The Present brings Meaning to the Past

K so I’ve spent a lot of time talking about my past. With friends, with family, and very extensively in therapy. I’ve even started many of these blogs with stories from the past. I’m noticing that often I use the past to explain my actions now. For example, “I act like this because of my dad”, or “I can’t trust because my ex cheated on me”, etc. It almost becomes like this scapegoat for me, and it has been a jagged ass pill to swallow admitting to myself that I’m the only one who is allowing these past events (or at least the way my mind remembers them) to influence my current behaviours. I am also learning to be compassionate with myself, because I understand too that I have used these things as an excuse to stay with what was familiar, so I didn’t have to try anything new or challenge any beliefs or anything. The old beliefs are so familiar, like that pair of shoes you just don’t want to give up even though they’re full of holes and hurting your ankles. 

I’ve mentioned Alan Watts before. I remember listening to a video of his where he was talking about the idea that we can only bring meaning to the past in the present. This was a huge breakthrough for me when I heard him compare this idea to to music, and language. In music, the notes that follow in a melody are what give context to the notes that came before. Same thing in language - if you say “I love…”, what follows that is really what is creating the meaning of that sentence. 

Man, it’s so easy to go back into the past to find the reason or reasons for the way I’m acting, the way I’m thinking, for the things in my life that I’d like to change. The best way to change is to simply just…change. Haha. Right now. It is really quite that simple, though my mind is arguing me every step of the way. When I really look at it though, all the arguments my mind has are just thoughts that I used to think or things that I used to do, or things that have happened in the past. My mind has no actual “present moment” argument. 

I remember reading an Eckhart Tolle book, I forget if it was A New Earth or The Power Of Now, but there was something about what if you were just in this moment without having to blame or direct anything to the past? What if there was no reason you had to go backwards to figure out what brought you right here? I remember contemplating this and all of a sudden feeling this peace and freedom and lightness come over me, and I’ve often returned to that idea as soon as I notice myself anxious or feeling stressed out. Also, another thing I often come back to is this idea of “I am a new person in every moment”. That also eases my anxieties in any given moment. When I know that I create the meaning of the past in the present moment, I can focus on doing the things I want to do, being who I want to be, and living the kind of life I want to live, now.  While each moment isn’t “perfect”, nor should it be, this idea has snapped me back from a downward spiral many a time, and has helped me continue to, well, live. 

I know shitty things have happened to me in the past, and I’m beginning to see now that it’s not those things that cause me to suffer now. What causes me to suffer now are the things I continue to keep thinking and doing and saying and believing about myself, the things that are not true. 

It’s been a bit of a weird week - lots of movement, change, growth, transition. I’m doing my best to come back to this type of thinking whenever I start to spiral. I feel you if you’ve been going through it too, in one way or another. I know our circumstances may be different but we are all human beings which means we are all going through something or the other, whether good or bad or up or down or this or that. My heart is with you. The world needs you. If you are having a hard time, just keep holding on until the next good moment. It will come, promise. 

xxKat  

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