Before you can move toward what you want, you must make peace with where you've been. If you don't, you'll keep dragging yourself back to justify why you can't have what you want or keep lamenting about how unfair life is.

What brings you back to the past may be a job you got fired from, a relationship that ended poorly, a project you never completed, large sums of debt, a bad investment or an opportunity that passed you by. It can be any situation that when you bring your attention to it you feel lousy, disempowered and ashamed.

When you catch yourself blaming others or yourself for why your life looks the way it does, or you're feeling angry, resentful or bitter there's some work to do and some freedom to be gained. Each time you're able to alter a part of your past you'll notice you're happier and have more room to be. Releasing the past is not a process you do once and then you're done.

Throughout the program there will be exercises to help you release the remnants that continue to keep you stuck, but this article will get you flowing in the direction you want. I suggest you do this exercise when you're in the mood to do some mental housecleaning and desire more freedom. It sounds pretty simplistic, but I guarantee that if you take the time to do it your energy will shift.

Start with your most popular story, the one that really has you being hard on yourself. You probably recite it to yourself daily or you may even wake up into it or stay awake reliving it. Sit down and write out the story. Describe who the characters are, how they ruined your life and also include how you continue to ruin it. Gather all the evidence for why you're such a loser and how you're surrounded by losers. Have as much fun with it as you want.

Once you've written as much as you can reread it. Now reread it again asking yourself, "What if I was wrong about that?" What if my perception of what happened isn't totally accurate? What if that is just my perception based on my limiting beliefs? Now create a new story that lands you where you are today. You'll end up with the same result but you'll have a new story.

Create a story that inspires you. We are so quick to make ourselves wrong or victimized that we quickly make up stories to be right about our limiting beliefs. Keep rewriting this story until you feel empowered by it. What you will notice with your new story is that it's actually closer to the truth than the one you've been telling yourself. Limiting beliefs have the incessant habit of working hard to diminish us. Once you catch on to their game they start to lose their power. You'll know you're done fine tuning your story when you think of the situation and you feel energized instead of depleted.