One cannot rip the past out of his/her life. it’s stuff that happened to us and it’s stored at a cellular level in our memory. The best we can do is to make peace with the past. It’s not always easy to make peace with the past because lots of the characters in our personal drama are no longer in our lives (they’re either dead or no longer live near us). If we can find ways to forgive those who hurt us, we loosen the past’s grip on us. That’s easier said than done. Yet, it has to be done if one is to find peace and eventually happiness.