How Your Past Can Affect You Now and in the Future
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When we think about the past, we tend to think it’s behind us, but oftentimes the past has a funny way of affecting us in the present as well as the future. If we’ve been bitten by a dog, it makes sense we may develop a life-long fear of anything with teeth that barks, but sometimes our past affects us in unexpected ways too. Ways that we may not have attributed to our past. As a matter of fact, if you’re struggling today with-
- Feelings of insecurity
- Difficulty trusting others
- Self-sabotaging your dreams
it could be related to your past.
The past can affect us in ways we may not realize. Past failures or negative experiences can often change our point of view or cause reactions today when they really don’t apply.
Your feelings of insecurity may be because of your past
If you suffered a failure, humiliation, or other negativity, it could affect your esteem. This can impact how secure you feel making decisions or operating in the world. Children who had overbearing or dysfunctional families may grow to feel insecure about their choices or abilities.
If you struggle with feeling insecure, it could be an indicator you need to heal your past for a healthy present and future. Sometimes therapy can help you identify how your insecurities are tied to the past.
Difficulty trusting others may come from past trauma
Trust isn’t always easy to give. Some people trust easily and end up hurt. Others take a long time to trust and when it’s violated, feel justified withholding trust forevermore to avoid feeling hurt again. Others never seem to be able to lower their guard enough to trust. Most of the time this comes from a breach of trust in the past.
Life’s never going to be a sure thing. At some point, you’ve got to be able to
- Trust your gut
- Trust the process
- Trust other people
The inability to trust can lead to consistent suspicion, hiding your true self, avoiding intimacy, and more. If you are experiencing trust issues it may be tied to a past hurt. Finding a way to tiptoe into trusting again and healing the hurt from the past can allow you to see that even though you may have been hurt in the past, it’s not a guarantee you will be hurt again today or in the future.
If you’ve lost a dream, you may sabotage another
Our subconscious is powerful. It wants to protect us from feeling pain. In and of itself, that sounds like a great plan, but our subconscious doesn’t care if it protects us in healthy or dysfunctional ways. There are many reasons we self-sabotage. Some include-
- Fear of failure
- Fear of inadequacy
- Imposter syndrome
- Avoidance
If you’ve taken a leap of faith and it didn’t work out, it can be really hard to believe you’ll succeed if you try again. If someone has shamed you or made fun of your attempts, it can be incredibly hard to risk being vulnerable. Instead, it’s easier to self-sabotage now because of what happened then.
In Conclusion
Getting some help to sort out how your past is encroaching on the present, and ultimately the future, can help you overcome your tendency to wreck your own success before someone or something else does.
We may not realize all the ways our past affects us today and could affect us tomorrow. What we think is in the past, may actually be a bigger part of our everyday life than we realize.
Is there something in your past that you feel is affecting you now? How do you deal with it?
Loving Life–The Reboot!
Dominique
This article provides general information and discussion about health and related subjects. The information and other content provided in this article, or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having.