Working through the past to help our present

What bothers us most isn’t always about the present. When we are living in survival mode, everything can become personal.

We react and feel things that may have very little to do with the present, but more to do with our past, particularly if something threatens our self-belief, our sense of control, or our version of what should be, what is, or indeed what isn’t.

It isn’t always personal. But it can feel personal, and if we bring that feeling into the present, it can alter our narrative of what has taken place, which may not help us.

So we can ignore the possibility that it isn’t personal and spend the whole day lost in what we felt it was. Hours or even days can be lost in rumination, when perhaps we need to look somewhere else.

This, I believe, hits a nerve that we haven’t dealt with and why there can be two different people experiencing the same thing in an entirely different way.

So what did it bring in? Something carried that is unresolved. By becoming curious instead of reactive, doors fly open, and possibility enters, because it becomes less about something personal, less threatening and more about learning and discovering. Here, we can ask why?

We can feel the emotion without becoming it or the perceived threat it represents.

What is needed here?

Honesty. Hard, yes, but necessary. If we can start by being honest with ourselves through questioning, then moving towards becoming honest in general, and honest with others, can happen through transition.

Moving towards something does not have to happen in a day. Deep change does not happen overnight, outside, maybe, of an epiphany. The emergence into awareness cannot be discounted, but this kind of rising awareness without exploration is rare.

This whole inward-going process can be uncomfortable if our pride is what we bump into, or if rejection is one of our worst fears.

Finding out what bothers us

If we can, through our curiosity and/or through having had that feeling that “you have been here too many times before”, explore and discover what the problem within us is, we can begin to change the story.

This is done through awareness. This is what brings about all change; it is by and through awareness. When it begins to make sense, then curiosity becomes a natural and organic part of it and the rewriting of a new story.

What we can do with a better story 

Well, we can feel happier for a start! A simple acknowledgement but one that brings about a wealth of difference to our own life:

• less blame
• more pause
• more peace
• wisdom
• completion
• less friction
• less offence
• less self-doubt.

These sound good because they are good, and they are good because they change the way we feel.

Staying anchored in the storm

A pause in itself can be an anchor. A reaction is always the opposite and always gives away your power. Please remember that, and watch for exasperation, on whose wave we are often brought to react.

This concerns mastery through groundedness, where you are not ruled by your feelings, whether you have them or not. Understanding through knowing the why you feel the way you do and what it is connected to doesn’t mean it has to run your life anymore.

When the work of the why is done, it can quietly belong to your history without always becoming part of your present. Here you can begin to change the how, and the how is how you behave and deal with things. It’s quiet, not loud. But it’s clear, and it changes everything. About how you feel about how you are met and received, and in my personal experience, also the outcome. It becomes the outcome you wished for, and you become the person you can respect yourself for being; all rumination post this kind of exchange just vapourises.

Responding with intention is the subject of the story when causation, the why, is put away because it is known and not necessary to include. It is not about or involved with proving. It comes from an entirely different place. One that is strangely more likely to be proof in itself of anchoredness that is innate and felt as such, both by the giver of it, and by the given to.

These simple changes in themselves, however small at first, can lessen the poor experiences accumulated through unnecessary battles fought. They can lower the bar of difficult experiences and raise the bar of good feeling and better bonhomie, both with others and ourselves. Our within becomes calmer territory.

Reactivity does not make us powerful or peaceful; the strength is in the pause. It is not about burning bridges; it is about offering grace and the wisdom to know the difference. Nobody can steal your peace without your permission. Sometimes that is worth repeating to yourself like a mantra again and again because it is the absolute truth.

In this, I am reminded of a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling. In the poem, it refers to what is needed to become a man, but if we apply its message to everyone, I think it says a great deal about the benefits of a dignified and educated soul.

The opening excerpt reads: