Living in the Past

An angry client spent about twenty minutes telling about how he'd been done wrong by his ex-wife. He said she hadn't lived up to their divorce agreement. She violated the child custody agreement.  She’d taken their house, and on-and-on.  This bitter divorce left him unable to trust people.

Because his anger seemed intense, I asked how long ago this had happened.  He said the divorce occurred 22 years earlier. And when I asked why he was still hanging onto the anger he began to explain the situation to me again, as if I hadn't understood the first time.

I tried to convince him that I knew he'd been done wrong. And that he had justifiable reason to feel terrible about how he'd been treated. 

But then what? Why was he hanging onto it 20 years later?  Does it serve him well to let anger fester in his heart? He seemed baffled - like maybe he hadn't communicated the magnitude of what had happened to him. He was that entrenched in the anger that had become such a part of his life.

Many addicts and alcoholics can’t let go of the past.  There’s no doubt that many of us were damaged and done wrong by family and others as we grew up. But what’s the point of worshiping each day at a shrine built of angry memories?

We waste precious moments of our lives when we pay homage to the past by dwelling on our anger.  

Let's live in this moment and enjoy the miracle of being alive.