using your past as your driver

February 20, 2015 by Mel Young 1 Comment

Children are born pure. They love everyone, especially their caregiver/s. They love every aspect of themselves as well.

Unfortunately, the world that we live in isn’t always an easy world to live in. Most of us have a few traumatic experiences of some sort or another whilst we are a young child.

And some people have had the most difficult upbringing. Often this can happen if you have a parent/caregiver who resents the role of being a parent. They find the role to be too challenging, too limiting and maybe they are struggling with mental illness, physical illness, relationship challenges, etc.

In this case, they may abuse their children, not show love and appreciation for their children, leave the kids to live with someone else, this type of thing.

Obviously, this can have a lasting impact on you and will shape who you become as an adult.

If this describes your childhood, then I am truly sorry to hear that you had to go through such trying times at such a young age.

Having said that, I do believe that too many of us allow our lacking childhood to have too much of an impact on our lives. Many of us allow ourselves to blame our parents (or someone else who hurt us as a kid) for the areas in our life that are not working. We will say things like “I’m not confident because my dad abused me” or “I can’t be a success because everyone in my family told me I was stupid all the time”

If you find yourself talking in this way, then I would like to offer you a present. The present is that you can drop this and move on. You can become confident and you can become a success, but it requires you to drop this story about who you are and to adopt a new story. Otherwise, this person who hurt you as a kid, didn’t only hurt you then, but they are hurting you now too. You are letting them control your life! Even now, years later, they may not even be on this earth anymore and they are still running your life.

Why do we do this?

Because it gives us an excuse to stay “safe” and not get out of our comfort zone. It allows us to blame someone else for the things that are not working in our life.

Because the day that you stop blaming them is the day that you have to look at your life, with all of it’s successes and failures and know that whatever has happened it is because of you.

The responsibility for your life today lies with you. No matter what your past is like.

This is a difficult concept to grasp for many of us. And I don’t intend to make you feel upset in any way by saying this. My intention is to let you know that you can be free of the past and you can make choices for your life that you want. You are not stuck within the limits that you have always stayed within, you can change.

The first step is to not allow yourself to blame anyone from your past for any results that you are getting now.

If you are not confident now, it’s because you have not chosen to become confident yet. You haven’t put in the ground work that it takes to go from being not confident to confident. You haven’t challenged yourself enough and gotten out of your comfort zone enough to experience confidence regularly.

Yes, It would have been great if you had a childhood whereby your parents raised you to be confident, but that didn’t happen. So now, as an adult, you have the choice whether to accept the limitations that you have always been confined by or whether to make some changes.

I do know is that you can overcome your past and actually allow it to become your driving force. The thing that spurs you on.

Here are two examples of famous people who used their past as their driver:

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah was born to a single teenage mother, and was sent to live with her grandmother as a girl. Oprah was so poor as a child that she had to wear potato sacks for a dress. She was beaten with a stick if she misbehaved.

She was sent back to live with her mother, aged six and then was molested by a cousin, an uncle and a family friend from the age of nine. She ran away from home aged 13, became pregnant and had a still born baby at age 14.

Now of course, she has retired after being a famous talk show host and production studio owner for many years. She is one of the wealthiest women in the world and a generous philanthropist.

(source:Wikipedia)

Tony Robbins

Tony is a world famous motivational speaker and philanthropist.

His father was a parking garage attendant, and his mother was an alcoholic and drug user.

His parents divorced when he was 7. His mother then had a series of husbands. Tony worked as a handyman and janitor from an early age to help support his family.

He has said that his home life was “chaotic” and “abusive”, and that his mother chased him out of the house with a knife when he was 17, and he never returned. He never attended college.

(source:Wikipedia)

There’s an old story about twin brothers.  They had an abusive dad who beat them and was an alchoholic. Once the boys grew up, one of them was a very successful businessman who used his wealth to help people in abusive relationships.  The other grew up to become a drug addict and alcoholic.  When the successful man was asked what motivated him to work so hard to succeed and then give back to charity, he responded, “I grew up with an alcoholic father who beat me, how could I not work hard to leave home and become a success, and then use my money to help others.”  The other twin was asked why he became a drug addict and alcoholic, he responded, “Well, growing up with an alcoholic father who beat me, how could I not become a drug addict and alcoholic”.

 

 

If you are feeling ready now to use your past as your driver, then here are a few exercises that will help:

• Separate fact from fiction

Human beings mix facts with fiction (the meaning that we give something)

And then we get really upset about what we have made up.

If your mum often forgot to pick you up from school, then the facts are: I was waiting for mum and she didn’t come. Mum was an hour late on five occasions.

The story we make about it is:

Mum doesn’t love me

I’m not worthy

My mum is a self-centered woman (you may believe this to be true, but attributes such as self-centered cannot be a fact)

If you have experiences that bother you, from now or from the past, always separate fact from fiction by writing it down.

This helps you to see what actually happened and what has been made up.

 

• If you have someone in your past, that you are as yet, unwilling to forgive, ask yourself:

“What am I getting out of holding on to this grievance?”

“What am I afraid will happen if I forgive this person?”

“What new possibilities could I allow for myself if I were to let this go?”

Remember that forgiveness is a decision and not an action. The first step is to make the decision to forgive.

If this person is someone you don’t want in your life now, that’s fine. You can forgive someone and not want them in your life.

You can forgive them but still view them as someone you don’t want to be around.

You forgive others so that you will attain peace and so that you can move on.

 

• Try this exercise:

Be relaxed and close your eyes.

Imagine the person that you are upset with when they were a small child. Imagine them laughing and playing, as small children do. Imagine them playing with water and splashing it around.

Put your hands on your heart and hum or sing a love song whilst you think of this person.

Everyone was a small innocent child once.

If you want to then you can wish them peace, love and happiness. (Some people have trouble with this part, so it’s optional)

 

• What good things did this person give you?

I know that this can be tricky to think about when you are very upset with someone, but this is all about rewiring your brain and allowing you to see this differently. It’s for you; it’s not about this other person.

There is a positive side to everything. What did they do right? What did they teach you?

 

• If this person is still in your life and still ruffles your feathers when you see them, it’s time to think about how you would like to behave with them when you next see them. Often with family members, we have habitual ways of behaving and being. And we have often fallen into bad habits whereby we don’t treat them well because we are mad at them for years of unresolved anger.

Try something different. Being kind but also assertive usually works well.

Maybe it’s time to resolve some of your issues together? This is always best done in the spirit of curiosity and with an open mind. An example of this might be to ask something like

“Mum, I’d love for us to be able to communicate more kindly and with more respect for each other. Would you like that too? Do you have any ideas about how we might do that?”

 

• What have you always let your past get in the way of?

Come up with a plan for how you might achieve this goal and work towards it, letting nothing stop you. If you want to be successful, then work towards that and don’t ever let yourself use your past as an excuse.

This is the greatest gift that you can give yourself.

 

If you enjoyed this post, then please also read my blogs: beliefs, past hurts and great relationships as they are along the same theme