Next, let’s discuss useful tool number two for successful past reflection. Try the best you can to keep the theme of love as your central mode of understanding. By this, we are not referring to the love you feel for a spouse, a child, or a parent. Do not relate love to “sex.” Instead, think of the word love as striving for all those emotions and deeply felt desires that make up the best things in your life. Another way to consider love is that it is the absolute opposite of all that is negative. Negative thoughts such as fear, hatred, loathing, shame, and jealousy are emotions you must avoid when successfully managing your past.
You want to steer your past and your mind toward love. Consider love as the very best of the human condition. You are at your very best when you are committed to the opposite of hatred, fear, or jealousy. If you view people and events in your past with love, and with the capacity for tolerance and forgiveness, then those people become unimportant. Ultimately, their hurtful words and deeds become irrelevant to you. Love is the cure for hatred and vengeance, benefiting you most of all.
In your reflections of the past, you’ll notice that you yourself play the most prominent role in your memories. With the ideals of forgiveness and love in mind, look to your own conduct and actions. Can you now forgive yourself? Now view yourself with love, withdrawing any sense of hatred, fear, or shame.
Two Paths Diverge 