The past you're trying to heal doesn't exist.

But you keep reliving it. Feeling the pain from it. Trying to understand why you're still reacting to something that happened twenty years ago.

It doesn't work. And deep inside, you already know that.

You've tried therapy, journaling, self-help or any other tool but still end up sitting in your parked car after work, engine off, hands still gripping the steering wheel.

Not ready to go inside yet.

Not sure why your chest feels tight when nothing even happened today.

Just sitting there, staring through the windshield, asking the question we all have:

You might be able to explain your childhood traumas, the stories that haunt you, your flaws inside and out.

But in some way, you still get triggered by similar situations and stories. The memories keeps affecting you until this day, even though it happened years ago.

The pattern keeps repeating itself over and over.

Why?

Because you're healing the story instead of feeling the emotion.

You're trying to solve the past — a memory — existing only in your mind, with the mind.

That's like trying to put out a fire with more gasoline.

My Father's Words Still Chase Me

I was seven years old. Standing on a football field, trying to make my father proud. I missed a play. He said something, not cruel, just disappointed:

Three words. Something that landed in my chest. A feeling that said: I'm not enough.

Twenty years later, someone questions my idea. And there it is again, same tightness, same voice.

I thought I reacted to them.

I didn't.

I reacted to a moment that ended decades ago.

Now place your own story into this:

• Maybe it was something your parents said.
• Maybe a moment with a teacher.
• Maybe something you heard from society.

A sentence that landed once, and never left.

Whatever it was, it didn't stay in the past.

It followed you.

Because every time you revisit it, trying to understand it, resolve it, finally get over it, you keep it alive. Years pass. Then decades. And without noticing, you’re still reacting to something that happened when you were a kid. It shows up in the middle of an ordinary day. No warning. No permission. And the adult you are disappears.

You promise yourself you won't go there again.

You've seen this pattern before.

But moments later, you're already inside it.

Why Thinking About Your Past Keeps You Stuck

The past only exists as an emotion arising now.

It means that when you're reacting to your past — that event on the football field for example — you're feeling the emotion in this present moment.

Right now.

The story is just a trigger. An activation of the energy stored in your system.

It's the feeling that's stuck. Not the actual memory.

So to change the past, you'd have to change the emotion, stuck in your nervous system.

In other words, you don't heal memories. You welcome the feeling underneath.

It sounds simple, but this is what you've been running from your whole life.

When you try to solve the emotion with thought, you freeze it in place. You analyze instead of feel. You understand instead of release. And it doesn't work.

Emotions are meant to move through you, like waves. Rise, fall, dissolve.

But when you fight them, analyze them, try to understand them, the wave freezes. It gets stuck mid-motion.

Trapped in your body.

That frozen wave? That's what you call "the past."

That's why you're still suffering.

Welcoming the feeling—without solving it—is how you let the wave complete itself.

It's how you heal your past for real.

And the good part is that it's much easier than you think.

How To Liberate Yourself From Your Past

So how do you unfreeze the wave ?

How do you heal your past, so you can live a peaceful and happy life today?

This is simpler than your mind wants it to be.

Step 1) Notice The Trigger

The first step in this process is noticing you're triggered. If you're not used to this practice, it might take time to realize you're reacting to a memory stored in your nervous system.

But don't worry.

As soon as you notice a story playing in your head—that you're spiraling into thoughts—pause.

When you get used to this, you'll be able to catch yourself faster, before you spiral too deep.

In the beginning though, it can take a while to realize you're stuck in your head.

That's okay. The most important thing is to actually pause when you notice you're replaying thoughts that aren't serving you.

Step 2) Drop The Story

The next step is to drop the story. After you've paused, the way to move from your mind into the feeling is to let go of the story without analyzing it.

Most of the time, we wonder:

• Why do I feel this?
• What's wrong with me?
• This shouldn't be happening.

That's resistance to the actual feeling. And in order to drop the story, you have to locate where you feel the emotion in your body, without judging it.

Up to this point, you've been trying to escape it, fix it with your mind, or reject it as wrong—because it felt like a threat.

Let the mind and its story be. It doesn't matter if the mind keeps replaying. Just locate the feeling and stay with it.

Step 3) Welcome The Feeling

Resisting your feelings is what creates suffering.

It's what creates the thoughts, the loop between thoughts and emotions, back and forth, where you've been stuck. And when you're stuck, you can feel clearly that you're operating from a low energy, dirty fuel instead of stillness.

Let the feeling be. Don't try to solve it. Just feel it completely and breathe into it. If you notice yourself getting pulled back into your mind, bring your awareness back to the feeling in your body and sit with it.

You can try this right now.

Think about something, an event or situation you don't like. Notice where you feel it in your body when you think about it. Then just start feeling the feeling instead of thinking about it. Notice how you automatically drop the story in your mind.

Doing this enough times, you'll find it gets easier to stay with the feeling. And eventually, the trigger won't activate the same reaction anymore, because it's no longer stored in your body.

These things will just be events. Just happenings, without triggering you.

You'll start to feel lighter, because nothing triggers you anymore. Your mind will feel clearer, more expansive, more alive. Instead of getting stuck in endless mental loops, you'll make room for insights, solutions, and ideas that move you forward with ease, excitement, and joy.

And most importantly, you'll feel more peaceful.

When you're not trapped in your head, you're present. In presence, you'll rediscover deep, quiet peace that's been there all along, waiting beneath the noise.

This is how you heal your past, and free yourself from the chains you wear today.

You'll stop mid-conversation, realizing that comment that used to ruin your week just... didn't land. You'll notice the tightness in your chest is gone. The story that played on repeat for twenty years?

Silence.

Just you, here, now, without the weight of decades pressing on your shoulders.

Someone will say something that used to trigger you, and you'll feel nothing. Not because you're numb. Because the frozen wave finally moved through.

The past doesn't need healing. It needs you to stop running from what it made you feel.

— Tomas

P.S. Hit reply and tell me: What's one pattern you've been trying to think your way out of? I read every response.