Beyond the prison of the past.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
I rather enjoy reading this Q & A on your site. Thanks for providing it. My question to you is how does one let go of a troubled past? I am a recovering alcoholic and, as you can imagine, there are many events from my past that I wish had not taken place. I was involved with a lot of violence at the bars, promiscuous sex life, got mixed up with drugs for a while, and anything else that comes along with leading that type of lifestyle. In one month, I will complete 5 years that I have not used alcohol, drugs, or any other type of substance. I now devote myself as entirely as I can to living a spiritual life, and I wish to go deeper. However, I notice that I spend a considerable amount of time in the past. I often have this fear that some of the actions from my past will come back to haunt me. I have recurring dreams where a detective tells me that they have been building a case against me for the past 5 years for things that I have done. In that dream, I’m always sentenced to a prison/jail term.
I have done a 4th and 5th step in AA. In fact, I’ve gone through the entire 12 steps. I will be revisiting the 4th and 5th, as I know that I could have been much more thorough the first time around. And perhaps then I will brush up on the 9th step as well, which entails making amends to those we harmed.
The problem is, I’ve already been through the process and I can’t seem to let go of my past. I feel like, deep down, I need to forgive myself for the things that I did. I don’t want to live in fear anymore, of what might happen. I no longer wish to fear my past coming back to haunt me. Is this a common thing for people that have a troubled past like mine?
So, do you have any recommendations for modalities that may go a little deeper than what I have already tried? To be fair, I’m going to give working the steps another chance, since I never felt right about how the first time was done. But I feel that for certain things, one needs to go deeper.
On a side note, I will soon learn Primordial Sound Meditation as well.
Response:
Congratulations on your five years of sobriety. That is a wonderful accomplishment.
Regarding your fear that your past will come back to haunt you and punish you, it occurs to me that your current state of guilt is already doing a good job of haunting you and your inability to forgive yourself is imprisoning you in a cell of your own making.
This guilt and lack of forgiveness is rooted in a belief that you are defined by your past actions. Once you learn to meditate, you will become aware of the silent core of within you that is your real nature, your true Self. From here you will know that you are not defined by your past behavior, those actions are merely events superimposed on your essential nature, but not who you truly are. It was that mistake that disallowed you to forgive yourself. With this experience of your authentic self you will be deep enough to release the remaining fear and guilt around your past.
Love,
Deepak
