When haunted by your past

Forgiving and forgetting is a cliché that most are familiar with. It might not be a task so hard if you are meant to forgive someone else. In the walk of life, we will often meet people that will hurt us to the last bone and the best way out is to forgive them. How about if this time round there is no one else to forgive but yourself? What if you are the only person to blame? So many women today are haunted by the shame, blame, guilt, abuse and fear of the past. Most cling onto it and find it hard to let go or better still forgive themselves. Desmond Tutu, one of the world’s great men once said that, “Having looked the past in the eye, having asked for forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past—not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us,”. As Tutu eloquently put it, dwelling on the past will only imprison us. It is better to shut the door on the past and focus on the latter. Most women today dwell on the past to live their present. They are faced with provoking thoughts of the past failures, shame and guilt or whatever might have gone wrong. They blame and hate themselves for everything that did not go right. That only makes life more miserable. “In order to let go of the past, you have to forgive yourself. You might not be able to change whatever happened but you can change the future and make it worthwhile,” said Agatha Mutamba, medical personnel at Kanombe hospital. Mutamba explains that if one doesn’t forgive themselves, they are bound to have a miserable future. Therefore, happiness springs from inner peace. No human being can claim perfection. Everyone encounters thoughts of guilt and shame but what matters is how one deals. There are those who dwell on the past and live their lives wretchedly while others will let go, let God and move on. “When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future,” is a popular Christian saying that brings hope to millions of lives. “We should not give in to the devil’s tricks to make us unhappy but rather focus on the bright future that God has promised,” says Daniella Namata, a member of CLA church,Nyarutarama. The past is done, dead and gone. It is time to move on and focus on what you can do right. Forgive yourself for no one else can do it for you. Stop dwelling on the past and the future will be magnificent. m.kaitesi@yahoo.com