I rather enjoy reading this Q & A on your site. Thanks for providing it. My question to you is how does one let go of a troubled past? I am a recovering alcoholic and, as you can imagine, there are many events from my past that I wish had not taken place. I was involved with a lot of violence at the bars, promiscuous sex life, got mixed up with drugs for a while, and anything else that comes along with leading that type of lifestyle. In one month, I will complete 5 years that I have not used alcohol, drugs, or any other type of substance. I now devote myself as entirely as I can to living a spiritual life, and I wish to go deeper. However, I notice that I spend a considerable amount of time in the past. I often have this fear that some of the actions from my past will come back to haunt me. I have recurring dreams where a detective tells me that they have been building a case against me for the past 5 years for things that I have done. In that dream, I’m always sentenced to a prison/jail term.
I have done a 4th and 5th step in AA. In fact, I’ve gone through the entire 12 steps. I will be revisiting the 4th and 5th, as I know that I could have been much more thorough the first time around. And perhaps then I will brush up on the 9th step as well, which entails making amends to those we harmed.
The problem is, I’ve already been through the process and I can’t seem to let go of my past. I feel like, deep down, I need to forgive myself for the things that I did. I don’t want to live in fear anymore, of what might happen. I no longer wish to fear my past coming back to haunt me. Is this is a common thing for people that have a troubled past like mine?
So, do you have any recommendations for modalities that may go a little deeper than what I have already tried? To be fair, I’m going to give working the steps another chance, since I never felt right about how the first time was done. But I feel that for certain things, one needs to go deeper.
On a side note, I will soon learn Primordial Sound Meditation as well.