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read it wrie everything you learn from We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.
—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Gloria was a hardworking fifty-five-year-old woman who had been referred to counseling after telling her doctor that she was feeling extremely stressed. Her twenty-eight-year-old daughter had recently moved back in with her again. Since moving out of Gloria’s home at eighteen she’d been back at least a dozen times. She’d usually find a new boyfriend and within weeks, if not days, of meeting him, she’d move in with him. But it never worked out and she’d always move back in with Gloria.
Gloria’s daughter was unemployed and she wasn’t actively looking for work. She spent her days watching TV and surfing the Internet. She couldn’t be bothered to help out around the house, or even clean up after herself. Although Gloria said she felt like she was offering hotel and maid services, she always welcomed her daughter to stay with her.
She thought giving her daughter a place to stay was the least she could do. She hadn’t given her daughter the childhood she most likely deserved, and she admitted she hadn’t been a very good mother. After she and her husband divorced, Gloria had dated a lot of men, and many of them weren’t healthy role models. Gloria now understood she’d invested too much energy into drinking and dating rather than parenting. And she felt like the mistakes she made were the reason her daughter was struggling so much now. It was clear from the start that Gloria’s shame over the way she’d parented led her to enable her daughter now that she was an adult. The majority of Gloria’s stress stemmed from her anxiety over her daughter’s immature behavior. She worried about her daughter’s future and she wanted her to be able to have a job and live independently.
The more we talked, the more Gloria recognized that her shame and guilt were interfering with her ability to be a good parent now. She had to forgive herself and stop dwelling on the past if she wanted to move forward and do what was best for her daughter. When I asked her to consider the likelihood that her daughter would simply wake up one day and start behaving responsibly given the current conditions, Gloria acknowledged that wasn’t going to happen but she wasn’t sure what to do.
Over the next few weeks, we explored how Gloria viewed the past. Whenever she thought about her daughter’s childhood, she’d think things like I am such a bad person for not always putting my daughter’s needs first or It’s my fault my daughter has so many problems. We explored her thoughts, and slowly but surely, Gloria learned how her self-condemnation influenced the way she treated her daughter in the present.
Gradually, Gloria began to accept the reality that while she wasn’t an idyllic mother, punishing herself for that today would not change the past. She also began to recognize that her current behavior toward her daughter wasn’t making amends but instead enabling her daughter’s self-destructive behavior.
Armed with her new attitude, Gloria created some rules and set limits with her daughter. She told her that she could only remain living in her home if she were actively looking for work. She was willing to give her some time to get back on her feet, but starting in two months, she’d need to pay rent if she were going to continue living at home. Although her daughter was initially upset with Gloria’s new rules, she began looking for work within a few days.
Within a few weeks Gloria entered my office to proudly announce that her daughter had a job and unlike some of the other jobs she’d had before, this one could become a career. She said she’d seen huge changes in her daughter since she was offered this job and she was talking a lot more about her future aspirations. Although Gloria hadn’t yet completely forgiven herself for the past, she recognized that the only thing worse than being a bad parent for eighteen years would be to be a bad parent for another eighteen years.
STUCK IN HISTORY
Sometimes people dwell on the things that happened years ago, while others tend to dwell on whatever happened last week. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?
You wish you could press the rewind button so you could redo portions of your life.
You struggle with major regrets about your past.
You spend a lot of time wondering how life would have turned out if only you had chosen a slightly different path.
You sometimes feel like the best days of your life are already behind you.
You replay past memories in your mind like a scene from a movie over and over again.
You sometimes imagine saying or doing something differently in past memories to try and create a different outcome.
You punish yourself or convince yourself you don’t deserve to be happy.
You feel ashamed of your past.
When you make a mistake or experience an embarrassing episode, you keep repeatedly replaying the event in your mind.
You invest a lot of time in thinking about all the things you “should have” or “could have” done differently.
Although self-reflection is healthy, dwelling can be self-destructive, preventing you from enjoying the present and planning for the future. But you don’t have to stay stuck in the past. You can choose to start living in the moment.
WHY WE DWELL ON THE PAST
Gloria’s daughter often manipulated her mother by preying on her guilt, reminding Gloria that she wasn’t always there for her as a child, which only fueled Gloria’s remorse. If her daughter hadn’t yet forgiven her, how could Gloria possibly forgive herself? She accepted her feelings of constant guilt as part of her penance for the mistakes she’d made, and as a result she continued to dwell on the past.
Lingering guilt, shame, and anger are just a few of the feelings that can keep you stuck in the past. You might subconsciously think, If I stay miserable long enough, I’ll eventually be able to forgive myself. You may not even be aware that deep down, you don’t believe you deserve happiness.
THE FEAR OF MOVING FORWARD MAKES US WANT TO STAY STUCK IN THE PAST
Two weeks after my mother passed away, my dad’s house caught on fire. The fire was contained to the basement, but smoke and black soot permeated throughout the house. Everything in the entire house had to be cleaned from top to bottom by a crew hired by the insurance company. All my mother’s belongings were handled by complete strangers. And it bothered me.
I had wanted things to stay just the way my mother had left them. I wanted her clothes to stay hung in the closet the same way she had arranged them. I wanted her Christmas decorations to stay in the boxes in the same way she’d organized them. I wanted to someday—way down the road—open her jewelry box and see how she had last placed her jewelry. But we didn’t have that luxury. Instead, everything got rearranged. Her clothes no longer smelled like her. I had no way of even knowing what the last book was that she was reading. And we’d never be able to sort through her belongings at our own pace.
A few years later when Lincoln died, I again wanted everything to stay frozen in time. I felt like if I studied the way he kept his clothing hung in the closet, or if I could figure out which order he’d read his books in, I’d be able to learn more about him, even though he was gone. I thought that if things got moved around, thrown out, or reorganized, I’d lose my opportunity to study valuable clues that could give me more insight and information about him.
It was as if I could keep him with me if I made sure there were always more things to learn. Maybe a scrap of paper would have a note on it. Or maybe I’d find a picture I’d never seen before. I wanted to somehow create new memories that included Lincoln, even though he wasn’t there. Although we’d been together for six years, it just wasn’t enough. I wasn’t ready to let go of anything that reminded me of him. I thought I’d be leaving him behind if I got rid of his belongings that I no longer needed, and I didn’t want that.
My attempts to keep everything frozen in time didn’t work. Obviously, the rest of the world kept going. And over the course of many months, I was able to begin to let go of my desire to keep everything as if it were in a time capsule. Slowly, I would reassure myself that it was okay to throw away something with Lincoln’s handwriting on it. And I started to get rid of the magazines he kept receiving in the mail. But I have to admit, it took me two years to finally throw away his toothbrush. I knew he didn’t need it, but somehow throwing it away almost seemed like a betrayal. It seemed more comfortable to dwell in the past, because that’s where Lincoln, and my memories of him, lived. But to stay stuck there, while the rest of the world changed and moved forward, wasn’t healthy or helpful. I had to trust that moving forward wouldn’t cause me to forget any of my wonderful memories.
Even though as a therapist I help people work on their rational thinking, grief brought on a lot of irrational thoughts. It made me want to dwell on the past, because the past was where Lincoln was alive. But if I had spent all my time thinking about the past, I’d have never been able to create new and happy memories again.
DWELLING ON THE PAST DISTRACTS YOU FROM THE PRESENT
It’s not just sad or tragic events that leave people focused on the past. Sometimes we dwell on the past as a way to distract ourselves from the present. Perhaps you know that forty-year-old former high school quarterback who still squeezes into his varsity jacket and talks about his “old glory days.” Or maybe you’re friends with the thirty-five-year-old mom who still lists “prom queen” as one of her biggest accomplishments. Often, we romanticize the past as a way to escape problems in the present.
If, for example, you’re not happy in your current relationship, or if you’re not in a relationship at all, it may be tempting to spend a lot of time thinking about a past love. Perhaps you wish that your last relationship had worked out or you still think if you’d married your high school sweetheart, you’d be better off.
It can be tempting to fixate on how much easier or happier life was “back then.” You may even begin to regret some of the decisions you made that landed you where you are today and say things like “If only I’d married my old boyfriend, I’d still be happy”; “If I hadn’t dropped out of college, I’d have a job I love”; or “If I didn’t agree to move to a new city, I’d still have a good life.” The truth is, we don’t know what life would have had in store for us had we not made those choices. But it’s easy for us to imagine that life could be better if we could only change the past.
THE PROBLEM WITH DWELLING ON THE PAST
Gloria couldn’t see her daughter as a capable adult; all she could see were her own mistakes. Her guilt prevented her from focusing on the present and as a result, she enabled her daughter’s irresponsible behavior. Unfortunately, her daughter was repeating a lot of the same mistakes Gloria had made. Dwelling on the past was not only holding Gloria back from reaching her full potential, but it was also holding her daughter back from maturing into a responsible adult.
Ruminating on the past won’t change it. Instead, wasting your time dwelling on what’s already happened will only lead to more problems in the future. Here are some of the ways that dwelling on the past can interfere with your ability to be your best self:
• You miss out on the present. You can’t enjoy the present if your mind is constantly stuck in the past. You’ll miss out on experiencing new opportunities and celebrating the joys of today if you’re distracted by things that have already occurred.
• Dwelling on the past makes it impossible to adequately prepare for the future. You won’t be able to clearly define your goals or stay motivated to create change when a big part of you remains stuck in the past.
• Dwelling on the past interferes with your decision-making skills. When you have unresolved issues from the past, those conflicts will cloud your thinking. You won’t be able to adequately make healthy decisions about what’s best for you today when you can’t get over something that happened yesterday.
• Dwelling on the past doesn’t solve anything. Replaying the same scripts in your head and focusing on things you no longer have control over won’t resolve anything.
• Dwelling on the past can lead to depression. Ruminating on negative events conjures up negative emotions. And when you feel sad, the more likely you are to conjure up even more sad memories. Dwelling on past times can be a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck in the same emotional state.
• Romanticizing the past—the grass-is-greener philosophy—isn’t helpful. It’s easy to convince yourself that you felt happier, more confident, and completely carefree back then. But there’s a good chance you’re exaggerating how great things used to be. It can also make you exaggerate how bad things are now.
• Dwelling on the past is bad for your physical health. Thinking constantly about negative events increases inflammation in your body, according to a 2013 study conducted by researchers at the University of Ohio. Dwelling on the past could put you at a greater risk for diseases associated with heart disease, cancer, and dementia.
STOP THE PAST FROM HOLDING YOU BACK
Once Gloria recognized that she could learn from her past, rather than just beating herself up over it, her thinking shifted. She began changing her behavior and the way she parented her daughter. This helped her recognize how her past mistakes taught her valuable lessons about parenting. Over the course of a couple of months she was able to recall her earlier parenting mistakes without an overwhelming sense of shame.
SHIFT YOUR THINKING
Dwelling starts out as a cognitive process, but eventually it influences your emotions and behavior. By shifting the way you think about the past, you can move forward.
• Schedule time to think about a past event. Sometimes our brains need a chance to sort things out and the more you tell yourself not to think about it, the more those memories can crop up throughout the day. Instead of battling to suppress the memories, remind yourself, I can think about that after dinner tonight. Then, after dinner, give yourself twenty minutes to think about it. When your time is up, move on to something else.
• Give yourself something else to think about. Create a plan to help you think about something else. For example, decide that whenever you think about that job you didn’t get, you’ll shift your focus to thinking about planning your next vacation. This can be especially helpful if you’re prone to dwell on the negative right before you go to sleep at night.
• Establish goals for the future. It’s impossible to dwell on the past if you’re planning for the future. Establish both short-term and long-term goals and begin working on the action steps needed to achieve those goals. It will give you something to look forward to while also preventing you from looking too much into the past.
Our memories aren’t as accurate as we think they are. Often, when we recall unpleasant events, we exaggerate and catastrophize them. If you think about something you said during a meeting that you later regretted, you may envision that other people were reacting much more negatively than they actually did. When you recall negative memories, try these strategies to keep your experiences in perspective:
• Focus on the lessons you learned. If you’ve endured hard times, focus on what you’ve learned from that experience. Accept that it happened and think about how you may be a changed person because of it, but realize that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Maybe you learned to speak up because you allowed yourself to be treated poorly, or perhaps you learned that you need to be honest if you want relationships to last. Some of the best life lessons can be learned from the toughest times you’ve endured.
• Think about the facts, not the emotion. Thinking about negative events can be very distressing because you’ll likely focus on how you felt during the event. But if you recall an event by walking yourself through the facts and details of the memory, your distress decreases. Instead of dwelling on how you felt when you went to a funeral, recall specific details about where you sat, what you wore, who was there. When you begin to take away the emotion surrounding an event, you’re less likely to dwell on it.
• Look at the situation differently. When you review your past, examine what other ways there are to look at the same situation. You have control over how you weave the story. The same story can be told countless ways and still be true. If your current version is upsetting, see how else you can look at it. For example, Gloria could have reminded herself that her daughter’s current choices weren’t all related to her childhood. She could have recognized that although she may have made some mistakes, she was not responsible for the choices her daughter was making now.
MAKE PEACE WITH THE PAST
When James Barrie was six years old, his thirteen-year-old brother, David, died in an ice skating accident. Although his mother had ten children total, it was no secret that David had been her favorite. After his death, she was so distraught she could hardly cope with life.
So at the age of six, Barrie did everything he could to compensate for his mother’s grief. He even tried to take over the role of David to help fill the void his mother felt from his death. He dressed in David’s clothing and learned how to whistle the same way David used to. He became her constant companion as he devoted his entire childhood to trying to make his mother smile again.
Despite Barrie’s attempts to make his mother happy, she often warned him about the hardships of being an adult. She told him to never grow up because adulthood was only filled with grief and unhappiness. She even said she took some relief knowing that David would never have to grow up and face the realities of adulthood.
In an attempt to please his mother, Barrie resisted maturity as much as he could. He especially didn’t want to grow any older than David had been when he’d passed away. He tried with all his might to remain a child. His attempts to stay a boy even seemed to stunt his physical growth as he hardly reached five feet tall.
After he finished school, Barrie wanted to become an author. But his family pressured him to go on to study at a university, because that’s what David would have done. So Barrie found a compromise—he’d continue his education but he’d study literature.
Barrie went on to pen one of the most famous works of children’s literature, Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. Originally written as a play, which later became a famous movie, the main character, Peter Pan, faces the conflict between the innocence of childhood and the responsibility of adulthood. Peter chooses to remain a child and encourages all the other children to do the same. As the legendary fairy tale, it seems like a delightful children’s story. But when you know the author’s history, the anecdote is quite tragic.
Barrie’s mother couldn’t move forward after the death of her son. She was convinced that childhood was the best time of her life and that the present and future were only riddled with pain and agony. As an extreme case of someone who dwelled on the past, she allowed it to interfere with the well-being of her children. It affected Barrie not just during his childhood, but also throughout his adulthood.
The misconceptions we hold about grief can contribute to our choice to live in the past. Many people wrongly believe that the amount of time you grieve over someone is directly proportional to the amount of love you had for someone. If you cared a little about someone who died, you may grieve for months. But if you really loved that person, you’d grieve for years or even for the rest of your life. But the truth is, there isn’t a right amount of time to grieve. In fact, you may grieve for years, or even forever, but the amount of sadness you feel doesn’t equate to the amount of love you had for that person.
Hopefully, you have many cherished memories of your loved one. But moving forward means actively working toward creating new memories for yourself, making the best decisions for you, and not always doing what someone else would want you to do.
If you find yourself ruminating on some aspect of your past, you may need to take action to make peace with the past. Here are some ways to make peace with the past:
• Give yourself permission to move forward. Sometimes you just need to give yourself permission to move forward. Moving forward doesn’t mean you have to leave your memories of a loved one behind, but it does mean you can do the things you need to do to enjoy the moment and get the most you can out of life.
• Recognize the emotional toll of dwelling on the past versus moving forward. Sometimes dwelling on the past is a strategy that works in the short term but not in the long term. If you think about the past, you don’t have to focus on what’s going on right now. But, over the long term, there are consequences. Recognize what you’ll miss out on in life if your attention is focused on the past.
• Practice forgiveness. Whether you’re dwelling on past hurt and anger because you can’t forgive yourself or because you can’t forgive someone else, forgiveness can help you let go of that hurt. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting something happened. If someone hurt you, you can forgive them while still deciding not to have any more contact, for example. Instead, focus on letting go so you don’t stay consumed with the hurt and anger.
• Change behavior that keeps you stuck in the past. If you find yourself avoiding certain activities—because you are afraid it will drudge up bad memories or because you feel like you don’t deserve to do them—consider doing them anyway. You can’t change the past. But you can choose to accept it. If you’ve made mistakes, you can’t go back and fix them or erase them. You may be able to try and take steps to repair some of the damage you’ve caused, but it won’t make everything better.
• Seek professional help if necessary. Sometimes traumatic events can lead to mental health issues, like post-traumatic stress disorder. Near-death experiences, for example, can lead to flashbacks and nightmares that make it difficult to make peace with the past. Professional counseling can help reduce the distress associated with traumatic memories so you can move forward more productively.
HOW MAKING PEACE WITH THE PAST WILL MAKE YOU STRONGER
Wynona Ward grew up in rural Vermont. Her family was poor, and as in many homes in the area, domestic violence was common. Ward’s father routinely physically and sexually abused her. She often witnessed her father beating her mother. Although doctors treated her mother’s wounds and neighbors heard their screams, no one ever intervened.
Ward kept her family problems a secret. She immersed herself in her academics and excelled in school. At the age of seventeen, she left home and got married. She and her husband became over-the-road truck drivers.
After sixteen years of traveling the country as a truck driver, Ward learned that her older brother had abused a young family member. It was at that moment that she decided that she had to do something. She decided to go back to school so she could help put an end to the generational abuse that was going on within her family.
Ward enrolled in the University of Vermont and studied from the truck while her husband drove. She completed her degree and went on to further her education at Vermont Law School. Upon getting her law degree, she used a small grant to start Have Justice Will Travel, an organization that serves families in rural areas affected by domestic violence.
Ward provides rural domestic violence victims with free legal representation. She also connects them with the appropriate social services. Because many families lack the resources or transportation to travel to an office, Ward travels to them. She provides education and services that help families put an end to generational cycles of abuse. Instead of dwelling on her horrific past, Ward chooses to focus on what she can do to help other people in the present.
Refusing to dwell on the past doesn’t mean you pretend the past didn’t happen. In fact, it often means embracing and accepting your experiences so you can live in the present. Doing so frees up your mental energy and allows you to plan for your future based on who you want to become, not who you used to be. Anger, shame, and guilt can run your life if you’re not careful. Letting go of those emotions helps you to be in charge of your life.
TROUBLESHOOTING AND COMMON TRAPS
If you spend all your time looking in the rearview mirror, you can’t look out the windshield. Staying stuck in the past will prevent you from enjoying the future. Recognize times when you’re dwelling on the past and take the steps necessary to heal your emotions so you can move forward.
WHAT’S HELPFUL
Reflecting on the past enough that you can learn from it
Moving forward in your life, even when it may be painful to do so
Actively working through grief so you can focus on the present and plan for the future
Thinking about negative events in terms of facts, not emotions
Finding ways to make peace with the past
WHAT’S NOT HELPFUL
Trying to pretend the past didn’t happen
Trying to prevent yourself from moving forward in life
Focusing on what you’ve lost in life without being able to live in the present
Replaying painful events in your mind repeatedly and focusing on how you felt during them
Trying to undo the past or make up for your past mistakes