Life is lived in the present, however, the past may be objectively altering the real ability to concentrate on what is happening at this moment. When memories constantly interrupt your current routine, when longing is positioned as a regular ingredient of your reality, then this distances you from true happiness, which is none other than walking in step with life understood as a constant present. If you have ever wondered “why can’t I forget the past ?”, at Psicología-Online we answer this question by listing the different possible perspectives.
When you feel that yesterday eclipses the current moment in a recurring way, it may happen that you have fallen into the trap of mental idealization. From this perspective, you magnify the beautiful details of the reality of that moment and ignore everything that was not so perfect. This makes you live with a constant tendency towards comparison between the present and the past. And when you establish this association between both elements, then you feel that what is happening now is not up to the circumstances of that moment.
Idealization usually occurs more specifically in the sentimental sphere, as occurs in the case of those people who live pending the memory of a first love that they feel is unforgettable.
Likewise, the idealization of the past is also linked to the identification of youth as the most important stage of human existence. Those who feel that the loss of youth represents some type of loss of vital brilliance, then, are more vulnerable to the risk of an idealization that detracts from joy.
Forget the past and forgive
In those cases in which not forgetting the past means relive a previous disappointment and this situation brings back to the present the force of anger and resentment, then the person affected cannot break this knot because he has not forgiven what happened. Forgiving does not mean literally forgetting what happened, that is, erasing that event.
No one can do it because memory leads to recollection. However, forgiveness is necessary so that the person does not remain emotionally tied to yesterday. That is, this emotional gesture is a fundamental basis for freedom.
In many cases, this inability to forget the past and live in the present as a consequence of this issue has to do with the attitude of those who position themselves as victims of bad luck.
Why can’t I forget the past?
When you live in the past, you escape from your responsibility for making decisions in the present. Your past is a closed line, you know exactly how all the events developed at each moment and what the outcome of each situation was. On the contrary, when you make decisions in the present you experience the effect of uncertainty since you do not control all the ingredients of the map of reality. For this reason, take special care to avoid this defense mechanism that leads you to protect yourself from possible disappointment, by avoiding new responsibilities by using the past as an excuse instead of as learning.
There are events that, due to their size and their ability to mark a inflection point In your own life they can also produce this effect of recurring memory of yesterday. They are events that become a personal reference due to the impact they had on you even beyond that moment.
In these cases, learning lies in having the ability to remember what happened without it affecting you emotionally every time you describe the steps of this experiential story. They are events that were especially fixed in your memory due to their meaning.
Feeling of longing
The more years of life a person has, the more reasons for nostalgia he accumulates inside. And, furthermore, due to her own age she also has a greater tendency to remember yesterday since by the law of life, someone who has passed the age of 60 has more of a past than a future.
This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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