Like many people, you may enjoy thinking about the past and probing it in great detail. You may believe that you have to understand it to be able to escape its hold. Fortunately, the past does not exist except in your head and in your present habits. You can escape its hold by focusing on the present and by detecting, challenging, and changing your own Beliefs. And by forcing yourself to change your here-and-now habits.

People who obsess about the past often feel a need to justify who they are before they feel qualified to move on. They are afraid to take action right now to change their lives because “What if I made a mistake?” And “It’ll be easier to do once I have the right insights about how my Dysfunctional Family of Origin made me what I am today and gave me the disturbances and addictions I have now.” Such ideas sound plausible. They will sound plausible ten years from now, too, but you won’t have changed.