Still carrying your past? It’s time to put it down

There’s something really heavy about carrying your past around with you. You’ve been dragging your history around with you everywhere you go.

Not your actual past, because some of that is probably lovely, but the beliefs it left behind. The old stories about who you are. The labels you didn’t ask for. The habits that were never really you to begin with.

And yet here you are, still carrying them.

      “I’ve never had willpower”

      “I’ve always been the quiet one”

      “I’m just someone who can’t stick to things”

      “Confidence isn’t really me”

Sound familiar?

How the carrying your past writes your present

If you grew up being told to be good, to stay small, to not cause trouble, it makes sense that you learned to be quiet. If you spent years on diets, being praised every time you shrunk yourself, it makes sense that you learned to distrust food. If you’ve always felt like your body didn’t belong, it makes sense that confidence feels out of reach.

The things you learned didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They were shaped by your environment, your upbringing, your experiences. There’s a reason they feel so familiar, but that doesn’t mean they’re facts you have to keep following.

But while your past may have shaped you, it doesn’t get to write your future. You hold the pen now. You get to decide what defines you. You get to choose what stays.

Some stories were never yours to begin with

One of my clients once said to me, “I’ve just always been the big one. I’ve accepted it now”. When we really got into it, what she’d actually accepted was invisibility, staying in the background so she didn’t take up too much space. She wasn’t accepting her body and all the joy of it, she was accepting that that’s what she had to “put up with” because that’s what she was given. Totally different approach.

Another client told me, “I’m just not a gym person”, but that story came from years of being told movement had to look a certain way for her. When we got into what she really wanted her body to feel like through exercising, she realised actually loved the feeling the gym gave her and that she’d just been following someone else’s rules all along (I’m looking at you, primary school teacher).

These stories feel like truth because we’ve taken them on board and repeated them for so long. But they’re not truth. They’re just practice.

You’re allowed to let go

Letting go of the past doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean dismissing what you’ve lived through. But it does mean recognising when it’s no longer helping you and having the courage to set it down.

That script you’ve been reading from, over and over? You can stop now.

You can stop calling dieting a personality. You can stop calling yourself the one who will always finish the biscuits if you leave them out. There’s so much more to you than what you do or don’t eat.

You can stop blending in just because someone once told you that you were too much, too loud, too bold. You can wear what you want, have your hair how you like it, and wear the red lipstick without worrying what anyone thinks. That’s not being dramatic, that’s being you. 

You can stop thinking your voice doesn’t matter, simply because you were taught to be agreeable, to not ruffle feathers. If you have something to say, you can say it.

You can stop dragging the old stories into your new life. Stop carrying your past with you into every situation in your life. They’re not yours to carry anymore.

So… what do you want to believe now?

Here’s a question I often ask my clients:

“What would change if you believed something different about yourself?”

What if you believed you were trustworthy around food? What if you believed your body deserved love, now, not when it’s smaller? What if you believed you were allowed to wear what you want? What if you believed you had something worth saying?

You don’t need permission from anyone to change that narrative.

Not your mum. Not your old PE teacher. Not your boss. Not your colleagues. Not your friends. Not the woman on Instagram in matching activewear. Just you.

Letting go of the past starts small

If you’re wondering where to begin, try this:

Journal it: Write down one belief about yourself that doesn’t serve you anymore. Then write the version you’d rather carry.

Speak it: Say something out loud that your old self would have swallowed. Own it, don’t whisper it.

Wear it: That outfit you’ve been saving for when you’re “more confident”? Put it on. Confidence comes from doing, not waiting.

You’re not being fake by changing. You’re being free.

 

This is episode 158 of The Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity Podcast – Still carrying your past? It’s time to put it down

Listen to the episode below or explore all episodes on the podcast page.