Holding on to a past story / pain.

Something negative in the past happened. Then we hold on to the pain and anger. We delusionally think that if we hold on to it long enough that we can make that thing un-happen, but we can't. The past is over and can't be changed. We give so much attention, focus, and energy towards past baggage while neglecting the things that we can change in the present.

This holding on to the pain and anger of dead weight past that can't be changed becomes a habit over time. So we collect more internally. Think of it like having a lot of windows / tabs open on your computer. You don't close them. You just keep minimizing the old ones while opening new ones. So over time you have hundreds / thousands of minimized windows sucking up your computer's performance power. So it becomes very hard to work on a desired future while you have all that pain and anger minimized rather than closed.

This is something new I'm working on. Seeing where all my minimized windows are. All that past baggage I'm holding on to even though it's over and just holding me back from having more energy / focus / attention on the present.

A lot of people on this forum write paragraphs of their sad life story and all the reasons why they can't have a better life. That's holding on to the past pain and anger while neglecting the present. That's self sabotage. Because if they didn't self sabotage, it would mean they would actually have to face the uncertain, challenging, and uncomfortable things they know they should be doing to become the person they want to be and to have the life that they want. It's much easier to just be a victim and to hold on to the past with the delusional hopes of changing the past.