Hey there, you're listening to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 21, "Letting Go of the 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. 

00:21 

Hey, hey, hey, well hello there, my good friends. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I really, really appreciate the positive comments I get from so many of you who are just letting me know that you are appreciating the messages that we're sharing here and the things that are going on. I appreciate that a lot. I have this community that I'm building I'm just super excited about because I love reaching out to help people see the world better and and put things in perspective. So this is a great place for me to be and I'm glad that it's turning out to be a great place for you to be. 

00:52 

So thank you for joining me. Today we're going to be talking about letting go of the past. Boy, this can be a really big one for a lot of us. Some of us have had some pretty scary big things happening in our lives in our past and sometimes it's really hard to let go of those. But we're going to talk about that today because only in letting go of the past can we start living in the present. And what could be more engaging and lovely than living in the present, right? They talk a lot about mindfulness these days and that's hard to do when we're constantly living in the past. So we're going to figure out today how to let go of it. 

01:38 

So I'm going to start off by talking today that one of the major things that distinguishes coaching from counseling, which is a question I get a lot, you know, how am I different than a counselor? One of the major things is how much time we spend focusing on the present as opposed to the past. So I've been to counseling myself. I have family members that have been to counseling. I have friends who are counselors and I get that counseling is an amazing tool when we need to figure out when we need to process the past. It is something that I've used. In coaching, however, we spend very little time talking about the past and we spend a lot of time figuring out our present. 

02:17 

So people who engage in coaching are those who are ready to move proactively forward with their lives and we work through the process that may be hindering them from doing just that. And so we work with our clients to help them understand how to start moving forward with their lives instead of being stuck in the past. But the past is important to coaching because what I find is that so many of my clients, as we've already talked about, are stuck in the past. They keep reliving past experiences over and over again in their minds and they have a really tough time letting go of those experiences and facing the future because those experiences they feel define who they are. And even if those experiences were horrible, those experiences define who they are. And so they think of the thoughts about their past that are keeping them stuck in the past rather than thinking thoughts that allow them to move forward into the type of life they really want to live. 

03:16 

So a huge part of what I do as a coach is to help my clients learn to identify the facts of their story from their thoughts about their story, and see how their thoughts either keep them stuck in a place they don't want to be or their thoughts can propel them forward into the type of life that they desire. So today we're going to talk about this process and hopefully help you understand how you can begin to let go of past experiences that may be holding you back. So, whew, that's a tall order for 20 minutes, but we're gonna do it today because there's some great stuff for you to learn here. 

03:52 

So let's start right here. Most of us live lives where we can remember our past, we can remember experiences that have hurt us or that have shut us down or maybe experiences that have empowered us or that have built us. And when we come across a new experience, our brains start searching into our past to see what correlations it can find to past experiences to  help give us a framework of how to deal with the new situation. That makes sense, right? But the huge elephant-in-the-room problem with this is that very often in our past we may have been too young physically to have dealt with the situation productively or we may have even been too emotionally immature to have dealt with the situation effectively. So when our brain goes searching into our past and wants to draw upon past experiences to guide our present experiences, we may unconsciously find ourselves responding in ways that our seven year old self did or our more emotionally immature 25 year old self did. 

04:58 

And the thing is, we're not that same person. At least let's hope we're not, right? Hopefully we've grown up mentally and emotionally and we're ready to live a very different life than we did in the past. So the first thing we have to do is realize that our brains may present solutions to our current problems that are severely outdated. Alright, it's like it's like trying to put an 80s patch on a on a 2019 computer system, right? It's just not going to work. And many of these solutions that our brain comes up with are going to create bigger problems if we start putting them into action. 

05:36 

But let's look at it a different way here. So let's say that you had amnesia and you couldn't remember anything from your past until you were 35 years old. Then our thinking would not be influenced by our past recollections, right? We would approach everything from a much older mentality and an emotional maturity. Or, let's say, have you ever had this experience? You and a sibling or a parent are talking about an experience you've had in your past, and you both remember something completely different. I mean, it's the exact same experience, but you have a very different recollection of it. Each one of you has your own version of what happened. 

06:13 

Actually, here we go. There are the exact facts of the experience, and then there is everybody's interpretation of what happened. So our thoughts about what happened, all right? There's the facts, and then there's our thoughts about those facts, and we all have different thoughts about those facts, all right? You may say, "my family went to Disneyland." Well, you may only remember that I got lost, and I was terrified for an hour and a half, and all the drama that comes with that. Your sibling may not even remember that you got lost. They just may remember that they got to go on their favorite ride three times, and they didn't have to wait in line twice, and they had whatever, you know? So they may have their experience of Disneyland may be like the best day ever, and yours might be one of the most terrifying days ever, alright? So the fact was you went to Disneyland, but you both have very different thoughts about that experience, and this is what can happen. 

07:17 

So this is where we can start to see how powerful our thoughts are in creating the lives that we're living. So for example, I have a friend who has a perception of her parents and how she was raised, and she has a sibling of just a few years difference, so it's not like they were 20 years in difference, just a couple years, and they have a completely different perception of her parents. So one of them thinks that they were amazing, loving parents, and the other one harbors a huge host of negative feelings, because they think that they were entirely too harsh and unloving. So who's right? The fact is they have parents. That's the fact of the matter. They have the same parents, right? That's the fact. The thoughts that they each choose to think, however, are where the stories take different forks in the road. But the thoughts of what the parents did have created a reality for each of these people that seems undeniable to both of them. Neither of them can figure out where the other one is coming from. They can't see it. 

08:21 

So remember a couple of episodes ago when we talked about storytelling. This is what we're talking about. There are the facts and then there are our thoughts about the facts. So now we start the really fun work, okay? Because this is what it comes down to. It doesn't really matter what happened in the past. What really matters is what we think about what happened in the past. Because it's our thinking about what happened in the past that is either holding us back or moving us forward. 

09:01 

Alright now, some of us may feel like we have some really old and deep deep wounds. Maybe we were physically, sexually or emotionally abused when we were younger. No doubt this was a life-altering experience that has shaped how we see the world. There's no way that I'm saying that that was not a difficult thing. Maybe we had some experiences where some were less painful, like an older brother who bullied you or parents who were stretched so thin that you didn't feel like they had time for you. At this point we're not making any judgments about whether those experiences were right or wrong. Most  people would see some of those things as very wrong and you may wholeheartedly agree. 

09:42 

But here's where coaching steps in. It doesn't really matter what the painful experience was. The point is that we hold on to these experiences and we look to these experiences to explain away our behavior today and to create how we approach our world today. So rather than dwelling on these past hurtful experiences and trying to figure out why and how they happen to us and how it's created the person we are today, coaching works to help us figure out how to use my thoughts around these same experiences to create a better today and a better tomorrow. 

10:26 

Because what happened to us in our past is completely in the past. The only pain we are still feeling from those experiences is the pain that we're creating today by the thoughts we are currently having at the time. But 30 years later, I can't feel the physical pain from that experience, but I may still be feeling a lot of emotional pain because of how I'm choosing to think about it. Maybe my continual thinking about that experience has caused a rift between me and my brother that even 30 years later, we don't get along well. 

11:14 

Now, I know this is a simple example, but I think that it's one that gets the point across, right? That the pain is not still there, but it's how I'm thinking about it today that is causing me pain today, not the pain from 30 years ago. So, maybe right now, you very well may be thinking, "I went through this horrible experience and now you're telling me it can't possibly affect me now. You're telling me it's all in my head." Well, what I want you to understand here is that this isn't a bad thing. It's actually very good news! This is some of the best news we could ever learn because what that person did to you in the past cannot affect you today. The only way it can continue to affect you negatively is if you decide to be a victim and continue to relive that experience through your thoughts today. 

12:12 

And this is such great news because the people from our past do not have power over us anymore. We may have been emotionally abused when we were younger but we perpetuate and continue this cycle of abuse in our own minds and we don't even realize we're doing it. We're continuing to give so much power to the person who abused us. Sometimes that person has even died and yet we continue to torture ourselves over and over and over by how we choose to think about the person and the situation. 

12:51 

So here's the deal. If we were asked to talk about why we have such a wonderful life, each one of us could probably cite loads of reasons why. But conversely if we were to talk about why we had such a crappy, challenging life we could probably find loads of evidence for that as well. But this matters because how we choose to think about our lives creates how we currently feel and act. Alright? We all know somebody who identifies themselves as a victim and generally they have some pretty good reasons for this. But this victim mentality persists into their adult lives because people who see themselves as victims continue today to think of themselves as the victim. They don't think that they were a victim in the past. They continue to think that I'm a victim today. They're continuing to think of all the negative aspects of what happened and make connections between what happened in the past. to what is happening in the present and the future. Therefore, they're continuing to relive the pain of their past every single day, even though the event might have happened decades ago. The emotional or physical pain from so many years ago continues to control their lives today because of how they're choosing to think about it. 

14:17 

The thing is, it's all relative, like my friend and her sibling who see their parents from completely different perspectives. What we choose to see and focus on creates our current feelings and actions. What we choose to think creates how I feel and how I act today. So if I can learn to see past experiences as just that, a past experience, we can begin to separate ourselves from the thinking of the past. Dan Sullivan teaches that we get to take from our past what we want and we get to leave the rest of it behind. We get to decide what we want to think about it We get to decide what we want those experiences to mean. I can choose to let those experiences tell me I'm worthless or I'm used goods or I'm an inherently evil person. Or I can choose to let those experiences show me how strong I am or how much I've grown and matured or how inherently great and good I am. We can be free from thoughts that hold us down and we can choose to look to the future rather than the past. 

15:31 

So have past experiences helped to define who we are? No doubt. No doubt, but that does that mean that I'm worthless and weak because of them? Absolutely not. I got divorced after 24 years of marriage. So I could make this mean a lot of things. I could think that this means that I'm a failure. I could think that it means I wasn't strong enough to stick it out. I could think it means I wasn't good enough or Christlike enough or compassionate enough. I could think it means that I'm broken and I'm worthless. I could think all those things. 

16:14 

Or, here I go, I can choose to think that this showed me that I was amazingly strong to not only stick it out for 24 years, but to come out of it a better person. I can choose to think that now I'm whole and I'm free to grow into my fullest potential, that I'm a better and more empathetic Christlike, compassionate person for having gone through those challenges. I can choose to think that this has positioned me in a place where I can help other people come out out of their tough situations, a better person as well. I can choose to think that God gave me a really amazing opportunity to learn about myself and my life's calling. You see, it's all up to me and how I choose to think. I can think however I want to about my life and what is going on. 

17:15 

But it's a process of learning how to slow down and realize what my brain is thinking and then decide if that's what I want to think. Because guess what? My brain is not always right. Let me ask you this. Who decides if my brain is right or not? Is it my brain that decides whether it's right or not? I decide. Me, not my brain. I can sit and kind of watch my brain thinking, well, who am I watching my brain thinking? My spirit, my soul is in charge here, not my brain. My brain is doing what it was programmed by God to do. It's here to try and protect me and keep me alive. And at the time, many of these experiences that happened to us, our brain did just that. Our brain protected us and kept us alive. 

18:12 

But now the same thought about that experience of so many years ago is no longer protecting me and keeping me alive. It's actually doing the opposite. Those same thoughts that protected me many years ago are now subjecting me to emotional pain and suffering. Pain and suffering that is causing me to die inside. Thoughts that keep me from really truly living and growing and loving. Thoughts that are harming me every single day. 

18:50 

So starting today, you can be free. You can be free from what someone said to you yesterday or this morning. You can be free from something that happened to you when you were eight or 17 or 26 or 35. But it all begins with choosing what I want to think. This can be a process to figure out. I work with coaches who help me to see my thoughts and work through them. It can be really difficult to see your own thoughts and your own experiences. And this is why even though I know this work, this is why I so enjoy working with a coach because it's amazing how often they help me see thoughts that I'm having. And I go, "oh my gosh, that's brilliant." It's amazing to see that. And I'm so grateful to work with the coaches that I work with. 

19:38 

And this is the deal, the process of learning how to choose my thoughts intentionally and thereby choosing how I want to feel and how I want to act is a brilliant process. It's a liberating process and it's a growth-inducing process and it's a process that makes for a really happy, balanced life. I love growing up, don't you? I love learning things like this that are making my world grow bigger and helping me to see things and helping me to feel more compassion for my self and more compassion for others. 

20:24 

If you would love some personal help from me to learn how to identify past thoughts and create new ones, contact me at tanyhale.com and book a free 20 minute coaching session to get you started. I would love to help you clarify your thoughts and get to a better place. Such a better place awaits every single one of us if we can learn to manage our thoughts. If you feel this podcast is adding value to your life please do a few things for me. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with other people who could benefit from these same amazing concepts. Alright, that'll do it for today. I hope that you can think about this and process this and start to understand how your thoughts are creating your life today and your life tomorrow. Have a great one and I'll talk to you later. Bye. 

21:18 

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!