Making Peace with The Past

I feel as if I have a chance to put some things to rest, things I regret doing and things I regret not doing. Living in the past does not allow one to be fully present in the now. And the now is the only time we truly have. Thinking about past loves, past jobs, past friends, past events only keeps our energy tied there. And thinking obsessively about one's future doesn't help to bring it about. The only way to live is in the now. The only way to make a dream come true is to live effectively in the present moment.

My latest journey began when I left NYC in October of 2009. It's almost as if Spirit is leading me to process things I need to relook at and leave behind in order to move forward.

One is my dysfunctional childhood that was filled with neglect and abuse by both parents. I realize looking back that many of my choices in life and what I have attracted into my life was an attempt to work out and process that pain. Bosses who didn't honor me and boyfriends who were emotionally unavailable were just mirroring back to me things I needed to work through. Becoming more spiritually enlightened has helped me immensely to process these things. After having read Eckart Tolle's books, I practiced being in the now. I prayed for truth and I got it in spades.

I made many revelations on this my latest journey. I left a job that didn't honor me, a place I didn't fit in with its value system to strike out once again to find where I truly belong. Perhaps I don't want a permanent home, because it might mean putting down roots and not venturing into the unknown. And part of me loves the unknown, the mystery of life beckons me onward. At times I just don't know what compels me.

In the desert of New Mexico, I realized how my past was dragging behind me like a ball and chain and until I looked at it, accepted it, and processed it, I would not be happy. So one of my roommates was my mirror. She had post-traumatic stress syndrome from her childhood abuse. Her's was certainly more severe than mine, but through her, I realized I saw the world through my inner child's eye.

I only knew that I wasn't good enough for someone to truly love me, because my parents didn't even love me enough to pay attention to me, to nurture me. I thought I had long since forgiven them for not being great parents, but apparently, this roommate was showing me that I had not.

So in three months' time, I did inner child work. I meditated on loving that child, giving her what she needed. Of course, this has been a process for several years. I believe it came to a head in New Mexico. Spirit was saying to me "do you want to move forward or forever wander in the desert of your own making." I chose to leave it all behind. I finally completely forgave my parents and I looked back on my life and saw the choices I made and how my unforgiveness and anger and hurt influenced the totality of my life.

I realized too that I was never really living in the present. My thoughts were always either in the past trying to somehow make it different or in the future trying to force something to happen.

Over the years, I've created about 10 vision boards. It depicted the future I wanted to bring about. And I suppose in a limited way vision boards are good, but not the way in which I was using them. Somehow I just couldn't live in the present. There was always something better out there waiting to happen. I believe this was a leftover way of coping from my childhood. My imagination saved me from an unhappy childhood, but it was literally destroying my adult life. I was always thinking of something outside myself to make me happy. And it had to stop or life was to continue being about someplace else or something else besides where I was or who I was with.

I left New Mexico two weeks ago, giving up any chance of making my life happen there. But I learned much about myself. Perhaps the solitude of the desert did its magic on my soul and I truly believe everything happens for a reason. Some of my friends think I failed and if I did sometimes failure is a good thing. For failure allows us to see how we react to disappointment and if all we do is make the right choices in life how can we grow? I suppose those who are afraid to fail never take risks at all. Perhaps some people never want change and they will never let go of the anger and the pain of the past that drives them. That is their choice.

I have chosen to grow, to change to seek the light, and sometimes that path isn't easy. But once you pray for truth, for happiness, God will make sure you get it. I believe in order to be happy we have to leave behind and release the things that are keeping us from it. God doesn't keep us from it. We keep ourselves from it.

Spiritual enlightenment comes at a cost, but its rewards are far greater. Happiness seeps in somewhere in between.