I stumbled across this when looking for a picture to post in another thread, and it was like the sun shone bright and full in my window after weeks of gray, rainy days, a real AHA moment.
I'd referred in another thread to how I'd been knocked for a loop by someone posting about kicking her 18-year-old daughter out of the house. I'd replied to that post and it just ripped the lid off of a whole load of things in my childhood and young adulthood that I hadn't thought about in a long time.
Since then, I'd been sleeping poorly, feeling anxious, off-kilter, exhausted, crying easily. Not "ruin-my-life" stuff, but just "this is a pretty unpleasant time" kind of stuff. And I read this today and I thought "WOW!!
None of that crap has ANY power other than what I choose to give it! My past isn't 'haunting' me--it has no volition of its own, no means to actively DO
anything to me. It's just
there."
All the power, all the decisions, are in MY hands (or head). No one and nothing is forcing me to look at those things or feel those things again--I CAN and WILL turn loose of them. I do not need to punish myself for what I now know wasn't my fault. I do not need to remind myself that I'm not good enough when, in fact, I AM good enough. I've
already lived through it; it can't hurt me.
All I need to do is acknowledge it whenever it comes up, and then let it go. No need for fear, just forgiveness and release.
This might be hard. It might not. What I do know is that it's absolutely necessary, and that there will be so much more joy and freedom and so much less fear in my life when it's done. And I am so grateful to have had this insight given/sent to me. Thanks to everyone who's helped me get from where I started to right here, right now.
Just thanks.
I hope that by posting this here, others who are struggling with memories, be they good or bad, will realize that memories really
are just ghosts, and we don't have to let them "haunt" us. We can choose, and each time we choose, things change a little bit more.