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If you've done absolutely everything to move on and your mind still circles back to same memories over and over again, well, you're not alone. Trust me. Your mind must let go of the past just as much as you do. But it can't. Not until it gets what it needs. Dealing with your past is about integration, not avoidance. And it's not as complicated as you think. So today, I'm going to show you what problems your mind is trying to solve, why your mind is wired this way, and how you can finally move on for good. You're not going to hear the usual this thing is so awesome talk here. The reality is, I spent almost 50 years completely unaware that undiagnosed autism and bipolar disorder were controlling my life. If you've ever watched relationships fall apart and had no idea why, or felt like you could never seem to get what you really wanted and needed, that was my life up until a couple years ago. Two divorces, kids that don't speak to me, getting fired from my dream job. Yeah, I've been through it. Once I realized how my mental health had caused those I loved the most to suffer so much, there was a lot of guilt, shame, and regret for me to process. I thought I'd moved on, thought I understood. But I was wrong. There was an entirely new set of baggage to deal with. Fortunately, by the time that new wave of memories came flooding back, I had a new understanding of the mind. Creating the framework I'm going to share with you today is what helped me forgive myself, let go of those painful memories, and start living again. And it's the same set of tools that have helped my clients overcome some heavy stuff. Years of nightmares, decades of abuse, and the overwhelming guilt from a fatal accident. It's going to take a minute to explain what your mind is really doing when it brings up the past and how to navigate it. But by the end of the video, you'll be able to do the same in your own life. Most of the time, when we want to let go, what we're really trying to do is pretend that the past didn't happen, or to shove all that pain back down and hope it never comes back. We want the memories gone because the guilt, the regret, or just the heaviness of the stories is too much to carry. And who can blame us? We've already suffered enough. But here's the thing. Our mind isn't trying to make our lives harder. It's begging us for help, to understand, to learn, and to adapt. What's actually happening is that there are Problems our mind hasn't figured out how to solve yet. And finding those solutions is critical to helping us survive and thrive. And until it learns the right lesson, has a good solution, it can't stop trying to figure it out. But once it knows what to do, it can let go of a whole set of memories. Root level change is about the underlying patterns rather than individual events. And that's the key to finding the right solution. Because that part of our mind is a pattern matching machine. Each old memory or trigger is just another example of the same underlying puzzle that your mind has been trying to solve. Individual events aren't as important as the bigger picture. So looking for a solution to that type of problem, not how to deal with that specific situation. That's why it can feel like a never ending cycle. As soon as we deal with one memory, another one pops up. All we've really done is tell our mind that it's not a part of the larger pattern. It's an exception to the rule. But it still doesn't have what it needs. So it tries again and again. When we shift to looking at the forest rather than trees, we can give our mind the right tool for the job. Only then can we stop playing trauma whack a mole. The trick is start asking the right questions so we can understand what our mind really needs. But I tell my clients is that it's always and everywhere all about you. Why they did what they did or said what they said isn't that important. We've been down that road already, told this story too many times for that to be the answer. What does it mean that this was happening? What does it mean about who we are or what we are? We have to be honest with ourselves about what we believed back then. Did we value ourselves? Did we feel that we could keep ourselves safe? Did it feel like now everything was conditional? Or that nothing we did or said would change anything? The next thing we have to look at is why we responded the way we did. When we're facing a threat, whether that's physical or emotional, our mind reacts automatically to keep us safe in that moment. We don't have time to stop and think about what the best way to handle it is. Most people know about fight and flight, but that's only part of the picture. There are five survival responses in total. Fight and flight. But also freeze and fawn and flop. Freeze. Is that hiding response keeping quiet or staying out of sight? Think about a rabbit staying still in a field, hoping the wolf doesn't notice they can't see Us, they can't hurt us. Now, that can mean avoiding everyone or just hiding away who we truly are. The fawn response is essentially surrendering, giving and saying whatever you want. It's going along to get along or to keep the peace. That's what happens when we agree to things that we don't really want to do or deal with toxic situations way too long to avoid conflict or rejection. The one nobody talks about is flop. And that's a shame, because sometimes we just can't avoid the pain. It's like when two people start fighting and one starts to lose, so they curl up in a ball and they just take the beating. It's what we do when we don't have any other options. We take the beating. We endure it the best we can for as long as we have to. What makes the flock response so hard to deal with is the feeling that we can't protect ourselves. When we use those responses, we can avoid the pain, at least in the short term. So taking those hits feels like a failure. But even the best fighters in the world, like Conor McGregor walk out of the ring bloody and bruised, even when they win. And nobody would call them weak. So no matter how we managed it, no matter how messy it was, we survived. We're still here, and that's what counts. So give yourself credit. You made the right choice as best you could and it worked. Finally, we need to understand what kind of solution our mind is looking for. The clue is in how we feel about that memory, not the emotions we're experiencing, but we feel about it now. Every emotion means something different, and understanding that helps us arm our mind with the right tools for the job. I'll keep it short and sweet here, but I'll also link a guide below that'll help you dive in deeper. Anger means a boundary was crossed. The real question is, what was the boundary? And how do we want to enforce or protect that boundary in the future? Fear is about how to avoid or how to escape a threat, usually an emotional one. And threats to our identity. How we feel about ourselves are the biggest source of emotional pain. Understanding what the button is that's being pushed and what we need to change as a result is the key here. Anxiety is about things that might happen. The trick isn't to try and prevent it from happening. It's about how to handle the problem if it does occur. The more we can build our confidence in navigating those challenges well, the less we have to worry. Depression is that flop response. We're out of options. Sometimes the Only thing we can do is wait it out. High school is a four year long prison sentence and nothing we do changes that. But sometimes we didn't see the whole picture. Or guilt and shame kept us from taking action of some kind. Grief and sadness mean we lost something valuable. But it's never that thing or that person. It's what they represent, what they provided us that we can't provide for ourselves. What was that? How can we replace it? Or how can we give it to ourselves? Regret is basically the opposite. Instead of losing something, we had an opportunity to gain something and we screwed it up. So what were we missing out on? Shame says we failed to live up to a standard of some kind. But was it our standard or was it theirs? Was it fair, appropriate? Or were they using it to manipulate us? Maybe it was the situation we're in that was the problem. We can beat ourselves up for not going to the gym when we're sick, but it doesn't really help. Guilt is because we're not doing something for somebody else or not solving their problem. But we always have to look at what it cost us to help them that way. Maybe we feel more responsible than we should, especially when it comes to their feelings. After all, what we feel is our interpretation of things. And the same is true for them. Different emotions, different lessons we need to learn. All we need to do is look at the problem the right way and the solution becomes easy to find. Now that you know what to look for, this is where the integration happens. It's not about changing or forgetting the past. It's about taking everything you know now about yourself and the world and responding to things in a new way. Start by asking yourself, given who I am now and what I know now, how do I want to do things differently in the future? Maybe it's setting a new boundary or asking for more of what you need. Maybe it's having higher standards for the people in your life. After all, you probably deserve better. Sometimes integration means having to acknowledge where your self worth or self esteem isn't as solid as you'd like. But owning that means you know where to focus your efforts next. And you know why you're not getting where you want to be in life. A key part of this is forgiving yourself for not having made better choices back then. If you could have done it better, you would have. Don't judge yourself by the decisions you made, but by the choices you actually had. A friend once told me, forgiveness is giving up hope of having had a better past. Can't go back and change it, but you can let go of the shame and regret that keeps you stuck. And that's how you finally close the loop. Owning the truth of your situation, recognizing how far you come and how much things have changed, and charting a new path and into the future. Integration is real when the story isn't about what happened, but how you overcame it, when your past isn't the focus and what you choose to do next is all that matters. If you want to move through this work faster and more effectively, there's one tool I use with all of my clients. It's called the Gallery exercise and it's designed to help your mind rapidly integrate the lessons you've learned. You've already done a lot of work in your life, it just hasn't been fully absorbed by your subconscious mind. The Gallery exercise helps strip away the negative emotions from those memories and lets your mind focus on the lessons you learned instead. It helps your rational and emotional minds work together so it can get on the same page. And since it's a subconscious process, it can identify and adjust patterns without having to deal with things one at a time. It's designed to anchor those lessons at the deepest levels of your mind so they become your natural response. From here on out. I put together a guide that contains the exercises. Self in is linked in the description below. Hopefully you'll find it as powerful of a tool as I have. Your mind isn't your enemy. It's not trying to punish and torture you. It just needs your help to figure out how to give you what you want in life. When you can understand what it's asking for, you can work with your mind instead of fighting it all the time. Everything is easier when you're on the same team. As always. We're just getting started here and this is just a taste of things to come. Be sure to check out this video next where I show you how to finally be truly confident in who you are. It will open your eyes to a new way of understanding confidence, making it easier than ever. Until next time. Cheers.