Am I Stuck in the Past?

3 Truths About Feeling Tethered to Who I Used to Be

You know the feeling - like you're trying to live your life now, but part of you is still back there. In the relationship that ended. In the version of yourself that felt safe. In the moment before everything changed. You're here, but you're not fully here, and no matter how hard you try to move forward, something keeps pulling you back to a place that doesn't even exist anymore.

Here are 3 Soul Sparks for understanding why you feel tethered to the past, what it means to be planted in the wrong soil, and how to begin replanting yourself in your actual life.

SOUL SPARK #1

Why do I feel tethered to who I used to be in the past?

That version of you felt safe, even if it hurt, even if you've outgrown it completely. Your nervous system learned to survive in that soil - it knows the terrain, it knows how to navigate the pain, it knows what to expect. When you try to pull yourself out and replant somewhere new, every part of you screams that this is wrong, that you need to go back, that leaving means losing yourself entirely. What you're actually losing is the anchor that's been keeping you small, keeping you stuck, keeping you from growing into the person you're becoming right now.

SOUL SPARK #2

How do I know if I'm still living in an old relationship instead of my actual life?

You're still making decisions based on what they would think, what they would say, what they would need from you. You're still moving through your days like you're waiting for them to come home, or like you need to prove something to a version of them that only exists in your memory now. You catch yourself checking your choices against a reality that isn't real anymore, arranging your life around rhythms that belonged to someone else's story - and wondering why nothing in your present feels quite right, quite true, quite like it belongs to you.

SOUL SPARK #3

Why is it so hard to imagine a future that doesn't look like my past?

The past is known territory - your body knows how to survive there, your nervous system has mapped every corner of that landscape, even the painful parts. The future asks you to trust ground you haven't walked yet, to plant seeds in soil you've never tended, to believe that something new can grow when all you've known is what already died. Imagining a future that looks different means letting go of the only map you've ever had, and your system reads that as dangerous, as threatening, as too risky to even consider. The pull back to the past isn't weakness - it's your nervous system trying to keep you safe in the only way it knows how.

This is the work we do in BLOOM - a 2-day journey to excavate yourself from where you've been planted and begin to root yourself in your own life. It's for when you're ready to stop living from the past and start tending the garden that's actually yours.

Xx, Shaia

Soul Sparks is part of RITUALS by Shaia - a multidimensional series of healing programs for times of change, grief, and sacred rebuilding when you are walking through transformation, rupture, and the process of becoming who you truly are.

Ready to begin? Explore RITUALS here.