LETTING GO—THOUGHTS ABOUT ESCAPING MY PAST

Sometimes my past haunts me. The person I am is made up primarily of what I have done in the past. But that can be a burden. Sometimes I think we carry our past with us like a pack on our back. All that "stuff" whether we like it or not, is part of us. But, thankfully, it is not the totality of who we are. Because who we are includes what we do and think in the present moment.

It is also the moment we are in right now, the one that has not yet slipped into the past where we make the momentous decision to change. If we are ever going to set down our baggage and move beyond carrying the weight of the past on our back, we need not wait but do it now. "Now" is not one moment, anyway; it is a series of events. It is more like "now and now and now" and so on…

It’s easy to feel overly burdened by what has happened in the past, but this is a perfect time to let go. But do I just set my pack down and walk away from it? Let’s face it, this is a difficult thing to do, to break our bond with what we’ve known. Since it's something we've lived, our past feels like a part of us. Once we’ve become accustomed to carrying the weight it actually becomes a comfort.

The only way I know to break the bond with what haunts me, is by dealing with it. I need to set my pack down on the ground open it up and look inside. Then I need to take whatever is in it, out. When the sunlight shines on my past suddenly it begins to shrivel and disappear. Mushrooms grow bigger in the dark but dry up in the light of the sun.