How to Change the Past
It seems like an impossible task…
To turn back the hands of time and be granted the opportunity to do it over again. To erase what has been done, the hurt that has been felt, the failures that you’ve had to live with. If only there was a way to go back and do it all over. Maybe then you would say the right thing, you would follow through on your commitments even when it was overwhelmingly hard. You would become a success and you would never have to feel the pain of loss, or the shame of failure.
If only there was a do-over button in life…
Well, if a do-over button does exist, I haven’t found it. But, what I do have is perhaps something better than a do-over.
I have to believe that pain and shame and sorrow and heartache are feelings that serve a purpose in life, and without them you can never really experience the true joys of success and love and abundance and pure gratitude. What if these feelings were really tools to help us grow and learn and become better humans?
It’s true that in the moment you are feeling down it can be really hard to see the bright side of things. But time has a way of carrying us through these tough times. Nothing ever hurts forever. I promise.
These feelings serve a purpose to guide us through life. It is important to use them to determine the right path for you going forward. Appreciate them and be thankful for them because without them you might never be pushed in the direction of what is good and right for you.
So back to the time machine I promised you…
Far too often we only see the failures when we look into the past. We replay the “should’ve,” “could’ve,” “would’ve” statements to ourselves. We remember vividly the embarrassments and the regrets because they were impactful. And remembering these things has an evolutionary advantage for us as social beings. Our brains remember these feelings because our brains are designed to deter us from danger in the future. And as social creatures, embarrassment and failure are viewed as dangerous because they can alienate us from the pack.
Especially when we set high expectations and high standards for ourselves, we tend to linger on the things that we did wrong. Pretty soon, those thoughts that we continue to have about out past become our past. The failure becomes the story and now we have to live with it, because we can’t change it.
We are the stories we tell. When someone asks, “Who are you?” you would answer with some version of who you were in the past, something you did, a title you had, a quick summary of the story of you. And when that story is wrapped in regret and uncertainty, we can begin to feel like we’ve lost touch with who we are. It becomes harder and hard to be authentic with ourselves and with others.
This is what happens when tell ourselves negative stories about our past.
If you have regrets, if you have shame, if you have pain that you carry around with you everyday of your existence, I want you to stop right now and take the first step toward changing the story of your past. While we don’t have the advantage of our brains hard wiring the memories of small successes into our subconscious, we can, in fact, rediscover these moments and give them the credit that they deserve in our stories. Taking time to reflect on all that you did right and all the good you did can bring back the feelings of excitement and joy and success. Because I guarantee that they are a much bigger part of your story than the failures are.
Again, since we can’t rely on our brains to always give emphasis to the good things, we have to make them real to ourselves by writing them down. Take a few minutes now to make a list of all the good things you have done just in the past week. Then go back into the past month, the past year, and even further back if you are holding onto regrets that go far into your past.
Allow yourself to list everything you did right.
A deeper dive can also help you realize the connections between what you viewed as a failure, and good things that you were able to do as a result of that failure. Often our darkest moments have a light at the end of the tunnel and the whole experience turns out to be a blessing. When you can make these connections then the story of your past begins to change.
There can be many versions of the truth. Which truth with empower you to drive forward, to follow your dreams, to reignite your passion for life?
Which truth will you tell yourself?
The concept of Changing Your Past comes from my book, “The Day One Method,” which will be available for pre-order in the summer of 2022.
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