No Longer Holding Onto the Past

Two Major Steps Moving Forward

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

The losses and grief I’ve experienced during the past ten years have been overwhelming at times. Experts seem to agree that letting go of the past can ease the pain, but I really didn’t want to. I liked that life; it was comfortable, my husband, Dan, was alive and well, our family was nearby, we were healthy, and I had a great post-retirement job as an online adjunct professor.

After he died, I tried to find ways to hold on to that past, but in the long run, it hasn’t worked all that well. The truth is, I’ve had new experiences, made many changes, and grown a lot. I am a different person - and he’s not here by my side doing those things with me. Given that insight, I took two significant steps towards letting go this week.

I’m redecorating my apartment - getting rid of old furniture and adding a new recliner chair, a chest of drawers, a television, and a small file cabinet. It also means rearranging, getting new pictures, and organizing files. The cats are a little confused with the changes, but they’ll adjust.

While I’ve made many small steps towards creating a new chapter in my life, this step seemed most significant. It felt as if I were making a statement - letting go of what was and creating a new environment for the rest of my life based on my choices.

As it turns out, I took a second step this week as well. I hired a company to publish a book based on the articles I’ve written over the last five years. Publishing the book and writing new articles on aging have given me a renewed and expanded purpose, helping me move forward.

Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, offers many ideas for letting go of the past.

• Accept the reality of the past without denying or intensely wanting to change it.

  • Accept is not my favorite word. I can acknowledge the truth without denying it, but I still want to adjust and live with it somehow. Those losses will never be okay with me, but I do go on.

• Practice self-compassion by acknowledging our feelings and being kind to ourselves, primarily when reflecting on past mistakes.

  • I really could do a better job of that.

• Reframing perspective means shifting our emotional attachment to past events by focusing on lessons learned, such as resilience, self-awareness, and other strengths.

  • This strategy doesn’t seem to make much difference. I’m self-aware and resilient, but those losses remain.

• Journaling our thoughts and feelings can help us process past events and better understand them.

  • I’ve journaled for years, and it helps, as does drawing my feelings and listening to the message they provide.

• Setting new, positive goals and creating a vision for the future can motivate and provide a forward-looking perspective.

  • Redecorating the apartment and publishing the book are giving me something to look forward to.

• Engage in mindfulness, which can help us stay grounded in the present moment and manage negative emotions.

  • I’ve found some successes with this, but I also want to work with it more.

• Forgive ourselves and others to release the emotional weight of past hurts.

  • Forgiving myself is a work in progress.

I plan to experiment with three of Tony’s suggestions: greater self-compassion, forgiveness, and mindfulness, as I continue letting go of the past and moving forward.

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Janice Walton is a psychologist, a widow, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a writer. She has written over 300 articles for Substack since January 2021.