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Chapter One: Dealing With the Past

This is the point where I need you to be brutally honest with yourself, with the past and with what you want. One of the most vital issues at this point is not to be afraid of facing your weaknesses, your failures or your fears. To do this, you need to take some time out to reflect on where you have been, what you have been through and how you got here.

Facing the past is never really easy, especially if you have not been making a lot of progress, the natural tendency is to want to forget everything and move on, but the fact is that you will never truly be able to move on without dealing with issues that matter.

There are things you wish you could just undo. There are parts of your past that you are not proud of; some of them you did, some you refused to do and some just happened to you either because you were careless or you didn’t see them coming and they are painful. The pain is not just because they happened, but also because there is nothing you can do to forget them or completely erase them. It sucks and I know.

One of the most difficult aspects of the past is the mistakes we made. There are those minor ones we can joke about, there are those ones that are serious but can be undone and forgiven; however, there are also these ones that are fatal and we can’t still get ourselves to even face them. Sometimes we just wish they could just disappear or we and everyone else will just forget them, but the truth is that they will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

We cannot change the past or undo it. The only thing we can change is how we see the past; how we see the mistakes, how we interpret the errors and how we respond to them. Our past is our past; the good, the bad and the ugly; they are all parts of one package from which we cannot pick and choose. The best way to respond to them is to accept them as reality and deal decisively with them that way.

Here is how I believe past mistakes can be dealt with:

1. Take responsibility

It doesn’t matter if it was not intentionally, as long as you are directly or indirectly responsible, you have to accept that. You will never be able to deal with mistakes if you choose to play the blame game. Stop looking for who to blame or for excuses to defend yourself; the earlier you accept the responsibility, the faster you will begin to heal.

2. Apologize if you hurt anyone

Mistakes take on a whole new dimension when someone else gets hurt. It is more difficult when you have to face the fact that somebody else will have to suffer because of your error. It is not the end of the world. You need to be strong enough to face the party or parties that are hurting and apologize.

Apologies won’t change anything and they won’t undo what had happened but they will give you the chance to talk about what happened and express your grief and regret for it. It doesn’t have to be accepted and you do not have to wait until they are ready to accept it; go ahead and apologize.

It doesn’t matter if it was met with anger, defiance, insults and threats; just offer your apologies and get it over with.

3. Learn your lessons

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. You need to ask yourself what you are taking away from every mistake, hurt, pain or bad situation. As long as you get to learn something, then you have not failed.

4. Make amends if possible

If you have the opportunity to make any form of amends for the troubles you have caused, it is alright. However, do not try to undo what you have done or sacrifice yourself just to show how sorry you are. Find out if there is anything you can do to remedy or make up for the situation you caused and do your best to make it up.

I even prefer taking some time before I try to make anything up to someone or for something; this allows me to clear my head and decide on the best cause of action.

5. Move on!

Close that chapter; turn another page; forget the past and move on! You still have the rest of your life ahead of you; do not allow the mistakes of the past to color the kind of future you want to have. Do not internalize the mistake or your failure; you are not a mistake. So, it’s a brand-new day, step outside the shores and make something of your life!