You Can’t Rewrite Your Past, but You Can Rewrite What You’re Making It Mean

For many of us, our past is far too involved in our present, and the way we interpret the things of our past majorly affects things like our confidence, beliefs about ourselves, our identity, and what we feel we’re capable or worthy of.  Many of us feel powerless - a victim of our upbringing or history, wishing the past was different or “if only”.  The past is a huge part of you, obviously.  It led you to where you are today.  But wishing it were different or staying stuck in it, or believing hurtful things about and limiting yourself now because of things that happened in the past, doesn’t serve you in any way. 

You can’t rewrite your past, but you CAN rewrite what you make it mean.  Part of what keeps the past so involved in the present is the MEANING we’ve assigned to the things of the past and the stories we tell ourselves because of those things.  The combination of our experiences and our belief systems and thought models (which are generally very outdated), usually makes things far worse than they were, far heavier, and far too present.  When we look at the stories that we’ve been telling ourselves about the past, or more specifically, what we make our past events mean about us as a person, we might find that we are giving so much power to our past, to things we have ZERO control over. 

Some examples I hear a lot are things like:

• Because I went through X, I’m not good enough to do Y

• Because my mom did X, I don’t deserve Y

• Someone hurt me a long time ago so everyone is going to hurt me

• I grew up poor so I’m not worthy of being wealthy

Let’s Chat About Victim Mentality for a Second

Victim mentality is subconsciously choosing to feel powerless, being a victim of your circumstances, and feeling like things have to change or be a certain way before you’re willing to take necessary action to change your life or be successful.   

We’ve all embraced this mentality from time to time and probably all know someone who plays this role often, and we’ve also all truly been victims at some point in our lives.  But there’s a difference between having a genuinely bad experience where we were made a victim by a perpetrator, and personifying the victim mentality and living as if we are a victim of life and choosing to remain powerless and stuck. 

A couple of signs of victim mentality:

• Blaming

• Complaining

• Defensiveness

What Causes Victim Mentality?

In most cases of victim mentality, you might see three things: a belief that something is wrong with us, a lack of emotional regulation skills, or needing attention to feel loved or validated (this can extend into manipulation).

Going through life feeling like everything is an insult, feeling that you have to defend yourself, or waiting for things to line up perfectly are pretty big indicators that some kind of void or need is being filled in an unhealthy way and a sign of needing to take responsibility for your life and feelings.

How to End It

Because so much of it comes down to beliefs, breaking the cycle means digging into what you’re not accepting about yourself, what you’re avoiding seeing in yourself, what you’re distracting yourself from by focusing on others or seeking this unhealthy form of attention, what you gain by bonding over complaining, and being willing to get vulnerable and very honest with yourself.

We don’t consciously choose to give our power away, but that’s exactly what happens when we go into victim mentality.  It’s not a sign of weakness, but an indicator of a belief pattern and programming that needs to be addressed. 

Ok, back to the meaning you give your past..

If you dismantle your limiting beliefs like the examples I shared and strip away all of the “extra” that you added and remove the second half of the sentence, you’re left with just facts. Ie. “I went through X”, “My mom did X”, and “Someone hurt me a long time ago”.  They don’t have to MEAN anything.  They just were.  They happened.  From here you can see that there’s not a single thing you can do to change them, and this leaves you with a choice.  You can remain a victim of your past, reliving parts of it via this heavy belief system that’s been running things, having it be way too involved in your current life and altering the beautiful future you could create, OR you can rewrite what you make it mean and choose to be in your power.

It’s so empowering to shift your mindset from “All these things happened to me so I must not be worth X (the money, the job, the relationship, the better life), to “A lot of shit happened in the past and it means nothing about me as a person, and I’m going to use it to fuel my life now!  I’m going to choose the OPPOSITE of what I experienced.” Or even acknowledging the things other people did to you, like bullying when you were a kid, and recognizing that their actions were about THEIR suffering, THEIR stories, and actually had nothing to do with you as a person.

When you approach everything as a choice, when you investigate the story and meaning you’re assigning to things, and you choose to accept what you can’t change, everything becomes so much more expansive, and you feel so much more empowered and in control of your life. 

If you’re ready to let your past inspire you, fuel you, motivate you, and stop identifying with an old version of yourself, I’d love to support you!  And if you feel you might be dealing with some victim mentality and you’d rather be the creator of your life than a victim of it, I'm here for that as well.

Disclaimer: I am not in any way discounting any truly awful, traumatic things you’ve been through.  Those are factual shitty things that happen and are completely valid.  If those things are significantly affecting your life now and you’re struggling with any mental health challenges because of it, please reach out and I’ll be happy to try to help you find a wonderful therapist.  You do not need to keep suffering!

Info@TheRebelMystic.com