Trying to figure out how to break free from the shackles of the past?
It can be hard.
And sometimes, what makes it harder is not the past itself—but how quietly it follows us into the present.
We all know that making peace with the past is important. Because when the past remains unchecked, it controls your thoughts, your emotions, your actions—and eventually, your future.
No matter how hard you try to live in the “present moment,” the past seeps in and ruins everything.
You cannot truly live in the present if past baggage is crushing your soul. To live a peaceful, grounded life, you need solid footing in the now. And that footing becomes possible only when you’re able to loosen the grip of the past.
Otherwise, no matter how hard you work, you remain torn—pulled between what was and what is. The present asks you to be here. The past refuses to let you go.
Which leads to an obvious question:
Can you really put your past behind you?
Is it possible to erase what happened?
Can the past ever be “over”?
Can You Get Over the Past by Condemning It?
When it comes to getting over the past, condemning it often seems like the best approach.
But does it work?
Condemning is a subtle mental strategy—a defense mechanism that gives you the illusion of freedom. You tell yourself you’ve moved on, that the past no longer matters.
But is it really that simple?
Let me share my own experience.
I condemned my past with all my might, hoping to forget the “nightmarish” years behind me. For a long time, I didn’t even realize I was fighting it. I thought I was just “being strong.”
Did it work?
Not even close.
The more I tried to push painful memories away, the stronger they became.
And then something became clear to me.
You cannot forget anything by condemning it. Because condemnation requires attention—and whatever you give your attention to expands. The harder you try to forget something, the more power it gains over you.
Can You Break Free by Trying to Change the Past?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a time machine? We could go back to the moment things went wrong and fix everything.
Nice thought. But such a thing doesn’t exist.
Still, we try—mentally.
We replay old events again and again, altering them in our imagination, hoping that doing so will somehow heal the present. But it never works. No matter how many times you revisit the past, it remains unchanged.
So if you can’t condemn the past, and you can’t change it—what can you do?
There’s only one option left.
You can accept it.
Acceptance Is Not a Choice You Make
Accepting something you hate is one of the hardest things there is. But without acceptance, peace is impossible.
My childhood was traumatic, and for a long time I fought against it. That fight did nothing but exhaust me. Eventually, I saw the truth: what happened had happened. I couldn’t undo it. I could only stop resisting it.
There’s an important nuance here.
You cannot force acceptance. You can only allow acceptance to happen.
Acceptance is not something you do. It’s something that happens when resistance drops.
Wherever you are in life right now is where you’re supposed to be—not because it’s perfect, but because it could not have been otherwise. Your present could not exist without your past.
I remember watching Back to the Future, where the protagonist tries to change the future by altering the past—and everything goes haywire. Time is a continuity. You can’t change one part without affecting the whole.
That’s true in life too.
You can’t change what happened. But you can change your relationship with what happened.
And most of our suffering doesn’t come from the past itself—it comes from our unwillingness to let it be.
Helpless Acceptance vs. Rejoicing Acceptance
If you want to loosen the grip of the past, wholehearted acceptance is the only way. Whether you accept it or not, the past remains what it was. The difference is whether it continues to control you.
Acceptance is not submission.
It’s not saying, “What can I do? It’s done.”
There are two ways to accept something.
One is through helplessness.
The other is through rejoicing.
Helplessness drains your power. Rejoicing restores it. Not hard power—soft power. The kind that doesn’t need resistance to exist.
When you try to make things happen, you are pushing against something. But who are you pushing against?
The universe?
You are part of it. A fragment cannot fight the whole and win.
Can You Accept the Past with Love?
Accepting the past with love isn’t easy—especially when you feel wronged.
Forgiveness feels impossible at first. And without forgiveness, peace remains distant.
But don’t force forgiveness. Don’t force love.
Begin with acceptance.
As acceptance deepens, forgiveness follows naturally.
And when resistance arises—as it will—accept that too. Even your resistance is part of you. Don’t fight your fighting nature.
The Pond and the River
What’s the difference between a pond and a river?
Both are bodies of water. But a pond becomes stagnant, while a river remains fresh—simply because it flows.
When you fight the past and insist that things should not have happened, your life energy gets stuck there. And when your energy is stuck in the past, it’s unavailable in the present.
Positive emotions are expressions of free-flowing energy. When that energy is entangled in pain and memory, negativity dominates.
Freeing yourself from the past is really about freeing your energy.
And again—don’t force acceptance. Let it happen.
Pause and notice where your own energy feels stuck.
Not conceptually—but viscerally.
There Were Never Any Shackles
Take a breath before you read on. This part is easier to resist than to understand.
The past is over. That chapter is gone.
You can either condemn it and relive it endlessly, or make peace with it and begin again.
You don’t get over things by fighting them. You get over them by allowing them.
You can’t break the shackles of the past.
You can only let them fall away.
And here’s the difficult truth:
There were never any shackles.
They were of your own making.
It took me a long time to see that the suffering I carried was sustained by my attention—by revisiting it, talking about it, and feeding it emotionally.
Why would anyone do that?
Because it gives the ego a sense of identity. If it can’t feel important through success or joy, it chooses suffering instead.
If I can’t be the happiest person, let me be the most miserable.
Taking Responsibility for Your Life
If you want freedom from the past, responsibility is essential.
Yes, things happened to you—things you couldn’t control, didn’t choose, and may not even fully understand.
But you do have control over a few crucial things:
how you relate to what happened
whether you meet yourself with compassion or with self-pity
the direction you choose from this moment onward
The world itself is neutral. It is neither friendly nor hostile.
But the posture you bring to it shapes how it meets you.
See the world as hostile, and it reflects hostility.
Approach it with openness, and it responds in kind.
The world is a mirror.
And if you don’t like what you see, breaking the mirror won’t help.
Pause here for a moment.
Notice how often we try to fix the reflection—by rearranging circumstances, blaming the past, or waiting for the world to change—while leaving ourselves untouched.
But the change never happens out there.
It happens quietly, internally,
when resistance softens…
when the grip on old stories loosens…
when the need to fight fades.
You don’t need to rewrite your past.
You don’t need to justify it.
You don’t even need to forgive it all at once.
You only need to stop carrying it forward.
The moment you do, something subtle shifts.
Energy returns.
Presence deepens.
Life begins to move again.
You don’t change the world by struggling with it.
You change the world by changing yourself.
And when that happens, the past finally knows where it belongs—
behind you,
at rest,
no longer asking for your attention.