Letting Go of the Past — A Meditation on Time, Wisdom and Peace

Time moves, whether we ask it to or not. And sometimes, the hardest thing isn't moving forward. It's agreeing to leave something behind. Today, we do that together.

Hello there, and welcome to Calming Anxiety. I'm Martin, clinical hypnotherapist, former frontline paramedic. Every single day, I come to you with a 10 minute guided meditation, a clinical tool built to help you find your way back to calm, gently, safely, and without judgement. Today, on a day that means a great deal to me personally, I want to explore something we all carry, the past, and I want to show you how to set it down.

Before we go anywhere, let's come home to the body, so find your quiet place now. You can sit all I down, somewhere you won't be disturbed, let your hands rest open and easy. And if it's safe, close your eyes when you're ready, and breathe in through your nose slowly, all the way in for a count of four. With me in two, three, four, hold and pause, release through the mouth, four, five, six.

Did you feel that? The slowing, your beginning to soften, that's your nervous system standing down from the alert. Again, with me in through the nose, one, two, three, four, hold two and out through the mouth, long and slow, three, four, five, six. One more time, in, two, three, four, pause, two and out, two, three, four, five, six.

Allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears. Feel the weight of you, health safely, by whatever is beneath you. And in your mind's eye, I want you to imagine a river, wide, steady, unhurried.

It moves through a landscape of soft green hills and ancient stones, and it has been flowing for longer than either of us can imagine. You are sitting on the banker this river, not in it, but on the bank. And the water passing before you, that is time. Every current carries something.

Old memories, old versions of yourself, conversations you wish had gone differently, things you had said, things said to you. Decisions that still follow you at night. Watch them pass by on the surface of the water. You don't have to reach in, you don't have to rest you then, you don't have to relive them.

You simply watch. Because time is not your enemy, time is the river that has carried you through all of it, and still delivered you here. Breathing, present, alive. And sitting on this bank with the warmth of the sun on your face and the gentle sound of the water, you begin to understand something that takes most of us decades to see clearly.

The past is not a prison, it is the riverbed, the shape beneath you that made you who you are. Every hard thing you've lived through, every year that tested you, added a layer of depth to who you are and who sits here today. Not damage, depth, not sounds, wisdom. Let that settle into your body now, let it move from your mind down through your chest, down through your belly, all the way into the ground beneath you.

You are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to do next. And now, as the river flows quietly before you, I'm going to offer you some words, receive them as letters of light, words written just for you, arriving today. Allow each one to land softly in the body and breathe it in.

I release the grip of the past and I choose the freedom of this moment.

Every year I have lived has given me something I could not have learned any other way.

I am not behind, I am exactly where my journey has brought me and I am ready.

I forgive myself for the things that I did not know that I understand now.

I carry my history with me, not as a weight, but as a wisdom.

Allow those words to settle. Give them deeper now. I release the grip of the past and I choose the freedom of this moment.

I carry my history with me, not as a weight, but as a wisdom.

I forgive myself for the things I did not know then that I understand now.

Every year I have lived has given me something I could not have learned any other way. I forgive myself for the things I did not know then that I understand now.

I relax deeply, safely within the sanctuary of your consciousness and allow the three daily caring tips to guide you. One, write one thing down today that you are choosing to release, not to forget but to stop letting it run in the background, name it and put a line through it, a small ceremony for a big letting go. Two, spend five minutes today thinking of the version of yourself from ten years ago. What would you tell them?

What do you know now that would have helped them? That knowledge is the gift your hard years have given you. Don't dismiss it. And three, at any age, any age at all, you are still becoming.

The river hasn't stopped, neither have you. One small act of courage today is all it takes. Now take one soft breath in now and gently begin to bring yourself back. Theil the room around you, the chair or the floor or the bed beneath you.

Wiggle your fingers and toes. And when you are ready, open your eyes. You have done something meaningful today. You sat with time rather than fighting it.

That is the quiet courage this works asks of us. If today's session opens something up for you, if you found yourself wanting to go deeper, please do subscribe. Explore and enjoy my back catalog of well over 2,000 guided sessions, all free, all here every day. And please feel free to share this on your social feed to help a friend or family member or a colleague.

Thank you. Have a lovely day my friend. Today is special for me. It's that time of the year, I think back to all that I've been, all that I've done, but I am now grounded, balanced and positive.

And I hope that you can be too. So in all we do, be kind.