How your past can keep you stuck
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easily something that happened years ago can continue influencing how we see ourselves today. We can carry the meaning we attached to an experience long after the experience itself is over, often without realising how much it is still shaping what we believe about ourselves and what we think is possible.
They’re defined by what they’ve done, or what’s happened to them. They spend so much energy looking back—wishing they’d done things differently, feeling powerless, and believing their past defines their future.
It’s understandable. Many of us have pasts that include pain, loss, or failure. And when we judge ourselves by those past experiences, it can be deeply discouraging.
Over 11 years ago, I was three months pregnant with my first child when my now ex-husband told me he was having an affair, with his boss and that he wanted to leave our marriage.
For a long time, I felt ashamed, ashamed that I’d been cheated on. Ashamed that I must not have been “enough.” I made his choices mean something about me.
I didn’t tell many people and I told myself it was because it didn’t matter, but the truth was, I was embarrassed. I felt like I had failed. And being left while pregnant with our first child? That felt like a reflection of my worth.
In those early days, I obsessed over what I could have done differently.
Could I have loved him more?
Been more supportive?
Would that have stopped him from leaving?
But here’s the truth: I did love and support him. And he still left.
His decision was his. But for a long time, I had made his decision my evidence about me.
No amount of overthinking, self-blame, or regret could undo what had already happened. But for a long time, all that looking back kept me stuck. It reinforced a belief I didn’t even know I had, that I wasn’t good enough.
When something painful happens, particularly when we didn’t choose it or understand it, it’s very easy to keep going back over the story looking for an explanation. And once I had attached the belief I wasn’t enough to what had happened, I could find evidence for it everywhere.
The affair itself was one event. What kept affecting me long afterwards was everything I had made that event mean about me.
What I’ve learnt is this:
There’s a difference between learning from your past and living in it.
Eventually, I had to ask myself a different question, not what if? but what now?
That was something I could work with. I couldn’t change what had happened, but I could start paying attention to what I was making it mean about me, where I was putting my energy, and what I wanted to do next.
It didn’t mean I didn’t have emotions to process or lessons to learn, but it meant I wasn’t going to use my past to keep telling myself I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t going to use it as an excuse to stay stuck. I had a child to raise and a life to rebuild, and that required me to start moving forward.
One practice I often do when feeling stuck in the past is this:
Write a letter to your past self
Be honest. Say what you’re angry about. What you’re sad about. What you’re sorry about. What you wish had been different. Tell her what you now understand about what happened that she couldn’t have known at the time. What did she blame herself for? What did she make the experience mean about who she was? And with everything you know now, what would you want her to understand differently? Tell her what you admire about how she got through it, what you wish she had been able to see in herself, and most importantly, remind her that what happened does not get to determine her worth.
Then write a letter from your future self
Imagine the version of you who’s already where you want to be. What would she say to you now? What would she tell you to stop doing? What would she encourage you to start? What perspective would she offer? What does she understand that you can’t quite see yet? What has she stopped blaming herself for? What has she stopped replaying or trying to change? What would she tell you to let go of? What would she encourage you to trust? Where would she want you to start putting your energy instead?
This exercise can bring clarity to what you’re still carrying, and help you shift your focus to what’s next. You cannot change what happened. But you can become much more deliberate about what you continue to make it mean.
So if you feel stuck right now, ask yourself:
What am I still using my past as evidence for?
And if I stopped using it to define who I am now, what might become possible next?
