outgrowing the past

Feb 26

Dear Reader,

My therapist once told me that making peace with the past doesn't mean the past becomes peaceful. The things that happened still happened. The people who hurt you might never apologize. The opportunities you missed aren't coming back. Peace isn't about changing any of that.

What changes is how much space it takes up in your present life.

I used to think healing meant I'd stop caring about what happened. That one day I'd wake up and it just wouldn't matter anymore. But that's not what happened. Instead, I started noticing longer stretches between the times I thought about it. Conversations where I didn't bring it up and decisions I made without consulting that old story first.

The past loses its authority slowly, often in ways you don't notice until you look back. What helped me wasn't trying to make peace with what happened. It was making peace with the fact that I'll probably always have a reaction to certain things, and that's okay. My body remembers even when my mind has moved on. That's not a failure of healing, that's just being human.

This week, maybe don't try to make peace with anything. Just notice if there's somewhere you're still arguing with the past, still trying to get it to make sense or be fair or turn out differently. You can stop arguing. It doesn't mean you're okay with what happened. It just means you're done spending your energy there.

The past doesn't need your permission to be in the past. It's already there. You're here.

Yours in the journey,