Who you were five years ago is not who you are today. Who you were ten years ago, that is not who you are today. If you are focused on your personal growth and development and your inner self-growth, then you are always growing and working on becoming the best of yourself. The person you were when you did the things you did when you were young(er) is not the same person who is looking back at you in the mirror. That is why you should not allow your past to define who you are now and who you are becoming.
Do not be alarmed, but your past will always be with you. It is a part of who you are as a human being. Simply put, your past happened in your life and not in someone else’s. However, do not allow who you were in the past to dictate your present and to destroy your future. Use your past as a gauge to see how far you have traveled, how much you have grown and the things that you have learned in your self-development journey.
As you begin to grow yourself, working on your inner self will enable you to do away with the behaviours that no longer serve you. You are changing the thoughts that no longer serve you. Your life does not stop in the past, it continues. We are now in the year of 2014, not 2010, not 2004 and definitely not 1999. The years change, the days, month and hour change and so do you. Each day is a new day that we can create a better Self, a better life for ourselves and for others.
Your growth is personal to you and you will work on it at your own pace. Stop feeling guilty, embarrassed, and ashamed. Stop feeling regret. There is a reason why regret is a wasted emotion. That is because you cannot go back in time and change anything. However, we can use the things that happened in the past to shape our present so that we can move confidently and purposefully into our future. Do not let your past hold you back from thriving in your life.
Do not allow your past to hold you back; use it to empower yourself. Find the times that you had some challenges and difficulties and notice how you handled yourself and the strength you gained from those challenges. If your entire early life was riddled with pain, traumas, struggles and disappointments, look at who you are today and how you survived those traumatic events. One of the best ways to see our past in a different light is to use it to inspire and motivate others.
You can use your past traumas to help others who are experiencing or who have experienced a painful childhood. When seeking out ways to use your life to serve others, make sure that you are not only taking care of yourself, you are also doing something that connects with your Soul. If it does not connect with you then you will not be able to give yourself fully to those you are serving.
You can share your story, share what you have learned, share your pain so that others who are looking for healing and strength can see themselves in what you went through, therefore, they are able to relate. You can do so through your writing a book, writing articles, creating a charity, becoming a Therapist, Life Coach, Social Worker, Counselor or whatever other avenues that can bring you together with the individuals who are seeking understanding, healing, empowerment and someone who is really there for them as individuals. If you are at a loss on how you can use your past to help others, think of what you would have needed then as a child and now as an adult, who may still have that hurt little boy/girl inside of you.
When we go through any of life’s difficulties, disappointments, challenges and or obstacles it can cause us to want to give up on life or we may find ourselves going down an unhealthy path. Coming back from that path will take a lot of strength on your part, upliftment and inspiration from others who have gone through what you are going through or similar so they will understand your pain. Others who have shared their story in order to let others know that someone understands and knows what they are going through.
Okay, you may be saying that you never really experienced anything traumatic in your early life so there is nothing to grow from. That is not true. Your old life may have been okay for who you were at that time. Just because you grew up in something and everyone is doing that, that does not mean that you need to stay with the pack. Like McDonalds – SUPERSIZE YOUR LIFE! Discover your own path and blaze your own trail. You can change your life, you can improve your life and you can expand your life.
One of the first things we need to do is to stop believing that we are somehow bad because of our past and/or our childhood. That is so far from the truth. You are not your deeds and you are not your emotions. Yes, even if you do good, you are not the good deeds that you do. You are also not the so-called bad deeds that you do. Refrain from attaching yourself to external outcomes. That is because external outcomes can change at any moment and if you change at every turn, you will not have a firm foundation on which to stand on.
Growing yourself into the person that you desire will mean bringing up all the emotions that no longer serves you, emotions that if kept inside of you will cause you to be stuck in your past and to what happened in your past. Bringing up and healing those emotions that no longer serve you will also help you to do away with the behaviours that no longer serve you and who you are becoming.
As mentioned before, you can look back into your past for the strength and motivation that you need in your present. While you may have been just surviving in your past, you now have the chance to thrive in your present and future life. That is because you are no longer defining who you are by what happened in your past or by what others use to say about you. You are not that no-good boy that would turn out to be nothing. You are not that stubborn and lazy little girl that others labeled you as, nor are you that little girl whose life is not going to turn out to anything good just because you did not believe in certain cultural or religious issues. Or my favourite, because I do not know how to cook, my husband is going to beat me and cheat on me with the maid. As an adult woman, the cheat on me with the maid part, that I have no control over, however, a man raising his hand to hit me – Don’t think so!
While your past should not define who you are today and who you are becoming, your past can help to mold the person whom you have become. I use my past to help women who are ready to begin their journey to building a powerful and wholistic relationship with themselves so that they can create and live a passionate life.
You too can create the person that you desire to be. You do not need to continue believing what the adults told you when you were a child. Starting today, start to carve out You. Yes, carve out the You that you desire to be. That way you can break free from the tentacles of the past. You will be able to begin living passionately and instead of just surviving, you will now be able to create and live a thriving life.