That’s a tough one to face Misha. I go through something quite similar. Even though its right there in front of you. In fact its difficult to deal with BECAUSE its always there, constantly looming over you and making its presence felt like a specter. If you’ve got your head stuck in the past, you’re not focusing on the present, and focusing on the present IS the best way to not repeat mistakes. It is a fallacy to think that by incessantly reflecting on past mistakes you’ll come up with a bullet-proof catch all solution to avoid them in the future.There doesn’t seem to be a black and white answer to keep you from standing in you’re own light but there are certainly a few things I have found that can ease suffering.

Exercise
If you’re anything like me, then you’ve seen this in any or all of ‘Top 10 things to boost confidence/cognition/self-belief…’ or variants of this. There’s a pretty good reason for it. I find after just two weeks of dedicated exercise (for me an hour’s run a day) anxiety is all but completely gone. My focus becomes honed on my daily tasks, and what I care about rather than the crippling ‘what I SHOULD be doing now to make me happy’ thoughts. Thoughts are clearer, mind is sharper, and the monkey on your back is ‘caged’ for want of a far better term 😛

Giving generous time to hobbies
“I don’t have time for that’…”I’ll do that later in the week”… If you don’t actively engage in your hobbies, you’ll find a couple of months has passed and you’ve not given attention to any of them. It is in turn very possible that you are letting someone else in your life dictate how you spend your free time. Either this or as I have found at times, hobbies become sub-planted by rumination.

Finally, as you say that you are in a good relationship, it is incredibly important to value the time that you spend apart. It can feel, particularly in the first year of a great relationship, that time spent apart is time wasted. From both painful and happy experience I can say that this is the complete opposite of reality. Give your partner an opportunity to miss you. The more activities and hobbies you take part in by yourself or with other people in your life, the more you can teach each other. The more experiences you have outside of the relationship, the better a friend teacher and companion you can be to the person you love.

Well thats my two cents. Hope it was of some value.

David