You can’t change the past — but you CAN change how you carry it. This week’s episode shows you how to find peace now… and why ‘closure’ isn’t the answer. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!
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About this episode:
The past cannot be changed.
But you can change what it does to you.
If you’ve ever found yourself replaying old conversations, or trying to wish a different ending into existence, then you’ll know just how exhausting that tug-of-war can be.
It’s not that you haven’t tried; it’s just that there’s a part of you that’s still fighting what’s already happened.
But no amount of going over and over something from the past will ever change it. What you need to do is make a change to the way you’re dealing with the past here in the present.
You need to make a shift in order to find peace of mind.
And the shift that makes peace possible is finding a way to accept what has happened.
Now, let’s be very clear that acceptance isn’t approval. It’s choosing to stop letting yesterday decide how you feel and live today. It’s tough to do, but it sets you free.
This week in the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, I’m exploring how to make peace with the past… especially when things still feel unresolved or unfair. You’ll learn what peace actually looks like (in real life, not in theory), why it matters so much for your mental wellbeing, and practical ways to change how you carry the stuff that can’t be changed.
💡 Quick tip: Write down one truth you’ve been avoiding, even if you hate it. Then add: “This is part of my story, but it doesn’t get to control the rest of it.” Read it out loud to yourself regularly. It’s a tiny act of honesty that enables peace to begin.
Because when you stop fighting the past, you free up energy to build a calmer and clearer present… and a future that reflects who you’re becoming, not what you’ve been through.
🎧 Ready to stop letting the past run your present and start carrying it differently? Then let’s talk!
The full episode is out now. Watch it, listen to it, or read the transcript below… and have a fantastic week!
Jeremy 😃
Episode Transcript:
How to Make Peace with the Past
You can’t change the past… but you can stop letting it control you.
And making peace with your past is how you take back your power.
Because you can’t move forward in life if you’re stuck in the past… and this episode is all about how to stop fighting the past, so you can find true peace of mind.
So, let’s talk about making peace with the past.
Sometimes the hardest part of healing isn’t the pain itself; it’s the quiet, ongoing battle between trying to accept what happened and wishing it had been different… and that tug of war between resistance and reality can keep you stuck for years, even if you’ve done a lot of work on your healing.
Last week, in Episode 294, I talked about what healing really looks like; the slow, messy process of learning to live around your pain instead of being defined by it. In this episode of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, we’re continuing that conversation by talking about how to make peace with the past… especially when things still feel unresolved or when part of you keeps going back over the same story, trying to rewrite the ending.
Because you don’t have to forget about whatever happened to be at peace with it… you just have to decide how you want to carry it from here.
This isn’t about pretending you’re OK with what happened, and it’s definitely not about forcing yourself to just ‘move on’. This is about learning how to stop fighting the past so you can start actually living your present and how to change the way that you carry what can’t be changed.
To get there, we’ll talk about: what it really means to make peace with the past, why it’s such an important part of healing, and how to start shifting the way you relate to what happened… especially when it still feels unresolved or unfair.
Because even if you can’t change the past, you can change how much power it has over you.
If you’re new here, I’m Jeremy Godwin, and this show is your weekly dose of better mental health, full of simple and straightforward ways to improve your mental wellbeing that you can put into practice immediately.
So let’s start by talking about…
What it really means to make peace with the past.
Making peace with the past means learning to live with what happened without letting it control how you think, feel, or show up in your life today. It doesn’t mean that you’re OK with what happened. It certainly doesn’t mean that you’ve forgiven, or forgotten, or that you’ve found some perfect sense of closure. It simply means that you’ve reached a point where you no longer let those experiences shape your identity or dominate your emotional energy.
That’s what peace of mind is. It’s not about finding nirvana or erasing the past, but it’s about having freedom from being defined by what you’ve been through. Really, it’s about shifting from resistance to acceptance. Now, that doesn’t mean accepting what happened as being right or justified; far from it. It means that you choose to stop fighting the fact that it happened. It means that you stop replaying the story, trying to change the ending… because it is what it is; what has happened has happened, and no amount of wishing and hoping, or cursing and shouting, will ever change the reality of what is.
You can change the future, but you can’t change the past. However, what you can do is to change your relationship with the past. That shift is where peace of mind begins. Making peace with the past means letting go of the need for it to make perfect sense, because it probably never will. The truth is some things that happen to us, especially painful or traumatic things, don’t have satisfying explanations. You might never get the answers you want, or the apology that you deserve, but peace starts when you decide that your wellbeing matters far more than understanding why it happened.
It also means reclaiming the parts of yourself that might have gotten lost in whatever happened. Sometimes our pain becomes so wrapped up in how we see ourselves, that it can feel like it’s part of our identity. And making peace with the past often means having to rewrite that story. You begin to see that you’re not your pain. You’re not just what happened to you. You are who you choose to become next. You are what you do with your pain.
It’s not a one-time decision. Choosing to make your peace with the past is really something that you practice over and over again, especially when the past tries to pull you back in… and it will! There will still be moments when something triggers old memories or feelings; weeks, months, years, decades later. But instead of reacting the way that you used to, eventually you start responding with a lot more self-awareness and self-compassion… and that’s a sign that you’re growing. And that’s what making peace with the past looks like in real life: growth.
Most of all, making peace with your past is about choosing to carry it differently. You don’t have to forget what happened, but you can decide that it’s no longer going to steal your joy or your power. It means that you carry the lessons you’ve learned from it, not the weight of it.
So let’s talk about…
Why making peace with the past matters.
There are lots of reasons why making peace with the past matters for the sake of your mental health, so let’s step through some of the main ones.
First… it’s because the past doesn’t just disappear; it echoes. What I mean there is that it echoes in the way that you think about yourself and the way you react when you feel threatened or criticised, the way you hesitate to trust people, or how you hold yourself back from things that you want. If something painful happened and you never really worked through it, or even if you did but you’re still carrying around guilt or shame about it, then it’s very likely to be shaping your experience of the present far more than you might realise. Making peace with the past is about closing the gap between what happened and how much it still hurts. It doesn’t mean that you just erase it or wipe the slate clean somehow; it means that you learn to carry it with you differently, giving it less power.
It also matters because you can’t build your future while you’re still living in the emotional rubble of your past. You might have big goals that you want to achieve, or a deep desire to grow, but if you’re still holding onto past resentment, or regret, or pain, or anger, whatever, then it can block you in any number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Maybe you keep on sabotaging your own progress. Maybe you talk yourself out of good things. Or maybe you keep on ending up in the same unhealthy cycles over and over again with people who reflect your wounds back at you. When you haven’t made peace with what’s behind you, it’s so much harder to move forward with clarity and purpose.
Making peace with the past also matters because emotional baggage is heavy and it affects how you show up in every part of your life. You know that unresolved hurt or anger that you carry? It’s not just in the past. It’s here, now. It’s in your stress levels. It’s in how you speak to yourself when you make a mistake. It’s in how quickly you shut down or lash out when someone touches a nerve. The longer you carry pain that hasn’t been processed or accepted, the more it becomes woven into the fabric of your identity. Making peace with the past is about releasing that emotional weight, so you can start responding to life from the perspective of who you are now… not from the wounded version of who you were back then.
Another reason it matters is because peace of mind is not possible when you’re still at war with your own history. If you’re stuck replaying old conversations, trying to rewrite the ending in your head, or if you’re constantly asking yourself why something happened… well, that’s not peace. That’s mental and emotional exhaustion. Making peace with your past doesn’t mean that you have to approve of whatever happened. It’s not an endorsement or a validation, and it doesn’t mean that somebody gets away with something. It simply means that you stop pouring your energy into trying to change what’s already been written. It’s done. It means that you say to yourself: this is done. This is now part of my story. But it doesn’t get to control the rest of my story.
So why else does making peace with the past matter? Well, it matters because… you deserve much better than living on autopilot, constantly reacting to things based on your old pain. When you don’t make peace with the past, you tend to repeat it… or at least its emotional patterns. So that could mean shutting down when people get too close, staying in relationships that mirror old wounds, or living in a constant state of self-protection. And that’s not your fault. These are the coping mechanisms that you developed in order to survive. But if those responses are keeping you stuck or feeling unfulfilled now, here in the present, then it’s time for something different. Because nothing changes if nothing changes. Proactively choosing to focus on peace of mind and consciously making the decision to let go of the stuff that keeps you stuck is what serves to create the space that you need in order to choose the aspects of your life more intentionally.
And then the other piece here is that… it matters because acceptance is the bridge between being stuck and starting to heal. Now, healing doesn’t mean that everything suddenly becomes OK. It just means that you’ve decided that you’re going to be OK… even if you never get the closure that you wanted, even if the pain still flares up sometimes, even if whatever happened still doesn’t make sense. Acceptance allows you to take your power back; not by condoning what happened, but by choosing what comes next. Peace doesn’t come from someone else making it right for you. It comes from you deciding not to let your past define who you are today and who you’re going to be tomorrow. And you can make that choice anytime you’re ready.
But most of all, making peace with the past matters because you matter. Your mental health, your emotional wellbeing, your future, your peace of mind… they all depend on how you choose to respond to what you’ve been through. Making peace with your past isn’t about doing it for anyone else. It’s something you do for you. It’s about giving yourself the gift of peace, the gift of freedom, and the gift of a future that isn’t ruled by what’s already happened.
And the beautiful thing is that kind of peace is absolutely possible. Even if you still feel like you’re stuck in the past, even if it still hurts, even if you’re not sure where to begin. Because making peace with the past isn’t about pretending it didn’t happen. It’s about choosing to move forward in spite of whatever happened; one small, conscious, and deliberate step at a time.
After this quick break, I’m going to walk you through how to start doing just that… no matter where you’re at in your healing journey. And during the break, if this episode’s helpful for you then please press like or leave a quick rating; it helps more people find this show. Thanks!
[AD BREAK]
And welcome back!
Now let’s get into the practical stuff: how to actually start making peace with your past. Because whether your pain is still fresh or if it’s something that you’ve been carrying around for years, there are lots of things you can do to loosen its grip on you in a way that helps to improve your mental wellbeing. So let’s talk about…
How to make peace with the past.
Alright, so let’s get into how to actually make peace with the past and not in a surface level type of way, but in a real and often uncomfortable process of learning to live with what’s happened without letting it run your life. Because peace isn’t something that just happens. It’s something that you choose.
OK, so my first tip is…
Ask yourself, what do I still expect to change? This is a really powerful question that can help to bring any unconscious resistance to the surface… which is always good to know upfront, so you can then work through whatever you need to work through. So maybe you’re still hoping that someone will realise what they did, or maybe you’re still expecting life to look the way it should have. Naming these types of expectations that you carry around with you will help you to recognise what you’ve been waiting for, and it gives you the power to choose to approach it differently. Next…
Ask yourself, what truth do I need to accept… even if I hate it? There’s usually at least one raw and unpleasant truth that we go out of our way to avoid. Maybe they’ll never change. Maybe it wasn’t your fault after all. Maybe that version of your life is gone. Naming and acknowledging that truth that you need to accept, without resisting it, is where peace begins… because it allows you to face the reality of the situation as you move forward. OK. Next…
Separate ‘justice’ from ‘healing’. It’s natural to want fairness, but healing and justice don’t always arrive together. Making peace means acknowledging that you can still heal without getting the apology, or the understanding, or the acceptance, or the outcome that you deserve. And it means not waiting until Karma has settled the score. What goes around comes around eventually, but you have no control over what that looks and feels like… and you most certainly cannot spend your entire life waiting for that to happen. You need to move forward, and that means focusing on you and your own peace of mind instead of worrying about what does or doesn’t happen to someone else. Justice will prevail. You don’t need it to choose to find peace. Next…
Clearly define what ‘peace’ means to you. The idea of ‘peace’ is actually pretty vague, until you define it for yourself. So… is it about having fewer intrusive thoughts? Or less emotional reactivity? Or being less bothered about things? Or having a deeper sense of calm? So you need to get really specific about what it means to you. And once you know what peace looks and feels like for you, then it’s much easier to start working towards it intentionally. Next…
Identify the parts of the past you keep trying to fix. We often stay stuck in a loop trying to mentally rewrite just one moment: the breakup, the betrayal, the mistake. Get really clear with yourself. What exactly are you still struggling with in your past, and what are you still fighting? Then ask yourself, how is this still shaping the way I show up today? Awareness matters because it’s the first step towards acceptance. OK, next…
Recognise emotional ‘muscle memory’. Sometimes we react as if we’re still in the past, even when we’re not. Notice when that old survival instinct kicks in and ask yourself: am I responding to what’s happening now? Or what already happened? It’s a subtle but powerful shift that helps to bring you back to the present. Next…
Write a timeline of your healing journey so far. Take a few minutes to list out the major turning points in your life: what you’ve faced, how you’ve grown, and what you’ve survived. This helps you to see your progress and it reconnects you with the fact that you’re no longer where you started… which is often easy to forget. Next…
Identify the cost of staying stuck. Take five or 10 minutes and write out what holding onto this pain has cost you… whether that’s emotionally, mentally, professionally, physically, or in terms of your relationships, etc. This could be a really confronting exercise, but it makes it a lot easier to actively choose peace over chaos… and to help you to stop clinging onto the past, once you can plainly see what you’re really paying to hold onto the past. Next…
Bring that past version of you into the present, with kindness. Instead of trying to forget who you were when whatever happened happened, speak to them. To you. Write to them. Thank them for helping you survive. When you embrace your former self with compassion, you’re no longer rejecting your past; you’re integrating it into your present and your future, and that’s how you heal. OK, next…
Change how you tell your story. I’m not referring to how you tell your story to others… I mean how you tell it to yourself. When you talk about your past, do you tend to focus on the pain, or the survival? Do you speak with blame, or with perspective? Start noticing your language, and shift from a “this ruined me” mindset toward a more “this shaped me” mentality. It really does matter, and it really makes a difference. Next…
Disconnect from old identities. We can often find ourselves becoming attached to certain labels and narratives, whether that’s conscious or subconscious… like being the one who was hurt, or being the fixer, or the survivor. But old identities get in the way of your growth and progress. That’s who you were, not necessarily who you are. So it’s time to be like Gwyneth Paltrow and go for a bit of conscious uncoupling with your old identities. You can choose to shed them and focus on who you are, as well as who you want to be in the future… assuming that you’re also doing the work to turn that into reality! It’s like Madonna said, in ‘Nothing Really Matters’: “nothing takes the past away like the future.” Making peace with the past means giving yourself permission to not be that person anymore. And that can be tough, and it can even come with a sense of grief that… that just pulls you in while you’re trying to let it go; but that’s actually where growth happens. And even though it’s tough, it matters. And so that actually leads to my next point…
Ask yourself, who am I now because of what I’ve been through? And you’ll notice that I didn’t say “despite it”, but because of it… because even out of the dark times, good things can grow. Hell, my own trauma and pain is what led me to create this show! So, what strengths have you gained because of whatever happened to you? What patterns have you broken? What boundaries have you learned to set for yourself? Peace grows when you give meaning to your pain; not by justifying it, but by using it to fuel your growth. Next…
Replace avoidance with routine. If you’ve been avoiding things that remind you of the past, then try creating a new routine around them. So, for example, if Sunday evenings trigger loneliness, then plan something nourishing every Sunday; that type of small change can help to create structure and safety, which in turn helps to make peace feel a lot more possible. Next…
Deliberately engage with what once triggered you in a controlled way. So, reclaiming your power and making peace with the past sometimes means choosing to face the place, the object, or the memory from a position of safety. Now, this is very different than exposure therapy, which is a formal kind of thing that you may deal with with a therapist if you’re working with one; it’s actually about reframing things in a safe way. So you could try going to that location with a good friend, you could try wearing that thing that you stopped wearing, or preferably you could talk it through with a professional, like a counsellor or therapist. Whatever you do, break the pattern… but do it on your terms. And even though you’ll likely feel discomfort, please don’t push yourself so far or so hard that you end up with discomfort turning into terror. Gently, gently, step by step. And if it feels terrifying, as opposed to uncomfortable, take a step back and better yet, get professional support. OK, next…
Practice ‘now-based’ decision making. Ask yourself: “If I wasn’t trying to protect myself from the past, what would I choose right now?” And let that guide your next step. Peace isn’t about solving the past. It’s about showing up to the present without dragging yesterday’s fear and baggage into it. Next…
Choose peace, one decision at a time. Making peace with the past isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about the small daily choices that you make to stop fighting what you can’t change… and to also choose to start showing up for the life that you can create. Peace is built in moments… and every time you choose calm over chaos, or compassion over criticism, or presence over the past, you’re moving forward. You don’t need to feel ready. You just need to begin.
Final Tips and Next Steps
Here’s the thing. You don’t have to be at peace with what happened, but you can find peace in how you choose to live with it. Because the past doesn’t need to change in order for you to feel free. And once you stop trying to fight it or fix it, that’s when you create space for something much more powerful: acceptance.
Because when it comes to making peace with the past, what it all boils down to is this:
You don’t make peace with the past by changing it. You get it by changing how you carry it.
Now, what are you going to do with what you’ve learned today? Ask yourself, what’s one small step you can take this week to carry your past differently? Because making peace with the past is a choice you make. The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing. So… what choice will you make today?
Each week, I’d like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and to consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by an unknown author, and it is:
The past may shape you, but it doesn’t have to define you.
Unknown
Let me repeat that.
The past may shape you, but it doesn’t have to define you.
Alright, that’s nearly it for this week.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter at ltamh.com and support me on Patreon for early access to ad free extended episodes. They’re both linked in the description.
Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!
You’ll also find my episode about healing helpful; it’s linked in the description.
Next week I’ll be talking about letting go even when it’s tough. Follow or subscribe to never miss an episode, and have a great week!
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My first time here and I saw this.
This is honestly so insightful, especially for people who have experienced life changing trauma.
Thank you so much for writing this ❤️
Thank you very much!