Mentalechoes

The events over the last two days have really shown shown me something about myself that I was aware of, but I didn’t openly admit because I was afraid of what that might mean. And that is that I am clinging on to memories of my past and much of the pain associated with it, and I am not letting myself move forward. I am now in a situation where my past is influencing my present, and it is causing me pain again… and pain to others who I am close to. I can see now if I don’t start letting go of my past it will become my future, and the pain will just keep on coming back around.

The way I see it, nobody makes it to 30 something without picking up a few emotional scars on the way. If you’re very lucky, you might get away with just a few scars and nothing else. But more than likely most of us who are my age have somewhere along the line had a major emotional trauma, where our hearts have been torn out of our chest and smashed into a bazillion peices by a drawn out bad relationship ending in a seperation that leaves you bitter, cynical and lonely. It’s a long road back from here, and the danger is that as you make your way forward to a new life, you don’t leave all the crap behind, but you put as much of it as you can into a bag and lug it around on your shoulders, so that you can pull it out and use it when you feel the need for self pity, or you want to make somebody else close to you miserable.

Consciously letting go though is really an unnatural act it seems in our modern world. I mean, we learn to hoard stuff as kids from our parents; we learn to hold on to the past with pictures, music and contemporary art. But nobody ever really teaches us how to let go of anything. Letting go is more a process of memories fading rather than an active part of self improvement. It almost sounds negative in some sense, to let go of the past, because we are always trying to get our hands on as much stuff as we can in the first place; accumulation is a sign success in the first world.

But to be unable to let go - especially of painful experiences in our past - is to forgo real personal growth. This is ironic because personal growth can only be acheived through painful experiences; we never learn to treasure love until the first time we lose it, then (and only then) do we see why love is special. The thing here is, when we go through really painful experiences we can be cut so deep, that sometimes the emotional scars never really heal, and we carry this hurt around with us and it becomes part of every day life and personality. It influences every decision we make; every thought in our head; and every action we do. The really sad about this is, if we don’t find a way to let go of our emotional baggage from the past it continues to influence our present until we bring the past back down our ourselves. Like in the case of person who never learns to trust new lovers in relationships because they believe that person will leave them just like all the others, and subsequently their actions become destructive to a relationship that could be something wonderful.

Change! It’s something that is both easy and hard, but you know, the one thing that starts it is a choice! We choose for ourselves exactly how our lives go every minute of every day, and all we have to do is recognise that! Change is simply a choice. And we can choose to be different to be some way, any time we desire. Well I choose to let go of my painful past, and move on from it. I’ve been carrying it around for a long time now, and really, I’ve come to a time when I can see I have no use for it anymore. I want to be free of that time, and I want to be happy again. Destiny, to you I say, I choose to let it all go now and move on.

Luck and happiness to you all,

Padwanna!