There are so many things in this world that are out of our control. This is not necessarily all good or all bad, just a fact. The obviousness of the statement makes it no less important to highlight and discuss.
It starts, literally, from our beginnings. We do not control the family we are born into, our race, religion or ethnicity. We do not control the socioeconomic backdrop of our early lives, including the neighborhoods we grow up in, the schools we attend and the people we grow up around.
All of these factors contribute in shaping the man or woman we will eventually become. Everyone’s experience is different and, of course personal to them. Some people are born into easier circumstances than others, but the uniqueness of each individual’s experience make the subjectivity of simply looking at someone born more privileged as not having adversity or struggle a misconception.
I have memories as a kid of families that lived in the Bronx in tiny single or two family homes with 100 square feet of grass yard as rich. The nearest grass in my neighborhood, excluding the project lawns which were expressly prohibited from being used, was a park a mile and half away from our apartment. Perspective and perception are the dominant influences of our childhood experiences. Conversely, visiting my grandmother in her walk up tenement in Bed-Stuy provided some initial insights and perspective in my own young life that there were clearly others who struggled worse than us.
Where we start does not have to dictate where we finish, but those early experiences surely factor into the direction and opportunities that are often afforded.
Fast forward to adulthood. There are still many things out of our control, but unlike our childhood where we are almost entirely dependent on fate and circumstance, adulthood comes with a substantial degree of free will and control intermixed with all beyond our control.
One of the things that we must accept and understand, no matter how hard some of us try, is that we cannot control the people around us. Sure you may use economics, fear or perceived love to dictate reactions or dependency, but you can never control what people genuinely think or feel.
Too often we look at the circumstances of our childhoods and hold onto things that we should or need not. Most people, rich or poor, Black or White, have had events in their childhoods negatively impact their lives. The list of examples is too long to be enumerated, but we all can understand that many people feel that they have had traumatic occurrences in their lives.
I am no psychotherapist, but I can understand that self-awareness of any problem and the ability to communicate about it are important and healthy steps in moving forward. However, I believe the most important step in truly letting go of the past and any impediment those emotions and experiences have on you moving forward is to completely let go.
You have to stop holding on to the past. Use it as motivation. Use it as a lesson for future growth and parenting. Do not let it be a crutch or impediment in allowing you to grow and move forward. I make this sound so easy. Clearly it is not. The process for me to let go was just that a process, however once the realization of the burden holding on to things in my past had become the most freeing cathartic moment in my life was when I decided to stop holding on to any negative association or relationship from my past.
I understand the pain that so many of us have experienced from family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers from our past. Those experiences can never be changed. But, we do have the ability and control to no longer allow them to continue to have an effect.
I could use the most horrific examples of rape or even verbal abuse and somehow my suggestion of getting over it seems hollow. However, what is the alternative? I am not being dismissive of anyone’s prior pain, rather encouraging of the promise of your future. Yet, that future can never be maximized if we allow our selves to hold on to negativity that most likely occurred when it was out of our controls. Now you have the control and the means to exorcising it is by releasing the power your past, most likely beyond your control, once had.
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