Asklemmy

The way of the stoic, you cannot change your past. You cannot bury it, that way leads to madness.

What you can, and should do, it's change how you react to it, through introspection, support from experts, and some folks state that meditation helps

You can't heal the past, but you can soothe the future.

Do what currently brings you joy, not what you believed would.

Counseling is the way to go. It’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of opening up, and being honest with your counselor and yourself. Don’t expect to see results immediately. You will get frustrated with the process. But you have to keep going.

Also, don’t be afraid to find a new counselor if your current one isn’t working for you. And only you will know what that means. But when you find the right one, it will make a huge difference for you.

At the same time, you may need to give your therapist multiple chances. What I mean by that is that you will not always see eye to eye with them. And that’s okay; especially if they’re challenging you to move past something big. But if you constantly feel something is off, then trust your gut. This is about what’s best for you.

I genuinely wish you the very best of luck.

Therapy. Lots of therapy.

Honestly, if you have someone you trust to tripsit for you, then shrooms might not be a bad idea as a supplement to actual counseling.

For me personally, psychedelics have been perfect for this sort of thing. They turn your default mode network to soup for a few hours. In my own experience, this results in honest and useful introspection because it enables you to think about things from perspectives you've previously trained your sober mind to never give fair consideration to.

You didn't choose the life you lived in the past, so you have no obligation to let it define you. What you choose to do, "going forward" is what you can base your identity on. There is a period of transition ahead of you, while you let your "new past" evolve out of your present actions...but eventually you will have enough of it behind you to honestly say that your own choices are what define you, now.

Sort through the emotional issues. I know this is probably typical advice, but seriously. Even though it takes a while, and looks impossible, process those feelings. It's not impossible, because it's a learned skill. . When you start off, making progress is dreadfully slow. but as you learn how, doing it becomes easier.

You don't have to sacrifice who you were to become someone you'd want to be. Who you were will always be a part of you, anyways. But as you grow, it ceases to be the dominant voice - just, something to consider.

You already took the first, most important step. Now you just continue from here.

Feel yourself in the moment. Decide to do anything you want and go do it, even if it is stuff "from past you". Then make a conscious effort to record/remember the way you feel while doing it.

Do you get the urge to continue doing it? To stop it? Do you like/dislike it? Use those feelings to guide your next decision, and then just repeat.

There is nothing bad about what your past wanted either. If you still want to go for those dreams, you certainly can. Those things may still be what your "current you" wants, even if it is influenced by your past.

Your "current you" consists of the past. Your "current you" is not separate from your past, your "current you" is only what it is now because of your past. With a different past you would have a different "current you". Because of that, don't see your past as something that doesn't/shouldn't exist, of course, in an optimal world, you wouldn't have experienced those things, but you did experience them, and they will influence you in some way. The past influencing our present is just how humans work, if you had a nice childhood/whatever, you would also be influenced by those nice memories.

So deliberately trying to not do the things your past wanted doesn't really make sense. But it also means that you don't need to go for those past things either, which you've just figured out.

There is really no real reason to overcomplicate this. Just think about things you want to do right now, see how they feel right now, and then adjust your behavior accordingly.

How do you want to define yourself? Who do you want to be a decade from now? Do you have goals?

If you can start to define your future self, you can define your present self as trying to target your future self. You can also change your definitions over time; after all you choose them.

Read The Power of Now

Do some stuff