about dealing with the pain and suffering of the past...
Look at it - no matter how painful it is - look at it one last time, dwell in it and on it one last time, and then leave it.....if we spend time in regret - that all these years have gone and what have they brought? only sorrow and pain and suffering...there was so much i could have done.....so much that i could have enjoyed....so much time wasted on ___ and ___ such a long way that i could have travelled...These re-visitings of the past and dwelling on the what-might-have-beens only sap the energy of the present. We cannot - no one can - bring back even one moment of the past...not even one breath....but we are allowing those thoughts to poison this breath that we are taking right now...and in poisoning the present we are sapping ourselves of the energy to deal with the breaths still to come.
Remember that the past happened for a reason - there were lessons there to be learnt, and since you were not learning them, Life forced you, through painful processes, to learn them. Life wanted you to change the way you think....But Life never intended for you to remain there.....Life is a river, and like a river flows over rocks and boulders, sometimes flowing over them, sometimes under them, sometimes around them...it goes on.....If you are having difficulty in letting go of the past, then just picture that you are stuck at one of the boulders and as Life moves on, you are going to get hit by every wave that comes....so get out of the way and get back into the main stream of Life.
Another thing that possibly prevents you from leaving the past is the blame....You took your decisions based on how the circumstances of the moment presented themselves to you, and your own limited, faulty thinking and knowledge...you can pinpoint events and blame this one and the other one - sometimes the blame is towards loved ones, sometimes towards others, and more often than not it's directed at yourself - when you decide to leave the past, you have to leave the blame too in that past.....leave everything connected to that past....imagine that it is a country that you are leaving behind and moving to another. You have lived there, you know it well, you also know that while you can sort of survive there, you cannot really live there or make a living there - and so now it's time to move on - with no baggage at all - not even hand luggage...just with the clothes you have bought in the present with the money you earned in the present....
Release every moment in its totality as soon as the next moment comes....