Burn Baby Burn

                       

                                My Past: 
 I can choose to let it define me, confine me, refine me, outshine me......or I can choose to move on and leave it behind me. 

The other day I posted this picture on my Random Thoughts facebook page.  I wrote a caption for it that said: "Face it. Learn from it. Make peace with it. Than let it go." The response was immediate and overwhelming.  One lady called it the most empowering picture she had seen. Something so simple. Yet so huge to most. You can't erase your past. Your history. It is there, will always be there. But what it doesn't always have to have, is a strangle hold on you. Over the years I have done what this picture portrays a number of times. There is something so cathartic about fire.  It cleanses.  Its putting everything into a box and burning it. The finality like a slamming door. It can no longer hurt you, you have burned away its power over you. It is done.

We all have histories. No one makes through life unscathed. It is a fact of life. Shit happens and you deal. But you can find ways to release it's hold on you. The past is just that, past. Its over. Going over and over it in your head just means you can't or won't let it go. To some it is like a safety net, an excuse not to be happy, not to be confident or not to live. Instead of learning from it, facing it once and for all and eventually making peace with it. They hold it close. Almost like a barrier against anything worse happening.  Or some use their past as a defense- It happened once, it could happen again. But when you do this, you lose your today. 

Your today is the most important thing. 

Your past: You can choose to let it define you, confine you, refine you, outshine you......or You can choose to move on and leave it behind you. There is usually nothing tangible that you have to hold on to. Journals maybe, a memory box, letters, emails whatever. Keeping things that hold you to something you really need to let go of, are never going to release you.You have to find you power and release them. 

Use that one foot you have planted in the past to propel you forward to your future. 

Burn it. Write things that you need to let go on a piece of paper.  Write it all out of your system. Print off the emails and than burn them. A few months back I had a letter. It was a long letter that to me felt as solid as an anchor around my neck. Those 7 pieces of paper had the weight of an albatross. Words. Powerful words that I never wanted to read again, but somehow couldn't stop. One day I had enough. I got a big steel pot, went outside and I burned that damn letter. I cried, I yelled and then I felt this calm. I had released something that had such a hold over me. I felt free, I felt lighter. I felt that I could finally get a handle on things and move out from underneath them. The feeling of setting those papers on fire and watching them burn and smoke was amazing. 

I didn't walk away from burning that letter simply over the pain.  When I  walked away from that ceremonial burning though I was  somehow, cleansed. That in burning it and scattering the ashes far away from me, I gave myself permission to move forward.  

We will never forget our histories. The people that made appearances both good or bad. People we love and lost. Hurts we felt or inflicted. Mistakes we made. Time will never erase it, it will never disappear. But it's hold, its power over you, will.  You have the ultimate control over it. Use it. Feel that strength. Be bold. 

Face it. Learn from it. Make peace with it. Than let it go. 

Burn Baby Burn.