Augusten Burroughs Quotes

Live today. Remove all blame from your vocabulary. Catch yourself when you find yourself using your past history as a reason for your failure to act today, and instead say, 'I am free now to detach myself from what used to be.'

We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

Each of us has been endowed with the perfect power to be free. Slavery is a state of mind that fails to acknowledge the slave's own power.

Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.

The past can be a terrible weight bound to you by an unbreakable chain. You can drag it with you, forever looking over your shoulder at what holds you back. Or you can let it go and move forward. It’s your choice.

This very moment you can drop all problems because they are your creation.

The minute that we change our minds, and stop giving power to the past, the past with its mistakes loses power over us.

It took me a long, long time to break the chains that's inside me.

We all have our demons. When we finally learn to let them go, we get to live and be free.

Don't be afraid and don't let the past affect your present.

You can't change the past so don't let it haunt you. You can change the future but first you've got to want to.

We are all affected by our pasts, but it is within our power not to let what we have done to dictate what we will do.

The weight is off my shoulders. I don't live in the past anymore. I look forward, instead of back.

Forgiving someone does not mean you condone their behavior. The act of forgiveness takes place in your own mind. It really has nothing to do with the other person. The reality of true forgiveness lies in setting ourselves free from holding on to the pain. It is simply an act of releasing yourself from the negative energy.

You are free when you gain back yourself,” Madame Wu said. “You can be as free within these walls as you could be in the whole world. And how could you be free if, however far you wander, you still carry inside yourself the constant thought of him? See where you belong in the stream of life. Let it flow through you, cool and strong. Do not dam it with your two hands, lest he break the dam and so escape you. Let him go free, and you will be free.

Forgive yourself first. Release the need to replay a negative situation over and over again in your mind. Don’t become a hostage to your past by always reviewing and reliving your mistakes. Don’t remind yourself of what should have, could have or would have been. Release it and let it go. Move on.

Don't allow your past or present condition to control you. It's just a process that you're going through to get you to the next level.

You are not defined by your past. You are prepared by your past.

Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power.

Letting go of your painful past is how you open yourself to a wonderful future.

Freedom is not letting your yesterday affect your today.

The past is over, so it has no power now. The thoughts of this moment create my future.

You let go of the past, and stop bringing the past into the present and replaying it into the future. You release guilt, shame, and you can create an entirely new pattern for yourself.

Don´t be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again.