Do you ever feel 'stuck'? Stuck in the past, can't move forward? Maybe you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over?
I know people like this. I was in a conversation with someone recently, and my squirrel brain had an epiphany about someone I know. They just don't know how to move forward with their lives.
I have totally been there. I had a best friend and boyfriend leave me to be with each other....when I was FOURTEEN!!!! Talk about your formative years, good gosh almighty!
That one stuck with me for a long time. Everything I knew in my world, was gone in a second. I couldn't cry to my best friend about the breakup with my boyfriend, because she was with him. I couldn't cry to my boyfriend how I'd lost my best friend, because he was with her.... And as I only had one close friend, I was basically left with nothing!
OUCH......
How do you come to grips with your world of people walking away from you? And to top it off, my sister stayed friends with her, and couldn't understand where I was coming from....
It was a really awful time in my life. I literally had no trust for anyone. Eventually, the boyfriend came back to me. He'd realized within a month that she wasn't me. And being an emotional 14 year old girl, I took him back so I could break up with him a month later. It just wasn't the same.
But the relationship with my friend didn't heal so well. I couldn't get over the fact that she betrayed me.
For years, I tried to come to grips with it all, but it hurt every time I thought about it. We did stay in contact, and I even tried to talk about it with her MANY time over the (now) decades and she talked it out with me every stinkin' time. But I just couldn't let it go. Pretty soon, I wondered what was wrong with me, because I couldn't let it go.
Fast forward many years and we took up contact. We started over so-to-speak. We were adults now and the petty crap of childhood doesn't have space in the day to day of marriage, work, kids. I still never felt 100% however. It stayed in the back of my mind, no matter how I tried to let it go.
Shortly after we took up contact again, I found out she had cancer. Funny thing about cancer....it puts EVERYTHING in perspective. I remember she was stuck in her room, sick. She was spending a lot of time there. So I made up a bunch of large sized prints of places I had been that were scenic. So she could look at them and take "Mental Vacations". Pretty soon, I realized I had finally let go of the past. FINALLY...... I could now look at my friend with new eyes and have a new relationship with her. I could forgive her quirks and not judge them for anything other than "that's HER!"
It was such a great feeling! Thankfully, she has been cancer free and our friendship is strong.
I know that not all people have the ability to let go. I know a few people who are SO far deep in the past, they don't even realize it is holding them from the present.
But what I realize about at least two of these individuals is the past they are holding on to, is representative of the happier time in their lives. If they let that go, they will literally be propelled into the future (today) where there lives are not as happy as they once were. Further more, they will have to own up to the fact that they have power over their lives and I don't see that ever happening.
Holding on can be a blessing and a curse. I was holding on to a painful instance, because I feared I was doomed to have it repeated if I didn't figure it out. But thankfully, with age and perspective, I now realize that it came down to kids being kids. And as we know, kids dont' make smart choices. They make emotional choices. And I was caught in the crossfire. Bummer for me!
I am thankful that I have my approach on life. When things are good, go with it, and when things are bad, learn from it!
Letting go is hard. When we hold on to something, it stops us from going forward and growing. Not to say we can't live our lives, but it dramatically influences every choice we make. It affects our emotions and it plain old keeps us stuck.
I have had a few friends with cancer, who all thankfully survived. I have witnessed how coming back from death changes how much you care about 'stuff'. I have adopted this way for myself. I learned from these women that we can die at any time. Do we want to waste our precious moments on drama, when we can simply say, "whatever happens happens......"
Tim McGraw sang a brilliant song, "Live like you were Dying". It's a great reminder that if we don't appreciate what we have today, one day we will look back on it and wonder why we didn't take advantage of what we have NOW!!!
Learn to let go.
Happy Saturday
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