Past Dwelling

The past can be a pleasant place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there. Besides being impossible (pending purchase of the DeLorean) it stops you from enjoying the present for the present that it is and moving forward with joyous intentions and a kick-ass hair-do and wardrobe (one hopes). Past-dwelling doesn’t have to mean going so far back you could hook up with your mum or ride a buggy and wear a bonnet, but even reliving yesterday’s spat with your boss over and over and over again is detrimental.

Why? The outcome remains unchanged but the pain stays fresh if you rehash and rehash it and we usually rehash it with added horror for dramatic effect. I swear! She hit me over the head with a chair! Feel the full force of the feeling quickly and then move on Swiftly like a true Swiftie (The Old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Cause she’s dead!)

“Everyone goes through hell, but not everyone stays there. Stop tormenting yourself by reliving the pain over and over. Good people go through terrible things, but wise people know when and how to let it go”. Bryant McGill.

Let it go: As that Disney song refuses to die (especially as I’m surrounded daily by 4 year olds), we may as well gain some learning from it and use it to remind us to, let it go! Let it go! Name the feelings (often shame/ guilt for me), symbolically shift them (sweating out the bad vibes on the Stairmaster/ washing them down the shower drain/ burning them in letter form) and then reaffirm that here I stand and here I stay by doing something grounding like listening for sounds in nature (howling wind), breathing deeply and audibly (Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried) or taking off your shoes and feeling the floor/ snow. Once you’ve let IT go and re-established yourself back in the present detached from the past, let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.

You have no power over me power over me power over me: Reclaim places, music and things by giving them new positive memories rather than being pulled down by the anchor of the past. Now when some jerk threatens to ruin something for me, I force myself to reclaim it quickly. Flip you! Yes, I sipped a coconut flat white and twirled my hair here with you but now I’m sipping a coconut flat white and twirling my hair here with my mates. Ditto listening to ‘that song’ and making a new memory with it; this is no longer ‘our song’ this is ‘my Sweaty Vetty vs. the Stairmaster song’. Put sentimental items like jewellery in paper bags with some salt to symbolically cleanse them. And focus on forgiving people by visualising them happy and having everything they want. If Taylor can forgive Katy, then anything is possible. Everything is renewed in every moment so the past has no power over me power over me power over me.

Love and light and let it go xxx Yvette

“I’m sorry, the Old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Cause she’s dead” Taylor Swift. Song: Look what you made me do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Tc2sd2ygY

 “You have no power over me”: Super cute Jennifer Connelly tells this to 80’s David Bowie in “Labyrinth” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1AD6LPmJO4