Relationship with the Past

Transcript

I was just thinking about our relationship with the past. I’ve noticed perhaps so many people have an unhealthy relationship with the past.

So what happens perhaps some people have trauma related to the past. We might say that everyone has trauma related to the past and in some cases it might be quite extreme.

But many of us manage to integrate the trauma of the past and in fact that is ideal. If you are just beginning on this path it might seem like a high ideal. I was about to say a high ordeal which is also true.

So looking back through our past what we find is on some level we might identify with things happening to us. With our reactions to them and our interpretations of those events. Perhaps even things that happened a young as when we were three or four years old or perhaps even younger.

Still those things buried in our unconcious and we have these concepts of ourselves about them.

Once during deep meditation I had this idea or deep meditation that each of us has an identity composed of 6 stories we keep telling ourselves. So the conclusion was either choose those stories very well or be mindful enough to let go of certain stories.

There are many stories we have that are likely no longer serving us and in fact serve to inhibit us from future growth. We are identifying with something that was, something that is not and perhaps something that will never be again.

So we are like a kind of digitized blocky pixelized form of the self unable to move into the true mystery of the soul as described by Karl Rogers in On Becoming a Person.

Becoming self actualized means accepting the concept that we are ongoing processes. That an individual is defined not by his past but that he is constantly changing in every moment constantly becoming something new.

Of course it’s not alwasys comfortable to step into the idea that we don’t know who we are. To leave behind some concept of self that offers comfort but ships are not made to stay in harbor even though thats where ships are safe.

Our souls are not made to cling onto concepts that no longer are. Our souls are made to explore, to be new things and become new things and seek new endeavors.

Yes we embrace the past and its lessons. We integrate them, consider them, perhaps even ruminate on them and reflect on them and then we begin to reflect something new because now our mirror is bright. Now we see ourselves clearly, as unknown, as new.