This post is Day 29 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. Learn more and sign up for the program here.
Yesterday, you wrote a love letter to the past year. Today, you’re going to cement that good energy going forward by getting rid of everything you didn’t love about 2010. Today, you’re finally going to let go of the past. Literally.
Day 29: Let Go of the Past
Today’s exercise consists of three parts, and they are all equally important to the process of letting go of negative events and experiences from the past.
Step 1: Acknowledgement
Go grab your reset notebook and write down all the things that you’re still holding onto from the past year (or even the past 30 years!). The timeframe is up to you. Your list should include bad experiences, failed relationships, arguments with friends and family, people who hurt you, situations you regret, jobs you got fired from, etc. If you want to go back more than a year, you can also include situations from your childhood, people you still have hold grudges against from high school, etc.
Step 2: Affirmation
For each item on your list, find a way to achieve closure, even if it is a small amount of relief. Think of an affirmation or personal mantra you can apply to the past event that will remove the painful or negative aspect of it and allow you to move on. You can either write them down in your notebook or say them out loud as you go down each item on the list.
Here is an example from my own life:
Past event: A painful breakup with a man that I thought would be my husband.
Affirmation: I’m glad things happened the way they did. When we broke up, I finally became committed to living an authentic life and pursuing what really made me happy. Thank you for letting me go. I can appreciate it now. I am grateful and free.
Step 3: Absolution
Now, you’re going to destroy your entire list. Tear the page(s) out of your notebook and do the following (and this is very important):
Burn it.
Go outside and do it with a lighter or a match. Stand in front of your stove and do it when you get a moment alone in the kitchen. I don’t care how you burn it, just get rid of that list! And consider this a symbolic “reset ceremony” of starting off the year ahead fresh and unencumbered with your old pain and suffering.
When you’re done, please share your experience with us in the comments! How long was your list? How did you feel when you burned it?
Note: If you blogged about today’s assignment, please post the link in the comments so we can read it!
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F lushing
O ut
wR ong
G rievance
I s
V ery
E nabling.
I believe that forgivness is like flushing a toilet – you don’t do it to benefit the toilet, you do it to get rid of your own crap. For the longest time I used to feel like forgiving people for wrong doing was somehow excusing their behaviour or making it seem like it was OK to treat me badly. Holding onto that resentment was doing nothing for me and for damn sure wasn’t hurting them. I kept asking God how it was that we had to do something that was so damn hard to be close to him. Then it occured to me that I was looking at it wrong. You need to forgive so that you yourself are not holding onto all that bad stuff and allowing it to infect other aspects of your life by making you a bitter and resentful person – like flushing a toilet, you do it to get rid of your crap. That is the purpose of this exercise today. I am not going to write those grievances in this notebook – I don’t want to tear out the page and spoil my pretty, pretty book(!), but nor do I want to keep a record of wrongs.
The other day while clearing out I found a writing pad so old that the pages are yellowing (yeah, I’ve BEEN needing to have a clear out lol)I think that is apt for this task. I also bought a toilet shaped novelty mug to literally symbolize the flushing.
So I will use the yellowing pad to write down the grievances,including how they impacted on me.
I will then take the strips into the garden and burn them, put the ashes in the toilet mug, pray over it, pray for release from those feelings, pray for the people/acts that inflicted them, before flushing them down the toilet literally for real.
This will enable me to better deal with these people in the future from a new better place, instead of viewing things through old hurts and wrongs (at least that’s the plan anyway!)
I will repeat this as often as is necessary.
———-
In the process of writing down the grievances and their affects on me, I realized that I had internalized a lot of the behaviour of the person who had wronged me. There were some instances where I said “thank you for X because it has meant that I will never do X myself”. But then there were a few instances where I could not say that. And that is when I realized that there were some things I had held onto for so long that they had become a part of who I was. And that was toxic.
(Also, turns out old paper doesn’t burn so good, so had to do A LOT of flushing, but I got rid of ‘em dammit!)
I had a revelation last year, once I stopped blaming others for my mistakes; the pain I had been suffering from disappeared. My health improved too! This exercise helped me to realise how far I’ve come but also reminded me that there is still a lot to work on…such is life.
http://bmoreflyy.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/reset-day-29let-go-of-the-past/ I started in January just making it to day 29, but I’m making it and therefore I’m glad about it.
#latepass again, but here i am. it was great to be able to do this: http://www.amandamichellejones.com/?p=809
Didn’t realize how therapeutic this would be!
I don’t want to burn it. I think that the affirmations I made can be generalized for other situations that may come about in the new year. These affirmations are the tools I will use in the event that past hurts reappear in my mind, but also for the potential arrival of new situations. All in all, I loved the exercise!
I agree. For some odd reason, I didn’t want to burn my either because I want to use the affirmations as reminders. But at the same time, I don’t want to keep dwelling on certain things. I truly want to be done with them. Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to burn them.
I’m glad I found your site. Mahogany Butterfly posted it on FB. I think this Reset your life challenge is great and I will start it myself. Having gone through some tough situations in 2010 I did a burning of past hurts ceremony during the lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice and let me tell you it was the BEST thing I could’ve done. I needed to let go of all those hurts because they were taking up space and energy. They were not allowing me to fully enjoy the wonderful things I have now in my life and were blocking me from receiving more. Now some past issues may pop up but I don’t dwell on them or beat myself up about it and most importantly it doesn’t hurt. There is no negative energy towards those events, I feel soo much lighter and energetic. It was a long list, actually I had to do a second list and burned that too then I flushed the ashes down the toilet….Good RIDDANCE!!!!!
This exercise I will have to work on tomorrow. I’m letting go of something really big tomorrow that I want to burn!
This was incredibly timely for me, since I’ve been dwelling on a previous relationship for a while and it’s been incredibly unhealthy. I tend to just dwell on the little things with him, turning everything into a big production. This exercise helped me realize that he doesn’t have a place in my life and that I need to get over what happened between us in the past and just move on, instead of continuing to let him occupy space in my mind. Especially since I’m in a new relationship and don’t have romantic feelings for him anymore. The exercise also helped me realize that in general, I have a hard time letting people go, even when they do me wrong. I’ll complain and complain about their behavior, but I always continue to let them back in. I need to start 2011 just letting things go when their time is over.
This was a great exercise for me. There really are some things that I need to leave in the past and have been thinking about the best way to forget those things and not continue to bring them up. Hoping the burning exercise will work…..although I’m a bit skeptical for fire! :0). Thanks Rosetta!
You had me until
“I’m glad things happened the way they did.”
At my best when looking at the past, I can raise grudging acceptance at the way events unfolded. But since I’m determined to go into the new year trying new things, I might as well try this as well.