Returning to the Past

By Joana

Have you ever returned to a place that brings back unresolved feelings from the past?

I have, for me it is the house I grew up in since I was about 4 years old. When I was a teenager I often had a heavy and suffocating feeling. Looking back now, I was in a depression caused by my fear of getting older and all the changes that would come with it. I worried about how I should act, how I should be. Looking back, it seems that I always tried to run away from these feelings by spending time with friends, meeting new people and focusing on my studies at university. I was also overly attached to my boyfriend at the time. Some of these things may seem like good and beneficial behaviours, but they were really a way of escaping the feelings that made me feel depressed and anxious about the future. When I was quiet and not busy, those feelings would come back. So I was using these behaviours to suppress these feelings so that I would not have to look at them. I didn’t really know how to deal with them or how to resolve them.

Then, even though I was no longer a teenager and I have lived in many other places and have become an adult, when I was coming back to our house, my old depressing feelings came back up. Everything in my life was different then. I didn’t have the same worries about the future, but when I was sitting in my old room I felt alone and somehow lost in my thoughts. I could get so deep into these thoughts that it felt like I was losing contact with the world. I felt sick to my stomach and didn’t want to get up to do anything. It felt like something was left unfulfilled, but I didn’t even know what it was. It was feeling like a nagging pressure in my stomach that paralysed me. Like a big bubble of dissatisfaction and laziness. Fortunately, I have now learned to look at all my unresolved feelings and thoughts.

A couple of years ago I started meditating. Meditation gives me a tool to stop avoiding and running away from my thoughts and feelings. It allows me to feel and not suppress them as I had done before. Now, when these old feelings and thoughts would come up through meditation, I am grateful for the opportunity to see them and let them go. Thanks to this meditation method my mind is stable and calm, and I can accept whatever comes up. Because of this unshakable accepting mind, I know that my unpleasant feelings have an end, and I can let them go using this method. I can even let go of the pictures I have in my mind of the house and the room that triggered my unpleasant feelings. As I practised letting go, these feelings became weaker each time they came up. This gives me a lot of appreciation for my childhood home. I like coming back here now, because I do not get reminded of my struggles anymore.

Now, when I visit this place, I sit down and close my eyes to meditate. Many images come up because it is a place where I feel open and trusting. Meditating in this place allows me to let go of a lot so I can enjoy and appreciate the time I have there again. Now every time I come back, I am happy to be there, because I can see the positive again. Being there helps me to become free of so many things that come up in my mind in this special place, it is actually a great blessing.

Now I look forward to visiting my childhood home. I feel grateful and eager to see the images that come up in my mind so that I can carefully let them go. I am so grateful to have found this method of mediation which has given me a way to be free of my self-created burden and helps me to be happy wherever I am.