If you are a human you have a past. If you can achieve puberty you can achieve a past as Truvy from Steel Magnolias says in the movie. We all have a past. There are things we are proud of like Al Bundy getting 4 touchdowns in 1966. There are things we are not proud of. We may have done great but are still not proud of how we achieved that result. The point is we as humans have thoughts about the past. Those thoughts can be good or they can be bad. The problem is do they hold you back?
I have talked about living in the past and thinking of events from the frame of the past. The past has a very small point of use. Yet as men, we often want to live in the past so often. We will worry and obsess about something we did 20 years ago. We tie our guts up in knots because of some boneheaded move we did last week. We all have thoughts about those events. Especially about the ones we are not proud of.
What you did
It doesn’t matter what you did. It could be that you were drunk and you wrecked your car. It could be that you were in prison for manslaughter. It could be that you have even done something even worse than that. Your past is in the past.
Many times we have shame over what we did and shame isn’t a bad thing. This is where I and Brune Brown differ. She has the message that you shouldn’t have any shame. While I say shame is a natural emotion. It is your reaction to something you know you did wrong. Where our message comes together is that you shouldn’t dwell in shame. The key is what you are making that shame mean to you.
Very Well Mind says shame is
Feeling that you are bad, worthy of contempt, or inadequate as a person
The Problem is that like other emotions we ruminate over the circumstance over and over. Which creates a continuation of the feeling of shame. So we stay in that same place of feeling shamed and believing we are not worthy of redemption.
Guilt on the other hand is the knowledge that we did wrong. Yeah, we can confuse the two. We often do associate guilt with shame and shame with guilt. Yet guilt is good because you then are aware of the wrong you did so you will avoid doing that same event.
To get past that shame and guilt of your wrongdoing, you have to change how your thoughts about the circumstance.
What are you making the circumstance of the past mean?
Let’s say you had an affair. A few years ago, You realized after repeated rendezvous at hotels and business trips that You don’t love this woman. She is only satiating an itch that wasn’t being fulfilled at home. After you end the affair, a year later your wife finds out about it. She confronts you and is hurt and angry. She does a lot of yelling. There is a destruction of trust. How can she ever trust you? You feel shame for violating her trust in you as a man. You feel the shame and guilt of breaking your marriage vows.
You have a choice in this scenario. You could hold on to the shame and not get past it. This will cause you to stay small you will forever stay out of the leadership role for the family because who are you to lead? You cant even keep your word. You won’t try to patch things up because of the shame you feel when you see your wife. Your connection breaks down even more which leads to fewer and fewer opportunities for you to be intimate, because why would your wife want to be intimate with a guy who just nonchalantly destroyed her trust?
Then again you could take that same scenario and instead of wallowing in that shame you could acknowledge the shame you are feeling and understand that because you actually cut the affair off 2 or three years ago you actually are on the road to rebuilding your integrity. Then understand that you aren’t the same man you were when that affair was going on. You understand the importance of your marriage. Yes,, you broke your vows, but you are working on being better and repairing that trust. Your aim is now to build the connection you have lost.
You Are Not the Same Person
We all change as people. We have new thoughts. We have new experiences. So we aren’t the same person as we were yesterday much more so when you are looking back 10-30 years in the past. Who we are in personality and actions change as we grow. So did you do a lot of drinking and drugs back when you were in high school? During that time were you seen as the drunk stoner? That doesn’t mean that is who you are now. If you let your past go, it doesn’t matter who you were back then. You are your standards of today. So you can drop the shame and guilt of that bygone time.
Nobody actually cares about your past
One of the biggest parts of our past and even present is that we worry about what people think of us. What would the neighbors think if they knew you had an affair or if you were the drunk stoner in high school? The truth is they don’t. Even if they do find out. It doesn’t matter what they think. It is their own thoughts on the circumstance and they are having those thoughts reflected against their own experiences.
Yeah, there are going to be those who try to hold it over your head. Yet you can also have the choice to let that affect you or not. President Clinton didn’t let his smoking pot fully hold him back and admitted to smoking but told the fib that he didn’t inhale. You see how if he truly embraced not worrying about how other people think he would have told the truth. Even that lie was forgivable as he was eventually elected to office.
In reality, we all worry about what other people are going to think and they don’t think of you. It can be a bit of a blow to the ego but your past isn’t that interesting to people. Yeah, it might be embarrassing to have the people of your church find out that you were a pothead in high school but would you be the person you are now if it hadn’t happened to you?
You see your past doesn’t have any power over you. The only person who is holding you back is your mind and the thought you have about that circumstance. You are going to play small out of fear that others will judge you. Yet you judged yourself by comparing who you were then to who you are now. Those were two different people.
If you would like help getting past your past then please reach out and set up a consult call and let’s see if we can work together.
