HOW to RE-PROGRAM the PAINS of the PAST! - 10 Steps to Freeing your Future from your PAST! - 021
Peter Saddington offers insights into how past pains can hold one's future "prisoner." He argues that the subconscious mind plays a significant role in this process, particularly when someone feels wronged or experiences a setback. A key takeaway is the subconscious's tendency to replay negative scenarios involving "what ifs," "should haves," and "could haves," pulling the logical mind into these loops and amplifying emotional distress. Saddington emphasizes that the subconscious strives to be "right," seeking justifications for past hurts to feel safe and secure. He suggests that this drive stems from feeling exposed and damaged by past events, leading the subconscious to repeatedly revisit and re-litigate those experiences. The logical conscious mind in the present must wrestle with the subconscious.
Full Transcript (4359 words)
That's the story you told yourself. That's the story you repeated over and over. That's the story your subconscious has ingrained, hardened, calcified. And so it riles and reels against that story because it was never right. You told yourself the wrong story, bro. You told yourself the wrong story, sister. I built many startups, most of them the failed. So Bitcoin is exactly the place that I like to be. We're gonna end it right there. Guys, let's jump right into it. I am super excited to talk about this topic today. And the reason is is because I have like, look, three pages, three pages, more than three pages of notes. Oops. Guys, I've done a lot of thinking about this one. And this is something that I would really get your note pads out, guys. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about something really important, your past
and getting over your past. Don't let your past, don't let your past hold your future prisoner. Another way of saying this is right now, some of you guys are allowing your future, your present to be prisoners of the past. Why is it so bloody hard to let the past go? That's what we're gonna talk about, guys. That's what we're gonna talk about. And the reason I have to talk about this is obviously it's something that's on my mind, but obviously it's something that came to me through a conversation I had with another individual. This individual has, and I've told him this, he is letting his future. He is letting the future, the present that he is in today, and the future that he wants. He's letting that be held prisoner by his past. He's letting his past consume him. He enjoys dwelling on the past.
He allows the past hurts, the past pains, the past, whatever it is, to affect his decisions today. Guys, this is irrational. This is craziness. And I hope I'm catching you at a great point in life where this will make sense. If not, push pause. Don't, you can't throw it away. Don't listen to this and come back to this when you have issues in your past, hurts in your past, miseries in your past that are holding your present and your future prisoner. Why is it so fucking hard to let shit go? Let's talk about it, guys, and let's jump right in. There are three things that I wrote down here. There are three stages of humanity that create this situation where our present and future is held prisoner of our past. We can't get let go of our shit. Number one, it's because we've been wronged.
It's because we've been wronged. Or things hadn't gone the way you'd like. Something happened. A situation happened, guys. Right? You were wronged in that situation. Things hadn't gone the way that you'd like. And you know what? Maybe for some of you guys, it's been, it was a miserable, soul crushing, soul cutting experience. You were so wronged. The deeper the wound, the harder it is to move past it. I get this and I understand this. The subconscious is the enemy here. Let's make it fundamentally clear. Let's make it abundantly clear here, my friends. The subconscious is the enemy here. That's what we're fighting. Because the subconscious holds on to that hurt. You were wronged in the past. Legitimate. You were wronged. Or things hadn't gone the way that you wanted them to, regardless. Your subconscious holds on to that hurt and brings in. It brings in
it. I get this and I understand this. The subconscious is the enemy here. Let's make it fundamentally clear. Let's make it abundantly clear here, my friends. The subconscious is the enemy here. That's what we're fighting. Because the subconscious holds on to that hurt. You were wronged in the past. Legitimate. You were wronged. Or things hadn't gone the way that you wanted them to, regardless. Your subconscious holds on to that hurt and brings in. It brings in the logical and rational mind. Right? Into play. This is how it works. The stage, how it works is if you're, if you let's just say you're trying to make a decision for the future and then suddenly boom. The past comes up from nowhere. It hits you like a fucking truck. Right? And you're like, wow, how where did this come from? It's your subconscious. That's the enemy here,
guys. The subconscious comes up. It comes up, guys. It holds on to the hurt and it brings you with it. The subconscious brings it up and brings in the logical mind. And now your logical mind is now in play. Now your logical mind is thinking about that hurt. And what happens now? The what ifs. The only ifs. The should have. The could have. The what have. What the subconscious does is it brings in the logical mind to begin playing scenarios in your mind. The what ifs. What have I had done it this way? The only if he had the, oh, if she should have. Oh, if he could have. Right? And what the subconscious does is it's so, it's so vicious. Oh, it's so cunning. When you're trying to move forward in life, guys, the subconscious grabs a hold of the hurt. It brings in
your logical mind. And once it has your logical mind thinking about scenarios, the what ifs. The only ifs. The should have. The could have. Then the subconscious adds more emotion and drama into the equation to get the heart going to set the scene of those scenarios. And then you perfectly play those scenarios out in your mind over and over and over again. You see, it's the subconscious. That's the enemy here. Your logical mind wants to move on. Your logical mind is here in the present trying to make great decisions informed decisions for your future. A logical mind is here. It's ready to go. And then the subconscious is nasty, pernicious. Self-conscious comes back and creeps up. It's the enemy here, guys. Number two, the subconscious, the reason why the subconscious brings shit up from your past. It holds your present and your future prisoner is
because the subconscious needs to be right. It wants to be right. But you've been wronged. You've been wronged. And the subconscious wants to be right. So it creates reasons in your mind why you were right. Why you should have. Why you could have. Why he if, you know, if only if he had, and if she had, right. It creates scenario because it wants to be right. Your subconscious is never safe when you're in the wrong, when you're uncomfortable, when you've been found out. It is not a safe place for the subconscious to be. The subconscious wants to always be right because the subconscious needs to have some sort of balance. It needs to be able to survive the long term of this life with you. And so the subconscious always wants to be right. It needs to be right. And the problem is that you
subconscious is never safe when you're in the wrong, when you're uncomfortable, when you've been found out. It is not a safe place for the subconscious to be. The subconscious wants to always be right because the subconscious needs to have some sort of balance. It needs to be able to survive the long term of this life with you. And so the subconscious always wants to be right. It needs to be right. And the problem is that you have been wronged. And the subconscious is still fighting that. And when you're, and when you've been wronged, you are exposed. You're damaged. You're broken. You are hurt. And the subconscious hates this. And in order to feel whole, safe, again. The subconscious must be right. You must be righted. So what do you have here in this equation? You have you in the logical mind, in the present right
now, trying to make a great decision, trying to move forward. And you're like, or sometimes it happens to be. Sometimes it's the middle when you're just chilling, like a villain, and you ain't doing nothing. And the subconscious grabs the hold of you, brings you down. It brings you into the lava. It brings you into the smoke in the mirrors. It brings you into the scenarios that you can play over and over again. You have this subconscious screaming to be right. Screaming to be righted. Because you were wronged. And it needs to feel safe. It needs to feel secure. It needs to replay that shit over in your mind so that you finally agree with your subconscious that you were right. But the problem is, is that you were wronged. So you'll never be right in that past experience. So you have your subconscious screaming to
be right versus the rational brain that you have now that's telling you to move the fuck on. Letting go of the past is so hard. Because it means letting go of your expectations of what should have been or what should have had happened. Or it should have gone this way. It should have gone, frankly, your way. That's the reality. Letting go is so hard because it means letting go of the fact that you were wronged. Letting go of the fact that things didn't go the way you wanted. You didn't win. You lost. Sucker. You lost. You failed. You fucked up. You were there. You were part of the problem. Don't remove responsibility here. If it, even if all it requires is two people really. No, actually, all it requires is one person. You should always be taking personal responsibility because you were there. Fuck the
shit I would have could have. Should have would have could have what? Should have what a could of what? It didn't happen the way you wanted it to happen. Number three. Well, number one, remember, number one, your subconscious is the enemy here. Number two, your subconscious wants to be right. It needs to feel safe. And number three, your subconscious holds the future, a prisoner of the past. It's not free. You're not free. You're trapped. You're stuck. You're held against your will by the subconscious. The future cannot grow. The future cannot be. Because the past is robbing the present. And future, the past holds. You hold. You hold on. Which means you can't let go. Did you follow that, guys? Number three, your future is a prisoner of the past. It's not free. It's held. Your future cannot be. Your present cannot be. It wants to
It's not free. You're not free. You're trapped. You're stuck. You're held against your will by the subconscious. The future cannot grow. The future cannot be. Because the past is robbing the present. And future, the past holds. You hold. You hold on. Which means you can't let go. Did you follow that, guys? Number three, your future is a prisoner of the past. It's not free. It's held. Your future cannot be. Your present cannot be. It wants to be. It wants to live. It wants to be here now with you. But you're holding on. Which means if you're holding on, you can't let go. So listen up. Write a note down. Here's your answer. How about instead of letting go, how about instead of letting go, we just let things be? How about instead of letting go, instead of letting go, we just let things be? It
happened. You were wronged. And you know why you were wronged? I'm going to make it abundantly clear, guys. I wrote these notes down. I'm still on only page 1.5, guys. You were wronged. You know why you were wronged? It's because you told yourself that you were. You told yourself that you were wronged. Then your conscious subconscious filled in the rest of the story as to why you were wronged. Hold up. Wait a minute, Peter. What are you telling me here? I'm telling you is that you were wronged only because you told yourself that you were wronged. That's the story you told yourself. That's the story you repeated over and over. That's the story your subconscious has ingrained, hardened, calcified. And so it riles and reels against that story because it was never right. You told yourself the wrong story, bro. You told yourself the wrong
story, sister. One of the core tenets of mindfulness is to observe without judgment. This is one of the things that I am always striving to be better at and striving to educate my kids about. Because when you can observe without judgment, it means that you don't have emotions in your decisions. You and I both know we make our best decisions when we're highly emotional, right? And one of the core tenets of mindfulness is to observe without judgment, to observe a situation without emotion. Likewise, one of the best ways to leverage this tenet of mindfulness is to observe your past history, events, situations objectively with no judgment. Look at it. It happened. And then you told yourself a story. Listen, guys. The past, your history, the events of your life, okay? Those only have meaning because you gave it meaning. Let me say that again. Your
past history, right? The events, the situations of your past, those only have meaning if you give it meaning. If you give it no meaning, then it will have no meaning. This too shall pass. It's amazing. We need to look at this past situations differently. You know where I'm going now, don't you? We need to reprogram. We need to reprogram ourselves of past hurts. You know why? Because we tell, because something happened in the past. It didn't happen the way we wanted it to. And we told ourselves a story that we got hurt and that we deserved better. And that was a bad story to tell ourselves. We need to reprogram that shit because it's holding the present and the future prisoner. Like you don't need to do any of this. If you don't have shit that you need to let go of. You don't have
we tell, because something happened in the past. It didn't happen the way we wanted it to. And we told ourselves a story that we got hurt and that we deserved better. And that was a bad story to tell ourselves. We need to reprogram that shit because it's holding the present and the future prisoner. Like you don't need to do any of this. If you don't have shit that you need to let go of. You don't have past hurts, you need to let go. But if you have past hurts or past situations or past, you know, life experiences, you were gravely and deeply wounded and that shit is holding your future hostage. You need to go through Peter's reprogramming recipe. I just made that up. You need to go through Peter's 10-step reprogramming recipe. That's what we're going to call it, guys, because it's actually 10
steps. You guys ready? Here we go. Number, okay, let's start with context. You were wronged in the past. You told yourself a shitty story and that shitty story is robbing your future, okay? So now you need to go through Peter's 10-step reprogramming recipe, okay? The first step is you need to set out at least 30 to an hour. Number two, you need to sit your ass down in a calm place and you need to sit there until you are calm. Number three, you need to think on that situation, that hurt, that thing that you need to let go of. But you only begin thinking about it when your heart and your mind and your soul is calm from step two. After you've kind of just gotten rid of the shit from the day and you're in this calm place, it's quiet. You might have some
white noise or some... I like to listen to violins and classical music when I do this shit. Right? But it's peaceful. When you are at peace, think on that situation. Think on that thing that you need to let go of. Number four, let those feelings rise. All emotions, all memories where there's deep emotional context, deep emotional input that was there at the moment. Always have repercussions of feelings that rise in the body. For me, whenever I think of something stressful, it comes in my gut, right in my stomach for some reason. That's my hotspot. That's where everything feels like it's inflamed. Sometimes it gets cold there. So let the feelings rise. Number four, let the feelings rise. Let the emotions create those body sensations wherever they are. Sometimes I get it in my hand. I don't know why. Number five, focus on where the sensation
is. Where it burns, where it tingles, where it feels hot or cold. Focus on that sensation. Lean in to that feeling. Number six, ask. Now this is really important. Once that sensation is solid, ask the sensation. What is it trying to tell you? What is it trying to tell you? Keep asking. Don't give up. Stay with it. Lean into it. Be open to whatever comes from your mind when you're asking this burning sensation in your gut or your side or your heart or your arm or wherever that sensation is. Start talking to it. What is asking it? What is it trying to tell you? What does it want from you? Number seven, go through the entire feeling experience and process. Go through it. I've been through experiences where I begin to tear up, I begin to weep, I begin to think about how pissed off
mind when you're asking this burning sensation in your gut or your side or your heart or your arm or wherever that sensation is. Start talking to it. What is asking it? What is it trying to tell you? What does it want from you? Number seven, go through the entire feeling experience and process. Go through it. I've been through experiences where I begin to tear up, I begin to weep, I begin to think about how pissed off and angry I was, how upset I was. I lean into it. I get mad sometimes. I clench my fists. All this, I'm hoping that you're keeping your eyes closed. So go through the entire. Go through it. Lean into it. Refield the emotions. Get angry. Get salty. Get frustrated. Enjoy it. This is your time to enjoy it. Number seven. Number eight. After you've somewhat come back to normal,
you've kind of gone through emotions. You went through the highs and lows. Come back slowly. This is important. Come back slowly. Don't just immediately open your eyes. Come back slowly. Focus on your breathing. And through your nose, not through your mouth. But come back slowly. Don't, don't, don't come back to reality too fast. Kind of bleed through it. Because sometimes when I'm coming back slowly, before I'm open my eyes, a small thing or small nuance or a small aesthetic of that story of that experience the past will remind me. And I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss it. My, my third eye is talking to me guys. Number nine. Open your eyes. Grab your journal. Grab your journal. Write it down. Maybe I should have told you to have a journal already in the beginning. Well, you're listening to this. You
ain't doing it yet. So grab your journal. Two questions. Two questions you have to ask yourself in your journal. Can I see the situation differently now? Is there something I see differently now? Is there, was there a new perspective? Where it was a new vantage point. As I was going through that situation, that scenario in my mind, did I look at it from a different perspective? Did I see something I didn't see before? Did I add in some nuance? Write it down. Number two. Can I see myself differently in the situation? Did I respond differently? Or did I respond exactly how it played out the original time? With all its emotion, with all its regretful things that you've said, and with all the hurt that don't cutting deeper, but you couldn't stop, and you couldn't shut the fuck up. Don't we love our suffering? Don't
we love our suffering? How many times have you been in an argument when you knew you should have shut the fuck up and ended it? But you had to get it in! You had to get it in! You had to get it in, didn't you? That's why you so fucked up! That's why I'm so fucked up! That's why we're all so fucked up! Because we take shit too far in the real, and then we make up shitty stories about it in the unreal. Number ten is the most important step. Reprogramming. This is after you number nine where you've written down, what can I see the situation differently? Was there something done? I saw it differently. Number two. Did I see myself differently? Was I able to see a different perspective? Number ten is the reprogramming. What is the better story you can tell about what
too far in the real, and then we make up shitty stories about it in the unreal. Number ten is the most important step. Reprogramming. This is after you number nine where you've written down, what can I see the situation differently? Was there something done? I saw it differently. Number two. Did I see myself differently? Was I able to see a different perspective? Number ten is the reprogramming. What is the better story you can tell about what happened? What's the better story? What's the grander story? Now that you've lived a little bit, now that you've seen the outcome of that issue, that the outcome of that problem, the outcome of that situation, the outcome of that personal event. Write it down. Write it down. The reason you need to write down is because when you write shit down, the story gets deeper in the body and
the soul in the mind. Write it down. Write it down. What's the better story you can tell yourself? You know the better story that I always end up telling myself in some way or another? The better story every time is look at me now. Look how far I've come. Look what I've been able to do now. Look how I was able to pick my life up. Look how I was able to recover. Look at all the blessings I have now. Look at all the wins. Look at all the gains. I would never be able to have any of this if it wasn't for fill in the blank. That's how I always end up reprogramming my past. I have been gravely, deeply wounded my friends. And I'm sure you have too. But I'll tell you. I'm gonna tell you straight to your face. You might not
be looking at me. Don't care. I might not be looking at you. Who knows how the editing is gonna work in this one. But I'm gonna tell you. And I'm gonna look at the camera right now. My past guys is fucking awesome. You know why? Because I've reprogrammed my entire past to be aligned with the future that I want today. I have been gravely hurt, deeply wounded. At some points I felt gravely, deathly wounded. I felt at some points I would not be able to survive. But I have reprogrammed them, my friends. I have reprogrammed my past because I will never let the past hurts. Hold my future prisoner. I will let go of the bullshit. I have to because the future is far more important than the past which happened. But you know what? It's vapor. It's vapor guys. Some of you, and let
me hear the asterix for today, the asterix is some of you may have to repeat this over and over and over and over again for some hurts. You're gonna have to lean into it. You're gonna have to have these sit down sessions every week until you reprogrammed that shit. I get it. The past is the past. You can't change that. It's up to you to rewrite your story. Period. It's up to you to rewrite your story. Guys, whenever I look back in my past, my past is fucking amazing. Because look at what I've been able to overcome. Look what I've been able to do. Look what I've been able to achieve. Fuck. It's up to you to tell a better story about your past. So tell me in the comments below or in your own journal. What's a better story that you need to rewrite?
story. Period. It's up to you to rewrite your story. Guys, whenever I look back in my past, my past is fucking amazing. Because look at what I've been able to overcome. Look what I've been able to do. Look what I've been able to achieve. Fuck. It's up to you to tell a better story about your past. So tell me in the comments below or in your own journal. What's a better story that you need to rewrite? What's a past hurt that you need to let go of? Maybe you just need to sit down and re-listen to this. This is Prudent, the Bitcoin Lambo. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe. Smash the LizzyDeeLike button if you can. And you know what? I would highly recommend that you send this video to at least one person. That you think needs it. Thanks, guys. You're the best. Or
by the way, best comment below. I'll pin it.
Go Deeper
About the Creator
This video is part of a library of 780+ episodes published by Peter Saddington on staas.fund. Peter is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist (StaaS Fund, RegD 506B), and AI practitioner who has trained 17,000+ professionals in agile and AI methodologies. He bought Bitcoin at $2.52 in 2011, built 4 autonomous AI agents (the Council of Dogelord), and operates 10+ websites with zero employees. His AI Workshop has been attended by Fortune 500 teams, and his newsletter "The Agile VC" reaches thousands of subscribers weekly. Peter holds 3 Master's degrees (Divinity, Computer Science, Computational Operations Research) from institutions including Georgia Tech.