I’ve been reading some of your forum notes and so many of you are being troubled by you past (I say troubled, but read: tortured.).
We all become mired by our past. Causing regret, sorrow, anger, depression, etc.
It’s easy for me to give lip service to, “Let it go.” “What is done is done.”
“You can’t change your past, good or bad, but you can try to learn by your mistakes.” Blah, blah, blah.
My first uncomfortable memory is when my Aunt miscarried and my mom was bringing her home from the Hospital. I was left in charge of her 2 year old baby boy. I was so excited to see my aunt that I stepped outside, to see if the car was coming, shutting the door behind me. Unfortunately the door locked when it was shut. Let me say all ended well, but when you have two women (drama queens, big time) verbally beating you up, It stays with you.
That was 60 years ago and I’m still embarrassed and humiliated by it. I can rationalize it now, I was a child, I didn’t understand the mechanism of the lock, and so on. It was unfortunate and scary but not fatal.
I’ve had some really rotten things happen to me, but it’s that childhood incident that still haunts me.
Perhaps my best advise would be, forgive yourself and let it so. I know this is easier said than done.
I send strength and the ability to forgive yourselves.
I love you all.
Garnet
This is very true and I tend to sometimes cringe at embarrassing things I had done in the past and also some not so good memories I would like to forget… I can remember when I was just a teen and I didn’t know the mechanisms of a baby seat and I wanted to help a friend of a friend get her baby out of the baby car seat and instead of undoing only the seatbelt in the baby seat I undid the main belt and surely by my luck not knowing how it worked or even stopping to think, she felt out of the car door onto the ground with the seat falling after her…. I will never forget that day and felt like hell, but she was lucky the car was low there was grass and the seat fell besides her not on her… I think her child was around 3 years old…
Anyways my point is your right sometimes we have to let things go and believe you me I have had things happen to me that if it was someone else the perpetrators would have been in jail, however I always forgive and forget but struggle to forget current th8gs especially when they happen on a daily basis…
Thanks Garnet for awakening me… 
I love when you said, forgive yourself! It took me years to forgive myself. I think you first have to accept the reality of it. Then love yourself! I’ve had horrible, horrible things happen to me. Some I still can’t work through with specialists (Specific therapist). But that’s not ready to be dealt with. The time will come when it’s time.
forgive yourself that’s a constant work in progress for me. And just when I think I’m good, my brain says "hey remember when you did " and the process begins all over again. Thank you for the reminder 
Thanks for this! There are things that I remember that make me say I hate my life when I really don’t. I burned that statement last night, hopefully, if I forgive myself for being a huge dork I won’t say it again.
Much Love @Garnet you always have such wise things to say and are always so sweet to everyone.
I seen this on my Pinterest and thought I’d share…
Blessed Be
Wise Words Ms @Garnet . Thank you. Come fall and winter, I always fall behind so to say and dwell on past things, letting them haunt me. This year as it ends, I am trying as much as I can to reach out and let those things out and work through them instead of pushing them down to repeat next year. We all (most humans in general) have had traumatic events in their life they struggle with. We all need that safe place to go to. We all need the support. And eventually we will work through what haunts us. We all need that release.
Thank You Again.
I’m the same way. Something really stupid I did in the past will pop into my head and I’ll dwell on it for hours or days. It’s important to remember that you can’t change the past and all you can do is learn from it, but you’re right, it’s also important to forgive yourself.
Well said. Sometimes it seems to me that, for me, forgiveness is like sobriety is for others. It is something that I have to commit to each day, especially when I slip.
Thank you @Garnet. You’re exactly right. I do need to forgive myself for the last 15 years.
What happened was not all my fault. Even though I really felt like it was. His choices casued a lot of it and my decion to put up with him enabled it.
When I ended things with him for the last time, 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I don’t know where I found the strength to say no him when he was scrambling and tried 4 different ways to come up with ideas to still be able to contact me and remain in my life. The Goddess must have been holding my hand that day.
I hope you’re all proud of me but have started seeing a therapist for the first time. My first session was last night. There really is a lot of trauma to deal with.
You’re so right @christina4 you do have to love yourself first. That’s exactly what I was told. I don’t know if a have ever really loved myslef. Not for the past 15 years anyway. But @Garnet I agree forgiving myslef first is where I need to start.
With all the amazing people that I have met here I know I’ll be ok.
Hey Garnet!
What’s impressive, is that “letting go” was my intention in today’s tea time with the coven. Some things are coming again and are making troubling me. When writing in my journal, one of the things that came to my mind was forgiveness, more than getting over things or running away from them, I think one of the most important things is to forgive and heal and the let go will be so much easier.
Thank you so much for bringing it up. I needed it.
Blessed be!
Thank you 
I knew I needed to do things differently this time or it would have just continued in this vicious, toxic cycle.I love him but I can’t save him. I needed to save myself before it was too late.
Hey @Garnet,
Yeah you are right. And also looking back, how old were you that 60 years ago when you were all innocent and didn’t know any better - as you said, you were excited and were doing nothing wrong. Those in the wrong, were those that traumatised you that day, not you at all. Those that left that young innocent girl in a car with a 2 year old child with no adult supervision, were in the wrong. Their yelling was yelling to themselves more than it was to you - although it left that deep memory imprint within you.
I wonder, has that memory made you think twice when talking to another child out of anger, knowing that what we as adults can yell or say, could leave such an imprint on our innocents?
You are right, forgiving ourselves and letting go is part of the shadow work. Or if not forgiving, realising that it is there and simply moving on from it. As, we can’t change anything, we can only accept who we are, or know who we ‘were’ and what we have become instead.
I’ve done many stupid things as a young teen and young adult. I was a true Dennis the Menace for my parents and those around me, with much more an evil twist. But my evil side will always be a part of me. Growing up, you learn to balance both good and bad, negative/positive and you learn understand consequences in society and life for actions (some of us do). Stop and think before you speak/react/act etc etc.
Agreed. The reality of it, is that it happened and it was there. Nothing we can do to change that in the ‘now’. We can only move forward. Always thinking back, just drags us back into that loop of depressive thought. But also, before you can move forward, sometimes those deep memories need to be brought forth (shadow work) in front of you, to enable you to look back, realise who you are now and what you have become.
If you don’t allow yourself to bring some things back which were traumatising to allow you to let it go, it’s like filling up a bucket with memories. Until one day, that bucket of bad memories fills to the brim and overflows with anything new that happens to you:
Yeah exactly. You think you got it all, then a new memory comes back to you.
Wait till we pass and our consciousness floats up to where ever it goes and we look back at our entire lives in an instant.
I’m proud 
Remember when dealing with that trauma to also re-ground yourself into this reality and into this “time” which is “now” and where you are and what you’ve now become and where you want to “be”. Look back into the past and work on letting go of those darker times, but always remembering to give yourself the time to be back in the now in this beautiful life.
Tem
That was lovely, I put it in my spells.
Thank you. That’s exatly what I plan to do. Just keep moving forward. Learning to deal with things and accpet things that have happened, make peace with them and move on.
Miss Jessica, I’m so proud of you, I’m getting a little teary. I’m sending you a big hug and lots of love and support.
Thank you. I am so blessed to have stumbled upon this group. Meeting everyone and having all the support and encouragement has helped me so much. I am so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to listen to me and offered me their love and support. You all really are helping me to find my way out of a very dark place and find that there is goodness, kindness and love in this world.
Used to be an old saying, “Life is hard and then you die!”
Now Ladies and gentlemen, We all know life is hard, but now you will survive and you will grow into magnificent people, that I am more than proud of.
You all have gown so much, I feel like, you’ve become my children, You’re are living and learning, testing your boundaries and oh so beautifully growing… or is that glowing?
Garnet loves you.
Amen, little Sister, Amen!