Sometimes, we can't let our heavy rocks of our pasts go because we want justice, and we hold onto them because of the injustice and unfairness of what we have suffered. Somehow to let these things go means our hurts haven't been seen or witnessed and ignored.

 

Letting Go of our Wounds

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Our pasts contain many happy times and memories but they also contain trauma or hardships, sadness’s, losses and regrets. Whilst we hold on to some of the good times, it is the hardest and most difficult and painful times that we find hardest to let go of because they still hurt.

It is like having an open wound on a part of our body, that has not as yet been able to heal. We can forget about it for much of the time but then suddenly someone or something inadvertently bangs into us and the pain of the wound shoots through us once more. Some wounds have been with us since childhood and yet they still are not healed. Why is that?

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Because these are our deepest of wounds that were in some way inflicted in our foundational years. They need to be cleaned out, have healing oils put on them and then wrapped and kept safe and clean.

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However, these wounds often become reinfected time after time after time, because when they get ripped open again, we don’t take as much care of them as we should. We don’t wash them clean. We don’t put healing salve on them and we don’t put a bandage over it to keep it as safe as it can be. Instead, it becomes infected and then sore and painful and pussy. What began as something we could fix, escalates into an infected wound that we need help with.

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Everyone has wounds from their pasts. Those who can’t let them go are those whose wounds become reinfected time and time again. They now need to learn how to heal those past wounds.

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The best way to do that is with the ointment of great care, love, gentleness, forgiveness, patience and tolerance. If you saw a small child with a gaping wound, would you tell them to snap out of it and pull themselves together? You would not. You would be with them in their pain and try and do everything you could to help them get better. If you would do that with another, would you not too do that with yourself?

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Often, others can’t see our wounds, as they are not open physical sores. They are hidden or buried within our minds, spirits or soul. It is only when we are hurting that we are alerted to something needing to be taken care of through our pain.

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Pain is a megaphone which wakes us up to the urgent need to take care of ourselves. Too often we try to keep going, for surely perseverance is good? However, when we have deep psychological wounds, we need to do the opposite. We need to take care of that wounded child within us.

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We first need to love them and hug them to ourselves and reassure them that their pain is recognised and validated. Next the wound needs to be washed clean. The best way to do that is to bring waters of truth, for truth always washes away the grit of lies and untruths caught up in the wound.

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Next come healing balms. These too are truths of all that is good and wonderful about this person. It is often the core of their identity which has been damaged or harmed the most and so the truths of who they really are need to be applied.

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Next must come the bandages of kindness and gentleness and loving care. Too many hope others will bring these bandages, but if they do not, then we must apply them ourselves. For if we can’t help ourselves to heal, the wounds may continue to be reopened and reinfected.

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Many cannot begin to let go of the past until some of these wounds are healed. This taking care of our past hurts must be a thing of great importance. Love is always the greatest of all healing balms. The more you can love and take care of yourself or allow others to wrap you in their love, the better.

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Letting Go of our Pasts

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Our pasts often become our friends. They cling to us and we cling to them. We often relive our pasts over and over again.

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Our pasts know what we went through and how we were damaged. They were there with us in our pain or betrayal or rejection or fear. We don’t need to explain to them. They know us. Our pasts in many ways become a little like a comfort blanket that we cling to when we need to feel comforted. They reassure us. They make us feel better for a while.

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However, over the years we become tired of living in our pasts. We want to let them go and move on. However, that means saying goodbye to our comfort blanket and that is often very hard to do.

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Our past tells us that they are the only ones who understand who wronged us or let us down or hurt us. If we let go of them, the injustices done to us will be forgotten and they urge us not to forget how others have wounded us or let us down.

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The past is in the past, yet the past is affecting both our present and also our future. The only way to live different todays and tomorrows is to let go of our yesterdays.

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Firstly, we need to thank them for all they brought us, recognising that we would not be who we are today without them. Begin by acknowledging all the good that your comfort blanket has brought you. However, then tell it that you are now heading off on holiday to a new place and you can only take so much in your suitcase. Sadly, the clothes of the past which once fitted, are ones you no longer want to wear in this new place as they have become old, faded, torn and no longer bring out the best in you. Instead, you have decided to only pack clothes which you feel relaxed and confident in. Tell them that you will not meet again and you wish them well. And then be determined to do all you have spoken of.

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They of course will tell you that you can’t move on without them but that is an untruth. They want to keep hold of you in the past, but the past is dead and gone. However often you go back and try and resuscitate it, it is dead. You cannot rewrite history. You can’t change the past.

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The kindest thing you can do is to bury it deep within the ground, cover it over and walk away. Don’t ever be tempted to go back and dig it back up. Let it rest in peace. Although at first you will be able to see the mound of earth on top of this grave, as the years progress, you will hardly be able to make it out.

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Let go of your pasts for they are dead and cannot bring life into your future. Let them go and move on.

 

Letting Go of our False Selves

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Another major letting go needs to be the letting go of the false in order to embrace the true.

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As a small child we believed everything we were told. We believed in Father Christmas. We believed that our parents or carers were infallible and could do no wrong.

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However then one day a huge crack appeared in our foundations when we first learnt that what we thought was an undeniable truth was in fact false. We believed our parents could not lie to us and always told the truth. Then one day they tell a lie which cannot be denied. In that moment we discover a room called falsehood. Those we thought we could always trust have, in a moment, proved that this belief is an untruth. Suddenly, we are walking in a very different landscape where fear has walked in and now walks by our side.

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Over the years we continue to trust as much as we can but find it more difficult to discern the truths from the lies. On the whole, we continue to trust what our elders tell us, including their thoughts and opinions about the meaning of life and how they view us.

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Over the years we become a little like a jigsaw puzzle. Every day we get given two or three new pieces about who we are and who we are not. We try and fit those pieces into our puzzle but whilst some pieces fit easily, others do not.

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Some give us ‘nice’ pieces and others give us ‘not so nice’ pieces. If we begin with a puzzle that says we are of little or no worth, then we will take the pieces given to us that confirm this and place them. However, if we then get pieces telling us that we are of great worth, we will not be able to place them as these pieces contradict the pieces already laid in our puzzle. Therefore, we will tend to place one set of pieces, ( we are of no worth) and discard the others (we are of great worth). For how can both pieces fit in the same puzzle? They can’t.

Yet later on we learn that in the same way as some of our elders brought untruths to our door, so too have many others. Then we must decide what to do.

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We can continue with our first puzzle and only place the not nice pieces and discard the others. Or we must start again. This is a very scary place to be because it feels like our foundations are being dug up and surely the house we have built upon it will fall. And sometimes it does. But a house with poor, false foundations would be like building your house on sand. Eventually, when the sea and waves of time and circumstances come and crash against it, the house will fall.

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We have instead to begin to build new foundations of who and what we are. We need to begin again, but this time only placing pieces of truth in our puzzle.

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The first truth must be that we have been fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of a loving, benevolent, caring God. God is good. God is love. God is gracious. God is forgiving. If we are his children then we too have these things running through our DNA.

So, the first truths must be these and we must begin to believe that we are greatly and deeply loved and uniquely special and gifted. We learn that we are in fact of great worth. These foundations are like building our house on rock and when the winds and the rains come, they will not be able to knock us down.

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So, you can choose to continue believing you are worthless and discarding the pieces telling you that you are of great worth. Or you can begin again, but this time only placing pieces that you know are true. That is the only way you can begin letting go of the false you and begin to embrace the true you.

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Letting Go of Injustices

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One of the hardest things to let go of are the injustices done to us or our family.

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Injustices are when something of great worth is stolen from us, and we have no way to get them back. It could be a child killed by a drunk driver. It could be our liberty, stolen because we are black and deemed only good enough to be a slave. It could be rape or incest. It could be a broken back because we dared to walk on a platform that should have held our weight but was poorly and negligently put together.

Terrible injustices exist everywhere in the world and cause the greatest of pains. Injustices eat away at us, like an ant gnawing their way through our heart. How can we let go of such injustices as these? We can because to not let go of them, will eventually kill us. It’s like drinking a cup of poison every day hoping and waiting for the perpetrator of the injustice to die. The only one it is killing is us inside.

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At first there is shock and denial. That then turns to anger and blame. That often leads into dark places like depression and suicidal thoughts. Then there must be a choice to either remain in these places or to try and climb out of this pit of hopelessness, anger, resentment, hatred and unforgiveness.

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Deep down we want justice and believe that if we move on to accept what has been done to us, this is in some form a betrayal of ourselves. We believe that if we accept and move on, then they are getting away with the wrong done against us.

Yet often we cannot get back what was most precious to us; our lost child, our health, our freedom. They have been lost for all time. What we can instead do is to make something of great worth from that which we lost. We can choose to stay in the land of the dead and be eaten away by resentment, anger and the injustice or we have to decide to leave it.

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Too many try and keep one foot in one camp and one foot in the other. Yet all the time we do that, we are keeping those hurts and wounds and pain alive.

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There is a wonderful prayer, the serenity prayer, which says, “Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, give me the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

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Wisdom can come near you in these moments of greatest pain and she alone can assure you that one day that terrible wrong done to you will produce something of worth. She cares deeply that you don’t go further and further down the road nearer and nearer to death but wants to help you find life once again.

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With every injustice done to us, we have a choice to daily die a little or to try and find life and purpose and hope and meaning once again. It feels so much more comforting to hold onto our anger than be brave enough to forgive. Ultimately, it will only be the forgiveness of the other which will free us from the hell of hatred.

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“But how can we forgive those who have inflicted such pain on us? Why do they deserve my forgiveness when they should be begging me to forgive them?”

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If you wait for them to come to you and ask for your forgiveness, this time might never arrive and your life will be forever put on hold and then they will continue to hold the strings of your life. Instead, in order to be totally free of them, you must cut the ties holding and connecting you and they can only be broken by cutting them with the scissors of forgiveness.

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Ultimately, you don’t want them to get away with it, but if you die a little every day, not only are they getting away scot free, they are now also stealing your life and future and potential from you. You have to trust that somehow and, in some way, and some day we will all need to face and make amends for the injustices we caused others. However, that might be in the next life and not in this one.

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All we can do here is to build something of great worth from the broken pieces that the injustice brought us. That’s the best way to defeat them, by not being broken by them.