How to Move Away from Our Past?

The past is to learn about you; the present is to experience joyfully; the future is to envision and live for.

Coacharya

This is my experience, not a quote I picked up from Dr Google.

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Some tell you to forget the past or ignore it. Sure, you can try, but it would be moronic to do that. History, especially personal history has much to learn from. There is no reason to obsess over regrets of the past, but we must learn from what we did in the past to better now, and be better in the future.

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Unfortunately, many of us live with the past and in the past without learning anything about ourselves. We are not aware of our blind spots. Based on the false idea that only our assumed strengths matter, we become arrogant.?? ?If something goes differently from what we expect, it is never due to our actions. It’s always someone else’s fault, or if no one else is involved, it was destined to be so. Disappointments grow into regrets, then become crosses of traumas to bear, and turn into helplessness. Left unattended, helplessness becomes rage and fury. Negative feelings of regret, guilt and shame grow wild in us like weeds, cancerous.

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Even more importantly, traumas of our past live with us as emotional energies. The brain stores them as visual memories. However much we push them deep into our unconscious, these powerfully negative memories rise at the most inconvenient moments when we are stressed. Whether it’s PTSD or in some other presentation, these reawakened memories are painful. They are also debilitating and make us unwell.

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An ancient wisdom that helps us to centre ourselves when overwhelmed with negativity is Ho’oponopono.? Search through your troubled memories of the past, reflect and relive, and let go. If you haven’t been accountable for your actions and their results so far, become accountable. Ho’oponopono requires you to be accountable for stuff you didn’t do as well. It’s an exercise that heals and cleanses you so that the weeds within you can be transformed into nourishing plans that oxygenate you to wellness.

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Without cleansing our past baggage we cannot expect to be our better selves in the future. We can surely be successful, powerful and wealthy. Many evil people are. We can’t be well and happy though. Narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths are not happy; they live in hells of their own making. Borderline personality disorders cause a significant increase in suicide rates.

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Let us look at some self-care processes for managing and overcoming emotional and energy dysfunctions arising from past traumas.

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·????? Reflecting and Journaling are excellent starting points. These help us focus on what’s happening within us and processing it, rather than imagining worst-case scenarios without knowing what to do.

·????? Sensory energy awareness of what we are experiencing in the body, especially the trunk area, is extraordinarily powerful. Relive and experience the negativity as intensely as possible as an energy in the body trunk space. Visualise what shape the energy is, what colour, how granular, whether it’s moving or stationary etc. Check your discomfort level. After a few minutes, inhale deeply and exhale in a blast, both through the nose, a few times. Check all the energy parameters and your discomfort level. It should be reduced. You can then use the anchor described below.

·????? A very powerful anchored energy visualisation you can practice with this Sensory energy awareness process is to anchor yourself, ahead of time, by visualising a positive experience of calm, peace and happiness. At the highest intensity of this experience, bring the thumb and index fingers of both hands together tight to create a kinaesthetic anchor. This anchor can be used anytime you feel down to uplift yourself. ?

·????? Yogic meditation is a sustainable solution. This needs to be learnt from someone experienced, as a series of posture awareness, breathing awareness, body awareness, and mind awareness, finally letting the awareness of mind and body go replaced by energy awareness using a yoga nidra process.?

Whatever you do, don’t ignore your past. Relive, relieve and disengage. Otherwise, it stays behind you as a shadow troubling you.

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Reflection

?Spend 15 minutes at the end of your day before going to bed reflecting on the day on how it could have been better had you been wiser, more empathetic, more selfless and more energetic. Vow to do a bit of that the next day.

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Ram is a co-founder and mentor at Coacharya. Ram's focus is the integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably. Visit Coacharya.

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