Leave your past and move on...

Leave your past and move on...

There is hardly anything more agonizing than holding-on to memories of our painful experiences. We all make mistakes, but one of our biggest mistakes is continually revisiting the past. We have all suffered losses and pain, but no loss is greater than a life lost holding-on to a painful past. When we can’t let go of the past, painful moments accumulate in us; metastasizing in our consciousness like an emotional cancer. Whether a painful wrong was done to us, or we have guilt for our own wrongdoings or mistakes, we must seek to make peace with these moments and move forward.

Have you ever felt like you are stuck on an emotional treadmill — reenacting past injuries and losses or visualizing potential future problems? How many times have you imagined going back to a painful moment in time and “doing things” differently? How many times have you rehearsed a trauma from the past, playing out imaginary solutions, only to re-live your painful emotions over and over again? While some people are able to adjust and move past their traumas, others do not respond as well. Under pressure, they may even inaccurately feel they are in danger again, even when they are safe.

“There is a place in everyone that yearns to love, that longs to be safe, that wants to treat others and ourselves with respect. Sometimes that place is buried underneath layers of fear, old wounds, cynicism, and pain that we have used to protect ourselves from injury.”
— Jack Kornfield, “Meditation for Beginners”

Self-doubts, feeling unworthy, rejection and past injuries can churn in us like a low-boil of anxiety. Who would you be without your self-judgments and the baggage of your past mistakes in tow with you at all times? Learning your lesson from a mistake is healthy, but living forever in the emotions of your past mistakes is toxic and debilitating. The problem with traumatic, high stress experiences is that they often create negative beliefs about oneself such as being powerless, unlovable, undeserving, unsafe and that things are unchangeable. Sometimes we may seem to be resisting letting go, when really, we just can’t see a way to move forward — believing things can never change for someone as unworthy as us.

“When you don’t flow freely with life in the present moment, it usually means that you’re holding on to a past moment. It can be regret, sadness, hurt, fear, guilt, blame, anger, resentment, or sometimes even a desire for revenge. Each one of these states comes from a space of unforgiveness, a refusal to let go and come into the present moment. Only in the present moment can you create your future.”
— Louise Hay

Another common reason we have trouble letting go of the past is guilt and not forgiving ourselves. Finding inner-resolution can be even more complicated when the past we are trying to free ourselves from involves having hurt someone. At times all of us have been the wrongdoers or neglectful, which comes with its own unique suffering. This seems to be the mandate of the conscience: when we harm others we harm ourselves; when we help others we help ourselves. When we have harmed someone or disappointed them, they may be angry with us and we may constantly anguish over their judgements. Guilt can interfere with our desires to move forward, to heal properly and to become a person who has the mental health and means of proper recompense.

Even if you were terrible and injured people, you need to move forward and take care of yourself first. You can’t do the best work on yourself if you are under the constant scrutiny of negativity and hatred. An atmosphere of guilt, blame and judgement is not a safe place to recover. Someone’s forgiveness will not heal you; condemnation or absolution is their test, not yours. Choose healing and inner-peace over guilt. Set down the pain. Walk away and work on yourself first. When you are at peace, resolved and strong you can reach out and begin to make reparations. Paralyzing guilt will not serve anyone’s interest. Start thinking of your guilt as being selfish, because guilt blocks opportunities from arriving for those you care about and for you.

Oftentimes, our guilt over disappointing someone or failing exists only in our own minds. We torture ourselves senselessly over perceptions that others are judging us, when in reality they are not. Even worse, we brutalize ourselves over circumstances that are clearly beyond our control. Painful things happen in life. The fires of remorse, regret and guilt burn over us through our mourning, but only to make way for the new growth of life after our painful losses. Your suffering is there to inspect you and perfect you. We are made complete by our pain.

You have to make the decision to let go of the past if you want to move forward. Reliving your painful past will poison your heart and your tomorrow. If you look at today through the eyes of the past, you can never see what the present moment has to offer. Beating yourself up over every perceived mistake is the work of an internal abuser who must be restrained and reformed. The past is inaccessible. Almost all sadness comes from thinking about the past, and all worry from thinking about the future — present-mindedness is your only safe haven. Only in the present is your mind free to do what it does best — solve problems. The easiest way to leave the past behind is to remember that love does not live in the past, only memories — love lives in the present.

“How many of us walk around being weighed down by the baggage of our journey? You can’t possibly embrace that new relationship, that new companion, that new career, that new friendship, or that new life you want while you’re still holding on to the baggage of the last one. Let go and allow yourself to embrace what is waiting for you right at your feet.”
— Steve Maraboli

Beneath your burdensome regrets and who you think you are through the lens of past mistakes, there is someone beautiful who wants to emerge. You are not your mistakes and your mistakes are not you. You are so much more than your mistakes. Allow your truth to emerge. Your truth cannot emerge buried under a mountain of guilt and regret. Your past is like a bag of bricks; set it down and walk away. (Tweet-worthy!) Quit collecting every painful word, memory and mistake. Collect hope. Hope is lighter.

With Love and Gratitude

This is love.

This is love.

And so there are some who spend their whole lives seeking. Sometimes giving, sometimes taking. Sometimes chasing. But often, just waiting. They believe that love is a place that you get to: a destination at the end of a long road. And they can’t wait for that road to end at their destination. They are those hearts moved by the movement of hearts. Those hopeless romantics, the sucker for a love story, or any sincere expression of true devotion. For them, the search is almost a lifelong obsession of sorts. But, this tragic ‘quest’ can have its costs—and its’ gifts.

The path of expectations and the ‘falling in love with love’ is a painful one, but it can bring its own lessons. Lessons about the nature of love, this world, people, and one’s own heart, can pave this often painful path. Most of all, this path can bring its own lessons about the Creator of love.

Those who take this route will often reach the knowledge that the human love they seek was not the destination. Some form of that human love, can be a gift. It can be a means. But the moment you make it the End, you will fall. And you will live your whole life with the wrong focus. You will become willing to sacrifice the Goal for the sake of the means. You will give your life to reaching a ‘destination’ of worldly perfection that does not exist.

And the one who runs after a mirage, never gets there; but keeps running. And so too will you keep running, and be willing to lose sleep, cry, bleed, and sacrifice precious parts of yourself—at times, even your own dignity. But you’ll never reach what you’re looking for in this life, because what you seek isn’t a worldly destination. The type of perfection you seek cannot be found in the material world. It can only be found in God.

That image of human love that you seek is an illusion in the desert of life. So if that is what you seek, you’ll keep chasing. But no matter how close you get to a mirage, you never touch it. You don’t own an image. You can’t hold a creation of your own mind.
Yet, you will give your whole life, still, to reaching this ‘place’. You do this because in the fairy tale, that’s where the story ends. It ends at the finding, the joining, the wedding. It is found at the oneness of two souls. And everyone around you will make you think that your path ends there: at the place where you meet your soul mate, your other half—at the point in the path where you get married. Then and only then, they tell you, will you ever finally be complete. This, of course, is a lie because completion cannot be found in anything other than God.

But the lesson you’ve been taught since the time you were little—from every story, every song, every movie, every ad, every well-meaning auntie—is that you aren’t complete otherwise. And if—God forbid—you are one of the ‘outcasts’ who haven’t gotten married, or have been divorced, you are considered deficient or incomplete in some way.
The lesson you’re taught is that the story ends at the wedding, and then that’s when Jannah (paradise) begins. That’s when you’ll be saved and completed and everything that was once broken will be fixed. The only problem is, that’s not where the story ends. That’s where it begins. That’s where the building starts: the building of a life, the building of your character, the building of sabr, patience, perseverance, and sacrifice. The building of selflessness. The building of love.
And the building of your path back to Him.

But if the person you marry becomes your ultimate focus in life, your struggle has just begun. Now your spouse will become your greatest test. Until you remove that person from the place in your heart that only God should be, it will keep hurting. Ironically, your spouse will become the tool for this painful extraction process, until you learn that there are places in the human heart made only by—and for—God.
Among the other lessons you may learn along this path—after a long road of loss, gain, failure, success, and so many mistakes—is that there are at least 2 types of love. There will be some people you love because of what you get from them: what they give you, the way they make you feel. This is perhaps the majority of love—which is also what makes much of love so unstable. A person’s capacity to give is inconstant and changing. Your response to what you are given is also inconstant and changing. So if you’re chasing a feeling, you’ll always be chasing.  No feeling is ever constant. If love is dependent on this, it too becomes inconstant and changing. And just like everything in this world, the more you chase it, the more it will run away from you.

But, once in a while, people enter your life that you love—not for what they give you—but for what they are. The beauty you see in them is a reflection of the Creator, so you love them. Now suddenly it isn’t about what you’re getting, but rather what you can give. This is unselfish love. This second type of love is the most rare. And if it is based in, and not competing with, the love of God, it will also bring about the most joy. To love in any other way is to need, to be dependent, to have expectations—all the ingredients for misery and disappointment.
So for all those, who have spent their life seeking, know that purity of any thing is found at the Source. If it is love that you seek, seek it through God. Every other stream, not based in His love, poisons the one who drinks from it. And the drinker will continue to drink, until the poison all but kills him. He will continue to die more and more inside, until he stops and finds the pure Source of water.

Once you begin to see everything beautiful as only a reflection of God’s beauty, you will learn to love in the right way: for His sake. Everything and everyone you love with be for, through and because of Him. The foundation of such love is God. So what you hold onto will no longer be just an unstable feeling, a fleeting emotion. And what you chase will no longer be just a temporary high. What you hold, what you chase, what you love, will be God: the *only* thing stable and constant. Thereafter, everything else will be through Him. Everything you give or take or love or don’t love, will be by Him. Not by your nafs. It will be for Him. Not for your nafs.
This means you will love what He loves and not love what He does not love. And when you do love, you will give to the creation—not for what you can get in return from them. You will love and you will give, but you will be sufficed from Him. And the one who is sufficed by God, is the richest and most generous of all lovers. Your love will be by Him, for Him, and because of Him. That is the liberation of the self from servitude to any created thing. And that is freedom. That is happiness.

That is love.

Allah uses problems to direct,inspect,correct and protect you.

Allah uses problems to direct,inspect,correct and protect you.

The problems you face will either defeat you or develop you – depending on how you respond to them. Most people fail to see how Allah wants to use problems for good in our lives. They react foolishly and resent their problems rather than pausing to consider what benefit they might bring.

Allah uses problems to DIRECT you.
Sometimes Allah must light a fire under you to get you moving. Problems often point us in a new direction and motivate us to change. Is Allah trying to get your attention? “Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.”

Allah uses problems to INSPECT you. People are like tea bag if you want to know what’s inside them, just drop them into hot water! Has Allah tested your faith with a problem? What do problems reveal about you?

Allah uses problems to CORRECT you. Some lessons we learn only through pain and failure. It’s likely that as a child your parents told you not to touch a hot stove…. But you probably learned by being burned. Sometimes we only learn the value of something, health, money, a relationship by losing it.

Pain will cleanse you.. stay strong.

Pain will cleanse you.. stay strong.

The truth is that life can be very difficult at times. There can be a lot of pressure to keep it all together, to be smart and beautiful, to be so good and perfect. But sometimes we don't have it together at all. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we don't feel good or look our best. Sometimes things are not good at all and we feel miserable, lonely or depressed. If you have lost your way and feel down, that feeling belongs to you. If you feel miserable — it's yours, and no one should take it away from you. Maybe things really aren't very good at all right now. Maybe you have good reasons to be depressed, and the last thing you need is someone telling you to be happy.

But one thing you do need, is at least the respect from others to let you sit with your valid feelings. You don't always need a cheerleader, but just someone to be a friend and acknowledge where you really are, and how you really feel. Real problems can't be fixed with a motivational poster, a cute quote or a pat on the back. While you are in your pain, it does not matter how intrinsically special you are, or how beautiful life is, or how precious each moment is — if you don't accept and respect your suffering, it isn't going anywhere. Submit to your pain; don't suppress your pain. If you can sit with your pain, listen to your pain and respect your pain — in time you will move through your pain.

Pain is like a healing emotional fever. Allow your pain to cleanse you and burn away what needs to die. A new and better you will grow from the ashes. The most important parts of your life will be marked by pain. Some of the most amazing people in the world were not perfect; they were scarred by suffering, hardships, losses and imperfections. But, when they recovered, they were stronger, wiser, and more loving and compassionate. Your life is going to get better in the proper time, and you will be stronger and more at peace than ever before. Out of our suffering we emerge. Our struggles are really our only hope. Stay strong.