Make Peace With Your Past | Oaxaca, Mexico
Looking out over the ruins of Monte Alban, I’m reminded how often we chain-smoke the past without taking the time to truly breath it in.
Nothing is more humbling than witnessing an ancient civilization, where power once reigned, swept away by something even more powerful than the noblest of kings and queens: time.
We will always interpret the past through the lens of the present, trying to piece together broken artifacts to make sense of how we’ve come to be here now.
Never fully grasping the truth of what once was.
Trying to grasp the past is like trying to catch a butterfly by its wing.
About 1000 species of butterflies are known to live here in Oaxaca, Mexico, and I still haven’t caught a single one.
I get lost in my own past all the time. Sifting through old memories like broken glass, trying to understand how nothing seems to last forever, yet everything that’s passed on still stays with me.
Sometimes I feel like the years I spent battling depression, robbed me off my life.
Life was happening around me, and I was too lost in my own mind to witness the love and the miracles that surrounded me at the time.
But then I picture my life without those difficult experiences:
The years when the good days were the ones when I was able to cry myself to sleep.
The nights I would pray to God to just let me die.
This wasn’t for weeks or months. It was years.
Of approximately 2,190 days spent in extreme amounts of mental anguish, I would not take back a single one.
NOT A SINGLE DAY.
For each moment I have broken, there has also been a moment when I have chosen to heal.
If it weren’t for these moments of healing, choosing to be strong, choosing to forgive and find joy, I wouldn’t be here now.
With my dream job as a flight attendant, exploring the colonial buildings in this foreign city, made of green volcanic stone.
Trying fresh guacamole, laughing with new friends.
Sampling from the street vendors and artisans in the central Zócalo square.
Exploring the churches designed with a luxurious baroque interior, architecture from another time.
So we can’t rewrite the past.
And we are told to just let go.
But maybe we don't need to let go of our past.
Maybe we don't need to force ourselves to forget.
Maybe we just need to make peace with it.
Perhaps by exploring the ruins of old palaces we perfected in our minds, we can let go of the sorrow and simply revel in appreciation for where we have once been and how far we have come.
The pain of my past has been my most loving teacher, and has gifted me every good thing I have in my present.
But it has taken time for me to see that.
My past has taught me unconditional love and empathy for ALL humans, no matter their appearance or behavior.
It set me on a path of light, with a purpose to wake the world up from its suffering.
But first I had to know such suffering for myself.
To heal myself has been my life’s work. And in healing myself I have seen the ripple effect of light it has brought to everyone around me.
If someone tried to rewrite the pain from my past, I would feel robbed.
Don’t let the past rob you of the present.
but also
don’t allow yourself to be robbed from a full appreciation of your past
Sometimes we move too fast to make sense of it all. Moving full speed ahead with no idea where we are going.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, time slows down.
The pace of the city is leisured and gentle.
The people are warm, and the atmosphere is quiet.
Known for its architecture, artisans, and food, it is the perfect setting to make peace with the past.
Everything that's behind us may be gone, but it has also built the path for every good thing that's ahead.
