Releasing the past

I am now home.
I flew in yesterday (yes April I was on one of those long metal tubes suspended in the air) to my beautiful family after having spent the past 10 days with my son (who is also wonderful).
This morning as I updated my Louise Hay Daily Affirmations desk calendar  to the present date, I found the following affirmation for the day just passed:

“I release the past with ease. This is a great day, and I rejoice in it.”

And the words spoke to my heart.
Over the past 10 days there has been much that has occurred in not just my own past but that of my older children that has come to light and caused me pain in knowing just how those choices have affected the children I love.
I have spent time questioning these choices and regretting the impact that those choices have had on my children.
I have questioned my qualifications as a mother and doubted whether I deserve that title.
I have learned things.
And now I am seeing one of my adult children dealing with the fallout caused by these choices and it breaks my heart.

Last night as I spoke with my wonderful Garden Gnome (oh how I’ve missed him) he reminded me that the past is gone and now that it is gone, there is nothing that can be done about it. As he spoke I was reminded of another wise old monkey – Rafiki in The Lion King

Yes, the past does hurt. I fully agree.
What we need to remember (what “I” need to remember) is that we can’t move forward if we keep looking over our shoulder toward our past.
Dealing with the past and learning from it is what makes us stronger.

There are many things that happened in my past that have defined the person that I am now.  Just as my children would not be the wonderful adults that they are now if they had not experienced the past that they had.
The past defines us and changes us. What the past is not able to do is provide us with an excuse for continuing behaviour once we become adults. When we become adults we are capable of reasoning and deduction. We can change ourselves if we wish to and we can’t always blame the past for who we are now.

I am reminded of a current storyline in an Australian television teen soapie where a male character who came from a bad background (with a criminal father) is terrified of having a child because he might turn out like his father.
You know how it is in the world of soapies? They drag a good storyline out and beat it to death before reaching a resolution? All this happened of course before the character finally realised that he is an adult and whilst he may have some genetic traits of his father’s, his ability to be a good father hinged solely upon himself and the decisions that he makes today using the lessons he learned from growing up combined with the wisdom and maturity garnered over the years he has lived so far.

So, as I learn to deal with the ramifications of things that have occurred in the past, I need to acknowledge that these things happened and then release them.
It is in releasing them that I am able to move forward.
The past is in the past. I am not able to go back and do things differently.
What I am able to do though, is live my present to the best of my abilities.