How do I let go of the past?

[Wrong]

Exactly like the thread title says. People been telling me for years to "let it go" and not dwell on my past. But how the hell do I do that? I don't know how to let it go, literally. It always pops back in to my head and then I start thinking, specially about what i'd like to say to these people. Yet I already have, many times, and they don't give a ****. Hell, they broke off all contact with me a long time ago.

I need to let go, I know this and I want to let go. But I don't know how to. I once heard about this movie where this guy could erase **** from his memory and that'd be my biggest wish, I'd erase almost everything.

 

[user 148069]

drunk karaoke singing "Let It Go" will make all the hurt go away

I was just thinking of this today and I've been struggling with this for years.

 

[Finished]

I think maybe you need to make your present and future so full and busy that those thoughts will push the other crap way to the back. That's usually what happens with me. Then sometimes the thoughts pop back up and I say to myself, those fuckers! If I'm able to get revenge in some way or other I do.

Then I feel like the score has been settled and I can once and for all put it behind me. I think you need to settle it some how whatever way you need to for you. It's like unresolved stuff on your to do crap list. It won't go away completely until it's actually dealt with. Talking to them hasn't resolved it for you. Maybe drag an old refrigerator out to the desert and paint their faces on it. Then kick the **** out of it and shoot it full of holes while screaming out their names! Get violent on the damn thing!!!!

I'm still thinking about **** that happened 10 years ago sometimes. It doesn't bother me because I know the right time and place with come about, then I can do what needs to be done, and then I can forget about it.

Scene from the movie Office Space: (Do it like them! Get your anger out!!!!! Kick the **** out of it!!!)

 

[StarDust]

Scene from the movie Office Space: (Do it like them! Get your anger out!!!!! Kick the **** out of it!!!)

Best scene ever!

 

[CenotaphGirl]

Ugh if you ever find out… pleaseeeee tell me?

 

[Adamridge79]

Most things took some time, professional help, well, helped. I have one area that won't die. So, I'll admit, I'm going to follow this to see if anyone has any clue, great ask.

 

[constant stranger]

I'm in the same boat....I relive past grievances every day. I also relive happy times that are 50 years in the past now....my early college years.
I have a reasonably functional present day life, I mean i pay my taxes and insurance premiums and mow the lawn and eat healthily but the past clings to my thoughts like a shadow.
I wonder if I was embarked on an earnest and organized plan for the future would the past be less of a fixation?

 

[Zorananda]

I can't fully let go of the past because it has and always will play a role in shaping the present and future. Nothing in the present and future will ever radically alter the fate that was prepared by the past. Nothing will make up for all that could have been modestly attainable but was instead perverted and lost in dramatic, humiliating fashion. I hope I can get the courage to kill myself sometime in the near future because I don't live, I exist. And that's more or less how it's always been for me. There is one "element" of my present, recent past and future that is good but I don't think it - or anything actually - could make me whole again or even provide enough happiness to overshadow the constant sadness and near constant anxiety that I endure.

For people who are younger maybe they can try to make a fresh start. Education, relocation, volunteer abroad. Those things might help add on to the memory bank enough that the past that you're trying to forget becomes less and less onerous. But do it knowing that the past won't ever be totally forgotten otherwise you're setting yourself up for disappointment and consequently, probable failure in whatever new endeavour you've undertaken.

 

[MazieG]

I can't fully let go of the past because it has and always will play a role in shaping the present and future. Nothing in the present and future will ever radically alter the fate that was prepared by the past. Nothing will make up for all that could have been modestly attainable but was instead perverted and lost in dramatic, humiliating fashion. I hope I can get the courage to kill myself sometime in the near future because I don't live, I exist. And that's more or less how it's always been for me. There is one "element" of my present, recent past and future that is good but I don't think it - or anything actually - could make me whole again or even provide enough happiness to overshadow the constant sadness and near constant anxiety that I endure.

For people who are younger maybe they can try to make a fresh start. Education, relocation, volunteer abroad. Those things might help add on to the memory bank enough that the past that you're trying to forget becomes less and less onerous. But do it knowing that the past won't ever be totally forgotten otherwise you're setting yourself up for disappointment and consequently, probable failure in whatever new endeavour you've undertaken.

When you said " I don't really live , I exist"..... I felt that ....... that is me every single day. I just exist, go through the motions, day in and day out. The only thing giving me hope is the idea that maybe one day I won't feel like this anymore.

 

[StarDust]

Letting go.... first I learned stop giving power to "event/person of the past". Obsessing about it drains your energy and feeds 'the past'. It took practice and time. Every time 'the past' enter my thoughts, I turned it off. Refused to look at it. After a couple of weeks, it was like I created space between my self and 'the past'. This space was necessary so I can look at it in a calm manner - from a distance. Allowing me to drill down to the core essence on why this 'past' event or person continues to haunt me. For me, it was like asking why my soul is at unrest through this past event/person. Once I found that core reason, I was able to resolve and let go. Through the process, it was really a self discovery. Understanding what values were important me ... what I was holding on to. Often, I realized I was holding on to something... a hope, a dream, an expectation of something I wanted in life... letting go of the expectation can help you move forward.

I think the question one would need to ask is what are you really holding on to? and why?

 

[Yeti1980]

What are your aims in life? It's important to focus on yourself and build away from the people/events that have been negative.

In the long run, hating someone or something is draining and takes away far more than it ever gives back.

It may not be a case of "forgetting", but it could be a case of building lots of good new things over the top of the old to make the remembering of the bad stuff less vivid.

 

[Ima Lone]

Hanging onto bad memories is a pretty useless pursuit. But it sounds as if you already know that much about it and want to know how to get such a mean monkey off of your back. Not knowing what you may already have tried, what about writing down all that you feel? That way, those thoughts that you don’t want are outside of you and in so being, you can do with them whatever you want to. Tear them up, put them in a blender and set it to purée, wipe your ass on them before flushing them down the toilet, your choices are nearly endless.

The thing is is that once the thoughts are outside of you, they can be manipulated instead of manipulating you. If they pop up again in your mind, think about whatever method you used to destroy them, once you had it all written down and remind yourself that those thoughts are gone because you destroyed them. You figuratively “emptied the trash” that was trashing your life. Eventually you likely will think of those original thoughts less and less, if at all, because time is a great healer. Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels.

Sometimes people and things in our lives die. That really sucks but if we aren’t the person or thing that died, that means that we’re still alive and life is for the living. It keeps going on until it dies, like it or don’t, that won’t be changed. Anything I’ve ever thought would kill me if it happened to me, hasn’t done so, so far. Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. As humans, we adapt and continue to move forward. Give yourself one more day and then one more, if just one wasn’t enough. But eventually what you can’t not stop thinking of now will be passed.

 

[okidoke]

One thing I can offer is, make new more memorable memories. Seek out new adventures, hobbies, self-healing, people, places, and you'll start creating new memories that will be more at the forefront of your memory bank. They will be more important and prominent and the old will take a back seat and eventually be less important and possibly fade altogether unless you make a concerted effort to recall them. For anything that you feel is your faultm well, you have to forgive yourself and admit you're human and make amends by doing better.

 

[Debs _1]

As I have been told ... Don't look back look forward !

Try too anyway

 

[okidoke]

...... Don't look back look forward !

because it hurts your neck after a while

 

[M_also_lonely]

If letting go is done in its totality, it should lead to enlightenment. But since that's not our goal here, it clearly means that we need something else to cling on to. Some other attachment. A new toy to play with. Petty but surely helpful.

When we claim to want to let go, we really don't want to, because there is a form of comfort here. And more importantly, we had declared the other side to be evil. For example, someone suffered a lot due to poverty, he wishes he wasn't poor but he has been seeing the rich ones as evils as life seems to be in their favor.

So you now know what to target. If you want to let go of the past, you must seek admiration of future. (And if you're more intelligent, then the admiration of present!!!). Your eyes should glow up looking at the future, like that of a kid who stares at the toy shop looking at the stuff he wish he owned.
For example, if one wishes to become free from their poverty, they must find admiration of the idea of being rich.

A genuine admiration towards having a mind free from the past bondages must arise! You should be excited by the thought of possessing a mind that has attained freedom from past or any other misery. You should be able to see how your state of being would be, if you were free from your miseries. Then an excitement of achieving it arises. And the rest of the process happens on its own.

 

[Murakami_1]

What worked for me was not trying to ''actively'' letting it go.

I think it's unhealthy to keep obsessing with the past (which i have done) and trying to obsessively forget (which i have also done).
It's harder to act then to say of course, but really realizing you cant change the past, coming to terms with it and just trying to process it helped with me. A technique i really liked was writing everything down. I think its nice because you do ''accept it'' but leave it alone then, if it makes sense? Anyways, you'll never really truly forget and i find that it helps to realise we dont need to, how hard everything might have been.

I hope it makes sense im rambling.