You keep trying to move on. You tell yourself it's in the past. You do the affirmations, take a few deep breaths, maybe some movement, maybe something stronger, and for a while it feels like it's gone. Then something small happens. A tone of voice. A door left unopened. A person who isn't quite there for you. And a reaction rises up that's far bigger than the moment seems to warrant. That's not an accident. And it's not you failing.
The past stuff keeps coming back because it hasn't actually been processed. You can't think your way past it, and you can't tidy it away into your emotions alone, because your body, mind, emotions and breath are all interconnected. The body tells the story of your life.
Why the Past Keeps Resurfacing When You Try to Move On
We carry it. Not just in our thoughts, but in our body, in our emotions, energetically. Bessel van der Kolk called his book The Body Keeps the Score for a reason.. our cells are eavesdropping and listening, holding what we've lived.
So no, you can't convince it away. A little breathing, a few affirmations, a plant medicine, some movement.. those things have their place, but the thing itself doesn't just vanish. It asks you to roll up your sleeves and do the work. Look inwards, and ideally not alone.
The goal isn't to rewrite the story. We cannot change the past, but we can change the meaning we give it. You step into a version of you that is already healed and start to live from there, having assigned a different, more empowering meaning to the very same situation.
How the Old Stuff Shows Up in Your Life
In relationships, it can look like attracting people who just aren't available. Trouble trusting. A fear of opening up, of being vulnerable, of intimacy.. not just physically, but emotionally. The difficulty of letting love in.
It shows up as self-doubt and fear. Playing small. Not taking measured risks, or taking risks so measured that you never really take them at all. That constant, quiet feeling of never enough. Not worthy.
And it shows up in the little things that trigger huge reactions. When something rises up like that, it's not your mind attacking you or punishing you. It's trying to protect you. That's why you play small. That's why the tiny thing sets off the enormous wave.
Here's what I've come to see after working with people for years.. the layer comes up because you're ready to heal. You now have the resources, whatever amount of awareness you've gathered, to finally look at it. Whether you want to is another question. But it's surfacing because it's ready to be met.
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Step One: Presence, Giving It the Room It Needs
The first part of our framework is feel, and feel is really about presence.
Imagine sitting with someone and truly paying attention to them, seeing them for who they are. That's how we turn towards a past version of ourself and whatever the thing was.. something done or not done, said or not said. We give it the time, the space, the presence it needs.
Feeling into the body and the breath makes it tangible. It lets you track it from the ground of breath and body. But presence isn't limited to the body. It's giving enough room for the thing that wants to come up to reveal itself, to whatever depth it's ready to reveal.
In modern life we're distracted, overwhelmed, overstimulated. So our reflex is to not deal with it.. run away, hide away, block it, numb it. The first move is the opposite of that. It's giving it room.
Very often, just giving it room, and if you can, a lot of room, is already the healing. Deep breathing helps here. As you go back to that memory, emotions rise, and the name of the game is to give yourself space. One of the simplest ways is to take up space in your lungs. Fill them with deep breaths. The nervous system settles, the body calms, and you feel some spaciousness as you presence the thing from the past.
Sometimes that's enough for it to shift. Other times it isn't, and you're left thinking.. okay, now what do I do with it?
Why You Can't Always Do This Alone
This is where a loving, supportive environment matters, and where having someone skilled and experienced enough to guide you is not just useful. I'd call it essential.
It's a strange time. It's good that people are more open to looking at themselves. But there are also a lot of people out there, not experienced enough, opening others up and then unable to hold what comes out. So surround yourself with a process, and with people who have done this many times, who have done the work themselves and are a little ahead on the path. Not just a practitioner, but a facilitator.. someone who can hold space for you.
Because you're moving through unknown terrain. Mostly emotional terrain. It helps to have someone who can say, like a satnav.. turn here, stay with this, breathe deeply, feel this in your body.
Sitting in the roller coaster is one perspective. Being able to step outside of it and see which way it goes gives you a completely different one.
In our story work, this is exactly it. You go back into that time and place, present in it and with it, still allowing yourself to feel. But this time you also zoom out and see it for what it is. Not detached, just no longer only in the seat, screaming your lungs out. That takes capacity, and often it takes someone to hold your hand while you find it.
And there's another kind of holding.. community. People walking alongside you who may not be facilitating anything at all, but whose presence itself is healing. Presence is love. Not intimate love, but unconditional, unattached, poured in so the thing can soften and you can finally see the truth of it.
Step Two: Heal, Then Integrate It Back Into Your Life
Rewriting the story doesn't hold. What I've watched happen is that people assign a new meaning, and then quietly slip back into the old pattern, reliving it again and again. It was never really healed.
For it to last, you have to get to the core.. the truth of that time, that place, that situation. And because we're not only words, or only emotions, or only a physical body, we work on every level at once: body, emotion, mind, and energetically. When you meet it across all of those dimensions, the healing goes deeper and holds.
I don't usually just say go and journal about this. Those things have their place, and you'll do a lot on your own with practice and meditation. But if you could have fully done it on your own, you already would have. There comes a time for your hand to be held and to be navigated through the pattern so you can get to the other side of it. There are letting-go and forgiveness exercises, the kind we do in group healings. Clearing, releasing, connecting through to the truth, and then integrating it back.
Integration matters, because a shift can be huge. It takes time to land in the body, and time to put into practice, so that you start living from the version of you that is already healed. When the old pull comes, sometimes there's enough awareness to choose differently. Other times you fall back, and that's part of it too.
And then, further up the spiral, the same pattern can appear again. It looks the same, but you're at a different level now, in a different place in your life. Sometimes you dig in and heal another related layer, get freed up, and keep climbing. That's not failure. That's the journey of healing it, layer by layer.
Your pain, your past, the thing that keeps coming up.. none of it has to define you. It comes down to what you do with it every time it surfaces. Do you push it away, run, hide, numb it? Or are you willing to choose what feels difficult in that moment, give it the room, process it, and integrate it back?
These are some of the patterns I've watched shift over almost two decades.. on yoga mats and off them, in classrooms, online, in person, across different parts of the world. The past doesn't have to hold you. When you finally turn towards it, with presence, with support, and with the truth, you get to step forward as the version of you that is already free.