10 Steps to Let Go of the Past Forever

What if you could actually let go of the past? What if you could look at your life, in the future, and recognize that because of your journey, you've been able to let go of all the things that keep you stuck? That's what we're going to get into today. One of the number one questions that people ask me constantly, whether it's in coaching, whether it's on stages, whether it's about this podcast, they always ask me, how do I stop living in the past?

So today I'm going to break down the 10 things that I have done in my personal life, and that. Also guided and coached my clients through over the years to help them do the same. And do me a favor before we jump into today's episode, please make sure that you subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. If you're listening on Apple podcast or Spotify, hit that follow button, hit that plus sign. It helps so much in growing the show and I really need your support. And if you'll even take a moment and leave the review mean the world to me. That said, let's get into it.

So these are the 10 things that I would do if I were you to change my life and free myself of the past. This is how I would get unstuck. This is how I would move forward through self doubt. And this is how I would ultimately put myself in a position to be successful. So here are all 10 and then I'm going to break them all down. So number one is you have to acknowledge your feelings. Number two is you have to practice mindfulness. Number three, focus on what you control. Number four, reframe your perspective. Number five, probably the most important set boundaries. Number six, seek support. Number seven, engage in self care. Number eight, practice forgiveness. Number nine, set goals for the future. And ten, Give yourself time. If I were to give myself time to have a deeper conversation with you in today's podcast, I would tell you that if you want to let go of the past, this is how you do it.

So number one, acknowledge your feelings. This kind of should feel like a given. I know that it's not, but I want you to believe that it is. And so when you acknowledge your feelings, it's very simple. It's about looking at the reality of the current emotional state that you are in. If you're sad, be sad. If you're angry, be angry. If you're happy, be happy. Sometimes people get caught because they ruminate, meaning that they just trapped themself in the same thought over and over and over and they can't free themselves. This is why this is number one. This is the most important thing that I learned in my journey. The moment I learned that if I control my emotions, I control my life. Everything in my life became better, everything became different and life became a lot more free because I realized like I was in my own way. If you've ever been in your own head before, and you know that place where you're like, Oh my God, I can't stop thinking about how crazy that thing was 13 years ago. Like it just keeps you stuck. It doesn't serve you, it doesn't help you. And on a long enough timeline, it really just hinders you. Think about all the emotional energy that you've put into negativity. Not saying that you don't need to take consideration of these things because it's very important, right? But what I am saying is you have to look at your life and you have to understand that the more energy you put into negativity, the more that will be reflective of your life.

Number two, practice mindfulness. The practices of meditation, deep breathing, yoga the reason that everyone in mental health talks about this is because it gives you the ability to get your brain and your body reconnected. So many people who experienced traumatic experience are disassociated because their brain is in survival mode, so they're totally removed from their body and events that happened even in childhood and you could be 45 years old could still be impacting you and what mindfulness allows you to do is it gets you into the present moment. Anxiety is worry about the future. Depression is worried about the past. The people who are the most mindful are the people who have the most success in life.

Number three, focus on what you can control. I cannot stress this enough, this changed my life forever. Stop trying to control everything but you. That's it, that is the key. Focus on what you can control. The only thing you can control is your reaction is your effort is your energy is your time is your money. You cannot control what has ever happened to you at the hands of someone else, you can't control what may happen to you. Good, bad, or indifferent from someone else. You can't control the weather, you can't control if the bus is going to be later on time. You can't control if the plane's going to crash. I know that's a hard thing to hear, but it's oh my god, don't crash plane. But it's like the reality, what do you get to control? You get control, your focus, you get to control your energy. You get to control your effort, you get to control the way that you move your thoughts, your behaviors, and your goals, control what you can control and let go of the rest. So many people are trapped in the past because they have not let go of controlling moments that they don't get to control.

Number four, reframe your perspective. This is something you guys have heard me talk about before. I know it can be difficult instead of looking at life. Here's what people do instead of looking at life and trying to figure out how something, even the most horrible thing that has ever happened to you, how something bad is actually for your benefit, most people fall into the victim space of, I can't believe this happened to me. Instead of looking at and going, why has this happened for me? How does this make my life better? Most people go, I am a victim. This is the worst thing that ever happened. Woe is me. And again, guys, I'm told you this before. I'm not tying, trying to take away victim hood from you. It's something that's deserved, I get it. You guys know my story. Mom cut my finger off homeless as a kid, learning disability, best friends got murdered when in debt, when I'd made a million dollars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I get it. The reality though, is I just started to change my perspective. I started to find gratitude in my day to day, and I considered like, how did these events of my life make me stronger? Did they make me wiser? How did they make me more resilient? And the more that I focused my energy on that, the better my life got. And it's unbelievable the byproduct of all of the energy in reframing and trying to look for the positive and even the worst moments.

Number five, you have to set boundaries. I talk about this all the time. Boundaries are for you. They are not for other people. Boundaries create a container for which you decide you want to live your life. Boundaries are tossed around a lot in the world that we live in right now, especially with mental health and for whatever reason, people use the word boundaries and then call everybody else toxic. And I don't think that's how boundaries work, I believe that boundaries are about creating a safety net for you to navigate your life so that when you are looking at life from your perspective and the things that you need to honor your wants, needs, interests, and what it is that you want to accomplish in your life you have to have incredible boundaries and boundaries are about. Understanding where your energy is being displaced because if your energy is always going into negativity into things that interrupt your flow in your process into other people, right? And you're not putting yourself first. Are you breaking your boundaries or somebody else? And this is where it gets really tricky because now you have to be like, actually, this is about me. I'm the one who let that person cross my boundary. Thus, my life is negatively impacted. I know hard words to hear, but it will set you free.

Number six, seek support. Look, you are a human, you need help. You need guidance, this is the same reason why people come into coaching with me. This is the same reason why we have support groups, the same reason why I have Monday night groups. This is the same reason why you may go to church or have a community. You need to have support, especially about things in the past that kept you trapped. Now there might be the professional level of support. Get a therapist, get a coach, I talk about this all the time, but then there's always the other side of support to where it's like, can you really connect with your family, with your friends and with your community, with your partner, they are not here to be your coach or your therapist let's cut a line in the sand on that. But can they give you the emotional support that you need to walk down the path of this journey to have someone to catch you when you fall to have your back and on those hard nights where you're like, I just can't do it. They send you the text and they're like, let's go, right? That's one of the biggest things that as a coach, I get to do for my clients on a daily basis, is I get to support them in their goals and in their journeys. And it's different for every one of them. But every day I love getting the texts from them where they're like, I did this today. I accomplished that today. Thank you for helping me. If you're in that place in your life where you need more support, we have Monday night coaching programs. I do one on one coaching. Just go to thinkunbroken.com to learn more about that.

Number seven is you have to engage in self care. Now, self care I've said this before is not drinking the bottle of wine in the bathtub. We have got to strip that narrative. If anything, it makes your life worse. Alcohol is a depressive. You get drunk, you start thinking about the past. You call that X. Next thing you know, the thing that you're doing is you're like ruminating. Oh my God. Now we're back to step one. I'm not saying don't have a drink, do you, but I'm just saying think about actions have consequences. Self care can be a lot of different things. I like to practice self care by moving towards exercise, moving my physical body, doing martial arts, hanging with my friends, taking myself out to lunch and dinner. I like to make sure that I have a hobby in my life, which, oddly enough, even though this is my career it's my hobby too, so it's great. And it's also the willingness, tying into boundaries, to really identify my yeses and my noes, right? Self care is identifying your yeses in your nose and making sure that you are doing the things that move you towards your goals in life. And sometimes it really is man, I'm going to eat the pizza today and hang out. And sometimes it's, I'm going to get up, go to the gym at 5:30 AM. And you've got to differentiate and delineate how this works in your life. But to me, self care is about asking this question. Am I taking care of myself or am I taking it easy on myself? Something I've shared a question. I've asked many times over the years.

Number eight, you have to practice forgiveness. There's no simple way to put this, but if you do not forgive both yourself and others, you are going to stay stuck in the past, and I know it's hard to hear. People ask me all the time, how do you forgive your mother for cutting your finger off? I'm like, What am I supposed to do at this point in my life? People ask me, how do you forgive yourself for not picking up the phone before your best friend got murdered? I'm like, I'm fucking human. Like this is a part of the journey. How do you forgive yourself for all the mean things you've said and done? It's what else am I going to do? A lot of forgiveness has to be predicated in the willingness to not do that stuff anymore. Let's not skip over that. But it's also about looking at and recognizing humans are humans, we are all fallible, no one is perfect. We hold people to these unbelievable standards. But what you actually do when you're being unforgiving is you're sitting in hatred and anger and vitriol. And it's When you are in that space, there's no room for gratitude, there's no room for growth, there's no room for love, there's no room for acceptance, there's no room for what's next. So I would tell you one of the most important things that you can do is get to that space of recognizing that forgiving hurtful things that have happened that you've either experienced or that you've done to others is one of the most remarkable cornerstones of the healing journey. Now I will say this, it takes time. I don't think you can just be like, I forgive people. And then life is different. I think it takes effort and energy and time. I also think that one of the really important elements of forgiveness that people don't leverage is that old feelings may come up again and that's okay. Handle it, deal with it. Don't fall into that rumination process.

Number nine, set goals for the future. If you're a future based, you can't be stuck in the past. That's how I look at it. And people ask me all the time, how in the world did you change your life from 350 pounds, two packs a day, drinking yourself to sleep, 50,000 in debt, blah, blah, blah. How did you change your life after trauma and homelessness and abuse and drug addiction, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of it really, when I go and I look at all of the journey, it all came down to creating goals in my life and putting myself in a position by being disciplined, by showing up, by having support, by being honest that I could move towards something different. And I'm constantly in that. And every single day I'm asking myself, like, how do I move towards a future that I want in my health, wealth, and relationships? And that only works because I have goals set. Some of the goals are. Unbelievably, probably impossible, but that's why I moved towards them because I need a challenge. And some of the goals are daily goals, like very simple things, but they still pull me into the future. Like today I knew I had to record this podcast. So I said to myself, okay, where do I put it on the calendar? How does it fit in, get it in, get it done? The goals that I want people to think about in terms of their life that really worked for me is one, is your goal big enough to scare you? Meaning can you get to an eight out of 10, an 8.5 out of 10 on the fear scale? You don't wanna go to 10 'cause it's impossible. You won't do it, you don't want to go to one 'cause then you won't be inspired. We as human beings, we need a challenge, ee need something that pulls us forward. So you need to ask yourself, what's an 8.5 goal in my life right now? Something very difficult, where I will need support, where I'll need effort and energy. That's gonna take me time, discipline, and concentration. What is something that I desire? And this could be anything. It could be learning language or playing guitar or building a business or dating or relationships. Like it can be an 8.5 for some people in dating is like a 10. So like you really need to get introspective with yourself about what it is that you want and then make some goals that are going to transform your life.

Number 10, give yourself time. I've said this countless times over the years, like patience is everything in this journey. You have to put yourself in a position of being patient, of leveraging patience, and most importantly, understanding that it's actually going to take you longer to create the changes you want in your life than you think. A lot of people think that they make a decision today and that tomorrow will be different, but you deciding to let go of the past, requires patience. Cause as I mentioned, there'll be times where it comes back and you're like, man, that's so hard right now. I remember when that thing happened. And it's wait a second. I thought I was going to go through these nine steps. Yeah. Let me change this, let me change my narrative, let me focus differently. And patience is about also understanding that when you give yourself time, you've given yourself permission, that this is a rest of your life journey. Okay, and I know that's difficult because I know that for so many people it's like, why do I have to deal with this? I get it, respect. It's not like the most ideal situation, but when you give yourself time and you allot patience in the journey, it opens up opportunity for you to be alive, for you to be in this moment and exist and recognize the truth about the past and how it may or may not have served you. And the more that you can do that, the better your life is going to be on a long enough timeline because the one thing that's really incredible about the journey to getting to become the person that you want to become is that it's going to take time. And if you look back on your life in 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now, if you make these choices and decisions today, I guarantee you your life will be different.

So that said, my friends, these are the 10 things that I would do if I were you, if I were back in the process of letting go of the past, I would also do something really important. I would get community again, guys go to thinkunbroken.com hop on a coaching call with me, join our Monday program with other amazing humans who are on this healing journey. It's super affordable for everyone involved. Please leave a comment subscribe, follow, tell friends about this. Let's help make the world a better place together. And remember every time you do, you're helping others transform their trauma to triumph breakdowns to breakthroughs and to become the hero of their own story.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends,

Be Unbroken.