00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale, and this is episode number 53, "Finding Peace with Your Past." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale, and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today? I hope you're doing fabulous. I am doing so good. This is really kind of my last day of summer break. I know I'm about four weeks out on my podcast, so you won't be getting this until the first part of September. But I'm getting ready to go back to school to teach my sweet little eighth graders whom I love, and kind of mixed feelings about that. I love them, and I enjoy being with them more than people really should enjoy being with eighth graders. But it's always hard when summer's over, just because I've been able to focus so much on doing things here with the business, and trying to get things organized, spending time with family that I don't always get to do during the school year. So it's been a great summer, I've enjoyed it, and I'm anxious to get back and spend some time with my sweet little kids there at school. 

01:17 

So today we're going to finish this off, my summer off. You're probably already full in the thick of kids if you still got kids at home, and if you don't, then the school thing means absolutely nothing to you. But today we're going to be talking about finding peace with your past, with my past, with everybody's past, right? All of us have to hit a point where we do this. Have you ever met someone, and maybe it's even you, who has a past that haunts them, they're always talking about the horrible things that happened in their past, or they can't forgive themselves, or something for something they did years ago, or someone for something that happened years ago. 

01:56 

So question: how happy and content are these people? They are not, right? They are constantly on the edge of unsettledness, right? So so many of us feel we have a past filled with failures and negative experiences and painful situations, and we feel as though we are defined by those experiences, as though what happened in our past completely dictates what is going to happen in our future. But let's get this first idea straight. What has happened in your past has absolutely nothing to do with what can and will happen in your future if you don't want it to. It's completely up to you how much how much your past impacts your future. 

02:45 

Now isn't that an amazing thought? Just because you struggled with being offended in the past does not mean that it is a part of your future. Starting now you can choose never to be offended again if you want. Our past does not dictate our future if we don't want it to. But because our brains naturally look to our past to find answers and solutions to current problems, if we're not choosing what we think intentionally, our primitive brain will go to past solutions automatically. And if our past solutions haven't been helpful, our primitive brain doesn't know that. All it knows is that that's what we did in the past and it will put those ideas forward as a solution. So not allowing our primitive brain to run the show is a huge part of how we keep ourselves from having our past dictate our future. We have to decide what we want to think instead and begin inserting that thought intentionally into our consciousness. 

03:50 

So that's the difference between an unintentional model, what we think when we're not thinking about it, or an intentional model, what we are choosing now to think instead. When we allow our primitive brains to run unchecked, we're choosing to be defined by who we used to be without taking control of who we are now and who we want to be in the future. So learning to identify the thoughts that keep us stuck and then learning to replace those thoughts with ones that will allow us to grow and move forward is an amazing skill that will serve us well. And it's a lot of what I talk about here. Because over time, that new thought, the new pathway in our brain, will become easier and easier to navigate. And then that will become the new  go-to thought that our primitive brain draws from. The new thought becomes the past that our brain looks to for solutions and answers to problems. Pretty cool, right? Or did I just lose you? Let me restate that another way. We are creating our futures past with the choices we're making today. Today will be tomorrow's past. I love how that works. Tomorrow our primitive brain is going to look to today for answers. There's so much power in realizing that what we create today becomes the template for our tomorrow's. 

05:16 

Alright, so let's move on to another part of our past that is so important to understand. So many of us tend to spend our lives regretting our past. We relive situations in our head of things that happened and what we wish would have happened instead. We blame others for so many of the situations we found ourselves in and for the horrible things that happened. Granted, there are some horrible things in some of our pasts. Many of us have struggled with abuse in many different varieties from physical to sexual to emotional to drug or alcohol abuse and there are many types of addictions that we've given our powers to. There's a lot of things that have happened to us, and I am in no way negating the really difficult challenges that we've encountered in the past. 

06:04 

But here's a thought I want you to consider. What if we started looking at our past as though it were perfect? Now, perfect here doesn't mean without challenge or without things that might have been unfair. Just that what if what happened in your past actually happened exactly the way it was supposed to? What if we start thinking that there were no mistakes, but that everything happened exactly as it was supposed to? So this makes me feel a little bit like Bob Ross, right? There are no mistakes. Just happy little accidents. Really, I think Bob really understood something here with this concept. Because here's the thing: the past has happened. There is nothing we can do to change the past. I love that Byron Cady says, "when I argue with reality, I lose but only 100% of the time." Okay, the past is our reality. Been there, done that, it's over. And nothing we can do is going to change it. I will lose 100% of the time when I argue with the past. So constantly fighting against our past is a waste of emotional energy. Energy that we could be using doing other things like loving the people around us or focusing on a better future. Choosing to constantly fight against our past is a losing battle for sure. There's nothing to be done in this fight, but to lay down and die or to die trying. 

07:39 

So what's our alternative here? Okay, we have to start changing the way we think about our past. We can't go back and change it. All we can change are our present thoughts about it. And some of you right now are fighting this and saying, "but that was a horrible situation." Okay, but realize that that statement right there is a thought and not a fact. Let's say you were physically abused as a young child, okay? Saying that your mother used to hit you upside the head would be a fact. Saying that it is horrible that she did that or horrible that you were physically abused would be a thought. Because like it or not, there are some people in the world who don't feel that physically abusing young children is a bad thing. In fact, many people in the world feel it is a wonderful way to discipline and train your children. 

08:32 

So let's be very clear when we think about our past about what is a fact and what is a thought. This is a huge step toward finding peace with our past. If you are totally confused with this concept, go back to the stories we tell ourselves, that podcast. We'll talk about this more in depth. You may say in this situation that it was so painful to deal with the beatings of your childhood. Again, let's get a few things clear. Was it painful at the time it happened? Almost assuredly. But is it really painful now? Do you still feel the physical pain of being thrown to the ground or being slapped upside the head? No. That physical pain was only present at the time it was happening. So why is it still painful today? It's because of the thoughts you are having today about that experience and what you make those thoughts mean. As long as the abuse is not still occurring, the only reason that experience is still painful today is because we are choosing to think thoughts that cause us to feel pain. 

09:43 

Thoughts like, "that was so unfair," or "I never deserved to be beaten like that," or "she was a horrible mother." Are those thoughts valid? Probably. Would a lot of people agree with you. Most likely. Do you have a right to think those thoughts? Absolutely. But if we're tired of feeling the pain over and over and over, we have to start thinking different thoughts. Those thoughts may seem very true to you, but as long as you hold onto them, you will continue to feel the pain and you will never move on from them. 

10:20 

So it's important to start replacing those thoughts with other thoughts that are more conducive to how we want to feel and  act in the world around us. A thought like, "my mom was doing the best she could." Now, for those of you who automatically get upset with this and want to fight back saying we're giving her a get-out-of-jail-free card, let's look at this from a different angle. Who is the one in jail when you continue to nurture those thoughts that make you feel angry or scared or powerless? You are. You are the one holding yourself hostage by continuing to feed these thoughts. You are the one who gets the negative feelings. You are the one still hurting. In saying this, we're not taking away the accountability of the person who did the beating. What we're doing is liberating ourselves from the constant pain we are creating with our current thoughts. 

11:22 

So learning to change our thoughts about our past is a huge step in coming to peace with our past. Learning to honestly think thoughts that will create different feelings is an amazing skill to have when we engage with our difficult past. And then here's the last piece I want to talk to you about today. What about the idea that everything that happened in our past is exactly how it was supposed to happen? What if our past was actually perfect? Maybe it doesn't seem fair. Maybe it doesn't seem right. But what if it was exactly the past you needed to have in order to create the future you're moving towards? 

12:03 

What if those experiences actually gave you the exact lessons and training you need to have to navigate your current and your future circumstances? What if your past has perfectly laid the groundwork for some amazing processes that you are engaging in or that you will engage in? What if those past experiences have given you the compassion, the charity, the empathy for connecting and engaging with others? What if they have given you the understanding to know how to reach out to others and how to create something amazing in this world? What if we really started thinking of our past as perfect? What if we saw it as the perfect place to prepare us to step into our potential and discover the real us? What if we were to truly understand that our past has set us up to be the amazing person that we are today? 

13:03 

Everything we are is a product of our past. We can learn to love our past for how it has shaped us and then we can say goodbye to it. We can choose to no longer be defined by our past. We can choose to embrace our past for what it has taught us and how it has molded us. We can feel gratitude for the lessons learned and the strengths we've received and the courage we've gained and then we can do an about face and we can look to the future and we can move forward. When we can truly see our past as being perfect, as being exactly what we personally needed to discover and become the person we are meant to be, we can find peace. We can find forgiveness for ourselves, we can find forgiveness for others, and we can step into happiness. Because here's the ultimate thing I want us to understand: finding peace with our past is the key to finding faith in our future. 

14:11 

I love growing up, don't you? I do. I know I say that all the time and I'm gonna keep saying it because I do. I love the process of learning and growing and starting to understand things that didn't make sense to me before. Alright, so if you would love some personal help from me to learn how to find peace with your past or just to navigate some tough situations with more clarity you can contact me at tanyahale.com and book a free 20 minute coaching session to get you started. I am taking those down to only three a week. I don't have time to do more than that so if you would like one you need to get on and take care of that. I'd love to help you learn to find peace with your past if that's something you're struggling with. 

14:55 

And I would like to invite you to subscribe to this podcast if you have not yet. Leave me a review and share it with people who you feel could benefit from these same concepts. Okay, I just wish you the best of everything as you go forth in your day today and hope that you can start to see the world from a different place and see your past as a place of perfection as a place that has created the you that is awesome and amazing. Okay, have a terrific one and I will talk with you next time. Bye. 

15:30 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!