Either you own your actions… or you don’t.
Either the past matters… or it doesn’t.
If your thoughts, words, and actions mean anything… anything at all… then they don’t become meaningless just because they happened yesterday rather than today. You own them. They are you.
If you believe the past is the past, then I can punch you in the face, and when you get appropriately mad, I can shrug and ask you “what does it matter? that was all in the past!”
At 50yo, I’m still trying to run away from my past. I’m not so sure it’s working. I woke up having the same nightmare that I had as a teenager.
At some point, you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, declare your values, and push on. No one ever said breaking the cycle was easy.