Holding on to what’s no longer there holds too many of us back.  Some of us spend the vast majority of our lives recounting the past and letting it steer the course of the present.  This was never more real than in my marriage. There was an open wound in my soul and it had a name. ABANDONED. Maybe yours has a different name. I dare you to name it.  I was blind to its influence in my life. I decided at a young age I would trust no one but myself. To be honest with you, ignorance was bliss. I had no idea that the fuel to much of the applause I received throughout my life was the byproduct of  this open door as I was always trying to out run my past. I don't know about you but even as I write this I hear the whisper of my not OK’ness “If it helped you gain fame, acceptance and admiration why mess with it”? The answer is simple, because after the win, after the lights went out, after the applause... I was still stuck with me. And in some ways trapped inside the soul of a broken kid who like an addict could never get enough acceptance to scratch the itch. 

 Do you have a door in your past that drives you? Do you put pressure on people to live in a time and space that they never experienced? Do you make excuses today because of what happened yesterday? Are you tired of the merry-go-round, reciting or reliving the story over and over again?

Don’t waste your time trying to live in another time and place.  Let it GO!  You must accept the end of something in order to begin to build something new.  I’m curious how much beauty I missed in life because in my soul I was still 8 years old and broken trying to live, be married, parent children, have friends. So close some old doors today.  Not because of pride, inability or egotism, but simply because you’ve entered each one of them in the past and realize that they lead to nowhere worth your while. 

This is a lesson that each one of us has to learn. There are so many situations and circumstances in life that are not to our liking. But how long can we allow ourselves to wallow in sorrow and self-pity? The call of life is Onward and Forward! Close the door to the past, open the door to the future, take a deep breath, step on through and start a new chapter in your life. In one of Joel Osteen’s books he says: “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”

Let me offer you a few thoughts on closing doors in your past. Something I am working on daily as part of my life practice.

Fair warning: this process is not always quick or easy. It takes effort and persistence.

• Forget: Forgetting helps you to move on. Forgetting is core to really living. I’m not advocating denial, or avoidance, or anything like that. I’m not saying to block out those things which need to be looked at. I'm a firm believer in being honest about whatever is going on in your life. What I am saying is, all too often, we go along unaware of the huge amounts of baggage that we simply don’t need to carry on this journey called “Life.” But what if you just decided to trade bags? What if you left all of the negative stuff and started carrying around all the good stuff with you; all of the “Wins,” the accomplishments; the reasons to be happy and celebrate life? What different would that make for you?

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” – T.S. Elliot

• Be Alert: One of my therapists once told me that the key to happiness is to pay attention to what you feed because thats the thing that grows. Its a discipline to control your thoughts. Like any discipline, staying alert to the good in life takes focus, and repetition. Everyday there is good all around me and I get to decide what I choose to focus on, think about and feed my emotions on.

• Be Present: Let it go, and realize you have everything right now. The best in life isn’t somewhere else; it’s right where you are at this moment. You have to accept that some things will never be yours, and learn to value the things that are only yours. 

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. – Henry David Thoreau

• Hope For The New: Hope is more valuable than we give it credit for. Hope is the belief things will work, especially when it seems otherwise. It helps you stay calm and peaceful when something less than desirable emerges. Hope believes you will get through it. Hope remembers the times you made it through. Hope teams with faith and believes in the impossible. Hope is the key to the door of the life you want!