Letting it go and self doubt

I have a hard time letting go of things, like my experiences from the past and compare it to the present time. Is there any tips on how to let go and not allow the past to influence the present? Also, I deal with doubting myself as to if I have what it takes to get the task done. Other people have to tell me to take action where I know to take action, but don’t know how to go about the situation, as I think how will it affect the other people if I do it wrongly.

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Our past experiences shape us and make us who we are today. To a certain degree our stories will always have an impact on us since they are part of our lives.

There is a way to find peace with the past and be less affected by these experiences. This might sound a bit counter-intuitive, but it is key to accept what happened, how this made and makes you feel. Don’t try to push it away or wish it never happened. Full acceptance means to be okay with something for the rest of our lives. Since everything is impermanent, it won’t be like this forever, but this deep acceptance is essential to process your experience on a deeper level. Make room for your emotions, invite them in, let them be. Be curious instead of scared. They need to be felt. They will vanish eventually. This is basically the process of letting go, which takes time and patience. It is an iterative process, things might come up again and again, and, depending on the experience, there can be a lot that is going on subliminally, so it is an effort to navigate through all these emotions. But it is possible, that’s also my experience with this approach. For things that are particularly difficult to overcome I found it helpful to journal about them, which helped me to realize/understand on a deeper level that these things really happened. Maybe this could be a helpful technique for you, as well. But there is no one way as this is very individual.

Is this feeling familiar that you might affect others in a negative way? Do you feel responsible for how they feel? How far does this go back?
You are not responsible for other people’s emotions. It is not your responsibility to walk on eggshells around others. When you talk about work and worry that how you get a task done so it doesn’t negatively impact others, what about trusting them that, even in the worst case, they will be capable to deal with that situation?
Even if this sounds totally absurd to you, but you are just right. You can trust in that when you authentically approach your tasks, you will do fine. What could potentially help you overcome these thinking patterns might be to find out their root cause. What happened in your past that led you to mistrust yourself this much? This typically goes back to childhood, how you were raised, what the environment was like, and what beliefs about yourself you learned during these formative years of your life due to the experiences you made back then.
To give an example, a child raised by a caregiver with frequent rage outbursts will think it is responsible for the caregiver’s emotions, that it did something wrong that caused the caregiver to feel miserable. But this isn’t true. This is related to the caregiver, not the child. Understanding the roots helps to address your self-beliefs because you see that these come from childhood experiences and they aren’t there because they are true but they had a function that was important back then - making the caregiver happy.

I hope this give you some helpful ideas. It’s great that you are reaching out here.

Hi friend! First of all, you are not your past. Second of all, the past happens so that it does influence your future…but that doesn’t mean it has to dictate it. Learning is remembering to do things differently moving forward [or the same of course]…think of experiences like dating, you find what works and doesn’t work best for your life.

You also need to remember you are the most important person in your life, so before anything else, you need to do what is right for you…even if it may affect other people in a way that you might not want it to. I’m not sure what the situation you’re in is, but I think you need to weigh the pros and cons and figure out what the best action for YOU is. The other people will be okay on the other side of it…YOU need to make sure YOU are okay first.

I’ve been in many situations where I’ve had to unfortunately hurt some feelings so I could get out of it…but it works out the best it can in the end, and it’s ultimately been better for me.

From: ᏒᎧᏕᎥᏋ

Hello Friend, Thank you for sharing. One thing I’ve learned in life is that past experiences are things we should learn from, but not let dictate our lives in a negative way. For example, if you’ve had a bad break up with someone and start a new relationship usually what happens with a lot of us is that we use the baggage from our previous relationship to judge then new person. We don’t let them show us who they are as a person and we expect the same bad experiences to happen again. So, if we treat other things that have happened in our lives as learning experiences, then we can move forward with new things in a more healthy way. Hope this made sense ~Mystrose

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From: Rohini_868

Learning from the past can be a powerful thing! I firmly believe that one of the best things we can do for ourselves is being able to identify the patterns of our own lives - the way we think, the decisions it leads to, and the actions we take. It’s a process, and the information we use for this is the past!

I hear you saying that you have some difficulty with decision making and follow-through. It’s a good first step to be able to identify this! Knowing this, the next step is figuring out how to gain some more confidence in the decisions you make, and determining a plan to execute the actions you need to take to get it done.

Can you ask your family for friends with this? It’s scary sometimes to admit we need help (that’s something a lot of us probably struggle with in some form), but we have to find the persons in our lives who we know, who we trust, who have been there genuinely for us.

I do hope that you will take some time to reflect on the past and the lessons you can take from it, and see how you can use those lessons to help you make better decisions, and to help you think differently as well. We’re here to help you too!

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From: Dr Hogarth

Hi Ed495,

Learning from the past is one of the most important ways we grow in life and sometimes the things we learn are painful. I can understand why you would want to let go of something that you find painful, but the memory of that pain is important. Our emotional response to bad situations sticks with us even more strongly than the memory itself, and the reason that’s useful is that when we find ourselves in a similar situation, those emotions are then triggered again, making us stop and remember what happened previously.

The past can be a very useful tool to guide us in the present. While our past can make us feel vulnerable, I think that it actually empowers us. It allows us to reduce the risk of bad situations arising again and gives us the knowledge to know how to deal with them.

The past can be painful, but it is how we grow x

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From: Lisalovesfeathers

Hi Friend, Thank you for posting. I can certainly understand that it can be a worry to bring past bad experiences into your future but there is a saying “there is good and bad in everything” and in life we learn from all of our experiences and we can learn from the good and the bad in all of them, so if you made decisions that you wish you hadnt you can take that with you so you know not to make decisions like that again or if you made a superb decision the same thing. If bad things happen to you then there are people that can help you to go through life without having those bad things weighing you down. Its all about growing and learning and each of us have to find our way to do it and we all need help and support on our journey. We are here for you on yours. Much Love Lisa. x

This feels so familiar to me, to hang on to things and having a hard time to get closure. I so often think about past conversation or situations, about what I could or should have said or done differently.

It is a great quality to take things seriously and reflect on situations after they have happened, to be able to learn from mistakes and grow in the future. But at some point it is also important to move on and look into the future, or at least live in the present and not linger too much in the past. You can learn from the past but you cannot change it anymore, you can only shape your present and change your future.
If you are very insecure about new situations then maybe you could start small. Make small decisions, try out new things on a smaller scale. Things you are fairly certain can give you a sense of success or achievement. If everything worked out be proud of yourself and celebrate it. Then you can try something bigger. You can never completely avoid mistakes, even the most experienced adults make mistakes, it is a part of life. But I am sure you can slowly nourish your self-esteem and self-confidence.

I have one more thing to say:
Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, Today is a Gift, that’s why it’s called the Present. :slight_smile:

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