“The past is a place of reference..not a place of residence.”

I believe some may be familiar with the quote, “the past is a place of reference, not a place of residence”, but how many have really unpacked what that means?

Shall we…?

I wanted to blog on this because quite honestly it’s like the perfect quote, and for someone who like myself has had issues with staying stuck in the past, I think it can be a “cheat sheet” for moving the hell on.

So the past is a place of reference, not residence..in other words you should be using the past as a period of your life where you have learned how to act or not react in certain situations; where you should be learning from all the experiences you went through and understand how to apply them to your future; learned from all the dumb mistakes, and vow not to make them again; and oh yeah..those same types of people you wasted time on..yeah, don’t do that again either.

When it says it’s not a residence, it means you don’t live there anymore. You are not in that period of your life anymore so stop going there my friend. Oh, and I’m not free of guilt on this one so I can’t really point the finger but I’m taking this lesson with you. The fact is that certain situations from our past have left such a fingerprint on our minds and our hearts that we sometimes can’t help but bring it back up and I think it’s that we believe this is going to be our way of protecting ourselves in some sense or a way to prove a point that we so drastically have to make.

In our relationships we bring up the past as a way to tell our current significant others how we were hurt and what we went through and while sharing is perfectly healthy, we have to know the difference between sharing and shielding. Meaning sharing is opening up and letting them know the different experiences we have been through in life, while shielding is using it as wall that we think will keep us from getting hurt again, when truly we are shielding or “blocking” the potential of connecting with someone who could be just what we need to make us forget all about the past pain and we do this because we are too busy connecting our past to our present.

So in turn, we are possibly unintentionally pushing people away because we are still residing in the past. Remember it’s a reference point, use it to your advantage not to your destruction.

Every single time you find yourself going back to those places of anger and hurt and confusion, the best thing you can do for yourself in that moment is ask yourself, ” what can I take from that experience?” What did I learn? What significance does this have to my future? The answer to that should be very clear, and once it becomes clear to you, more forward from it. Pack it up and ship it out.

Where you are going in life your past has no room. You are now looking towards your future and allowing yourself to stay stuck in the past only prevents or detains the best that is yet to come.

So in conclusion, after reading this when you sit and you reflect on this blog, I hope that you can identify your past references and realize their value or lack thereof. Every memory, every experience, and every person from your past should be organized in your mind with the correct tag or label…just like when we move to a new residence we have those boxes that we label “STAYING or GOING” or “TRASH or DONATING”, figure out which of your past experiences are in need of letting go and make room for all the beautiful memories you will make in your new home.
I hope you get that.

Until Next Time

Peace and Blessings

La’Ray Renee