then I move right to acceptance. I must accept it. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change it. I must accept it as I accept the fact that I cannot fly or breathe underwater.

This may seem like an oversimplification but it really isn’t. Retraining your brain is just like training anything else. The key to training anything is repetition. I have trained my brain to ruminate about the past by repetitively ruminating about the past. Thanks, neuroplasticity. However, if I trained my brain to live in the past and future, I can train it to be more present and let go of everything holding me back.

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