3 Steps to the Freedom from the Painful Past

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Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.
-Bruce Atkinson

Photo by Giladbenari

Are your thoughts holding your happiness by taking you to the painful past ? Is your mind cluttered with thoughts of career that you wanted but never pursued? Or things you wish you had said ? All these regrets can hold you hostage from living the life of your dream.

Have you ever felt finding hard to focus on task at hand when all of sudden that dreaded tooth pain constantly consumed all your energy ?Emotional trauma can often cause pain more severe. So go back and deal with them to free you thoughts from painful captivity.

Think of all the things that you feel unhappy about but rather than beating yourself, take action. I’ve been using a method that has helped me remove thought clutter and allowed to move on with my life. I have learned to control these thoughts that bring pain rather than be controlled by them. How do I do it ? I have three steps to clear the decks.

1. Write them down: I’ve learned that best approach to deal with the bull is to look straight in its eyes and not step back until I win. I write down what causes me most emotional pain.

• Things I want to learn but haven’t learned: I always wanted to learn golf because I’ve felt that game of golf is great for networking but it is hard for me to find time for it.
• Feelings I have but have not expressed: Hidden feelings can consume all your energy and leave you feeble to deal with the present opportunities. I’ve always felt unexpressed pain of death of my brother who died over thirty years ago.
• Things I wanted to enjoy but I haven’t: I always wanted to take my family on a world tour before my daughters go away to college.

2. Rank them: Idea of writing what haunts you is to detach emotion that caused the pain in the first place. When I write this list, I wanted to add a note to write “What will happen if I won’t deal with this ?”, I allow my mind to release worries and enable it to focus on what is important for the present moment. I ranked “Things I wanted to enjoy but I haven’t” highest for the fact that in few years my daughters will enter college and thereafter pursue career so it is crucial for me to consider these years that I have with them to make them memorable for the rest of my life. You may have entirely different list and different set of priorities based on the current circumstances. Significance of this step is in relating the past with the priorities of the present and judge importance of the past solely based on a rational rather than emotional friction. I remove items that have no bearing on the present and remaining list gets ranked between 1 and 10 for the sake of priority. This is powerful since it converts these painful thoughts into enabler goals that I feel motivated and passionate about. Write down details of the effects of taking action on a specific incomplete item so that you can visualize the benefit of taking action. For example, I wrote down that by going back to bed early, I can wake up with greater energy.The list can go on and on until you can’t think of thoughts that are haunting you. Writing these emotions is akin to a doctor asking you to explain in writing what is that you wanted him/her to treat and any history related to it.

3. Do It Now: You have won half of the battle by taking control of this list which once controlled your thoughts. That itself is an achievement. Hang the list with priority and importance on your work desk or bathroom door so that you can see it daily. Last but not least step is to associate completion date. I’ve learned that importance of writing targeted completion date is to prepare thoughts of purging emotions that once caused grief and despair. What I’ve become through this journey is the champion of worries that kept me from living in the present moments. I created wholeness within me. I choose for my mind to dwell on courage to confront pain and convert that into an opportunity.

Law of Attraction and My Painful Past

When I allow my mind to engage in thoughts that bring emotional pain, I conform to Law of Attraction by attracting more of what I do not want. I, instead, want to manifest positive thoughts of taking action by dealing with what causes me pain. Soon, I start to put Law of Attraction to work again but this time to attract more of what I want. It all happens without my conscious awareness yet I start feeling the result through burst of positive feelings that show in my attitude, in my relationship and with everyone who comes in contact with me. So why on this earth I ever wanted to be held hostage by the painful past and not have courage and determination to confront it today ? May be it was fear of failure that attracted thoughts of procrastination and then self pity but by confronting things that I have not completed in the past, and by making conscious decision to either take them on or not, I have become a man of my own.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
-Theodore Roosevelt

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To Your Success,