The past. It has always limited me and my future. Why? Well, simply because I let it. I let every mistake I made define me. I let everyone around me tell me who I was and or who I was going to be. I let people of this world compare me to other members of my family. I let my ex-boyfriend treat me as if I would never amount to anything in life. I let depression and anxiety take over my thoughts and run my world. I let those two things affect how I saw my future and let them both force me to ignore, most if not all, my responsibilities. If you're anything like me you've heard people tell you repeatedly "don't let that define you" or "you're worth so much more than what the world sees you as." Both of those sayings are more than true but easier said than done.

I am not at all saying I am perfect, in fact, that is actually why I am writing this right now. I make mistakes every day. In my past friendships/relationships, I used to not always tell the truth. In my past academic/work life I used to not always try my best. In my past, I used to not always be the healthiest person mentally, physically and emotionally. But, the keyword here is "past." This finally resonated with me when someone made the statement that sounded like an alarm clock that had no snooze button to me, "Your past will always define you if you don't make the effort to change it." This hit me like a bus. I'm sure it hit you like a bus just now too because it carries a lot of weight. There are three things we as people often let control how we view ourselves the most; the world and the people in it & the mistakes we make as we go.

Mistakes. It's not how we make them that define us, but how we correct them.

I don't know about you but when I make a mistake, even if it's something as small as signing my name in the wrong place on a paper, I beat myself up over it for hours, days, weeks, months & sometimes years depending on the mistake. As I continue to let this mistake beat me up for long periods of time I start to realize that it suddenly is starting to hinder me from correcting it and or moving forward.

One of the biggest mistakes I previously struggled with was being honest with people. In all my relationships, friendships and even in my own family I wasn't always the most honest person. This is a mistake that controlled me and I couldn't seem to correct ever since I was a little girl. I felt the need to lie about everything and anything to make myself look better, to save me from trouble, to please people and most importantly to cover up a mistake. It was in the midst of realizing that I was losing the trust of everyone around me that I started owning up to my mistakes and stopped faking perfection. But, even after I got honest and fixed my habit of making and repeating the same mistake I let it define me. How?

Well, when you go through life lying your way through it people don't always trust you. It gives you a bad reputation and having a bad reputation often prohibits us from finding real love, real friendship & real family and just reality in general. As I let the opinions of the world and the people in it control me for so long I also let it continue to push me back to where I was repeating the cycle of the mistake. It was recently I realized that mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.

Just as the world doesn't always see it that way, you should. The reality of making mistakes is everyone makes them. That doesn't mean they have to pay for them, for the rest of their life. Sometimes good people make bad choices & that doesn't make them a bad person, it makes them human.

If there is anyone in your life that is constantly reminding you of your past mistakes just know they don't deserve to be in your life, and they definitely don't deserve to see the person you become because of it

Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.

I know so many people that love to live in the past. If I am being honest, this group of people includes myself. After a breakup, I dwelled on it for months when I should've just moved on like he did and learned from it. There are plenty of examples in my life where I became a prisoner to my past. Struggling to move forward because I felt like I was bound in chains that only got tighter as I pulled on them. This hindered my growth, my future, and caused a lot of problems for me mentally, emotionally and physically. After long and hard consideration and a come to Jesus meeting with myself I opened my eyes and saw that this person I was, was not the person I wanted to be.

Take notice of how the word "Was" is past tense and the root word "Want" is future tense. I had a goal and a vision of who I pictured myself as and I broke out of the chains and into my future. I Started to do things that were going to help me grow as a student, daughter, employee, family member, and human in this society. I realized that my mistakes were to teach me something and push me forward not to sentence to me to live in the past for the rest of my life.

Your value doesn't decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth.

A common side effect to living in the past and letting it define you is you start to question your worth. Especially because the world does everything in its power during that season in your life to make you feel like you don't have any. When finally breaking out of those chains I did one thing that changed my life, perspective and habits forever that ensured that I would never let my past define me. That ensured that I knew I wasn't that person anymore no matter what anyone else thought of me. That ensured and guaranteed that my life and its value held more worth than what everyone else saw. I sat through a sermon.

Yes, that's right, I went to church.

It felt as if it was Jesus talking directly to me. He said a lot of things but the one thing I felt during that church service was an overwhelming amount of love and support. I remember feeling "worth" something sitting there in a chair. I remember learning that even though the world around me may think I am worthless, won't amount to anything, or a "screw up" Jesus saw more. Not only that, but he told me that I wasn't what my past said I was. Everything in the past no longer defined me and that I was made new from that day forward. Even though, in my heart, I knew that already it felt good to get confirmation and reassurance from God himself. The Lord gave me a few different messages about my worth and my past from then on and since then, thanks to him I have learned to make sure I am not seeing myself through the eyes of people that don't value me. I learned to know my worth even if the world doesn't. Most importantly, I learned to know where my worth and value came from and it sure as heck wasn't my past, the world, or all the people in it.

If you aren't a Christian reading this and none of that made sense to you just know this: Someone out there values you and knows your worth. Your worth doesn't come from your weight, or by how beautiful you think you are or aren't, your mistakes or your past. Your worth comes from how you start to view those things. Adding to that, if you really want an outsider's perspective look to God, cause he thinks your beautifully made, he knew all the mistakes you were going to make and still died for you, and he wipes your past clean and makes you new.

You see, there will always be someone in this world that doesn't see your worth. Please, don't let it be you. Because here's the good news, you've got a story to write and it looks nothing like your past.