Ghosts of the Past

“It is easy to be negative about past mistakes and unhappiness. But it is much more healing to look at ourselves and our past in the light of experience, acceptance, and growth. Our past is a series of lessons that advance us to higher levels of living and loving. The relationships we entered, stayed in, or ended taught us necessary lessons. Some of us have emerged from the most painful circumstances with strong insights about who we are and what we want. Our mistakes? Necessary. Our frustrations, failures, and sometimes stumbling attempts at growth and progress? Necessary too. Each step of the way, we learned. We went through exactly the experiences we need to, to become who we are today. Each step of the way, we progressed. Is our past a mistake? No. The only mistake we can make is mistaking that for the truth. Today, God, help me let go of negative thoughts I may be harboring about my past circumstances or relationships. I can accept, with gratitude, all that has brought me to today.” ~ Author unknown

It’s quite amazing how one can look at things from different points of perspective and see completely different things. Looking at our past is no different.

Those who have read my thoughts before already know that I am a strong supporter of wiping the board clean and starting things anew. There is little benefit in dwelling in the past, and feeding energy to events and people that are – or should be – ancient history; unless, of course, we need to clean house before we close the doors to their roles in our lives. At some point, it’s best to count our losses, and understand that as long as we live in the past, we willingly forfeit our present and future.

The past, however, is part of the blueprint we used to build the person we are today. Even if it is good to detach from the emotional charge attached to particular moments and significant individuals that have touched our lives in a negative way, it is also important to realize that we wouldn’t be who we are today if those events hadn’t happened, or those people hadn’t walked into our lives.

On a personal note, when I was kid I was the perfect image of the nerd minus the double-lens glasses. I was too skinny and geeky, and, like a puppy, my feet had grown ahead of the rest of my body. To make things even less attractive to a crowd of judgmental teenagers, I also loved to read and was extremely shy – the perfect recipe for an outcast. Being shunned hurt my feelings back then, but I can see now, many years later, how that superficial rejection helped me bring out the best I had.

Since I was never busy on social calls, I decided to throw myself into volunteer work. I helped everyone on my path, and felt good about it. When I was old enough, I signed up as a volunteer EMT, took a course, and started working after school. That was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself; after seeing true suffering, my teenage problems suddenly seemed really minor. And, that first shot at community service set the tone for more volunteer work through the years, which helped me increase my level of compassion.

Another thing I threw myself into was writing. I loved poetry, and I spent my free time writing. One day, when I was sixteen, I met a lady who was president of a writing club. She read some of my poems, and helped me get them published; from that day on, most Saturday afternoons I attended meetings at the literary club. The usual crowd was a lot older than me, but I felt totally at ease around them.

As hard as it was to deal with that type of social response as a teenager, the hardship of it is what pushed me to explore alternative interests and peeled the layers covering my true strengths. Rejection from my peer is what led me to the person I am today, and I wonder sometimes how different my life would be right now if I had been part of the popular crowd as a kid.

The past is past, and it shouldn’t be allowed to hurt us anymore, since it is only a ghost of things that have already run their time, but it should also be embraced with gratitude, as over time it has etched the unique individual we have become.

A Day in the Life of Mickey Mouse

“Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


Yesterday morning, my daughter unearthed an old Italian Disney comic book, and asked me to read it with her. In the story we read, Mickey Mouse and Goofy are hired by the local museum to go investigate the historical sinking of a large ship which tragically went down right after its inauguration. To get them back to the day of the event, Professor Zapotec invites them to use a time machine he invented himself.

Mickey and Goofy embark on their journey back in time, and “land” near the shipyard just a few hours before the inauguration. The story is ripe with adventure and imagination, and eventually, our heroes are able to save the ship, and the accident – due to a miscalculation on behalf of the engineer in charge of the design – is avoided.

When they return to the present, they walk out of the time machine to find a surprised Professor Zapotec who asks them the reason why they were inside of his invention. Mickey and Goofy exchange a confused look, and tell Zapotec of the mission he had assigned to them that same morning. When he seems to have no clue of what they are talking about, Mickey asks him to read the article in the old newspaper Zapotec had showed them before the trip. Professor Zapotec peruses the paper, but he cannot find the article. Since Mickey and Goofy changed the history of the event, the accident never happened, the story was never reported, and the professor never hired them to investigate the mystery.

The story was one of pure fantasy, but the concept behind it embraces a very important point – if we can heal what happened in the past, we no longer need to worry about the old hurt impacting our present and future.

Unresolved issues don’t just go away. Once they have slipped away from the grip of consciousness and are stored into our subconscious, they are no longer available to our memory, but they still impact our realities. Quite often, an honest reflection on the patterns in one’s life can cue the individual to the identity of the hidden triggers; if the triggers are lured to the surface, dealt with and released, the spell is broken – once healed, the old wound disappears and its effects on the present reality of the individual are erased.

Coming face to face with old wounds is an important step into dealing with our present problems. Until they are dealt with, past hurts continue to replay and affect our lives negatively, but the emotional charge associated with them is no longer as powerful as it was when we originally buried them into the chamber of our subconscious. Being our present circumstances different as well, once we bring them to the surface they no longer appear as big as they did when they occurred.

Inviting our past hurts back into awareness might not be as quick and simple as Mickey and goofy’s adventure in the time machine, but once the journey is complete we will be thrilled that the article was never written.

Choices

“If you are standing upright, don’t worry if your shadow is crooked.” ~ Chinese proverb


The past two weeks I’ve been reading an awesome book, the title of which was the selection of our book club for this month. In the story, Jimmy is one of three friends who meet as children and find their lives strangely reconnected as they become adults. Compared to his friends, Jimmy had all the ingredients for a disastrous recipe – a drunken father, an emotionally detached mother, and a childhood spent in a rundown neighborhood amid crime and poverty.

When Jimmy meets his second wife – after his first wife dies of cancer – she asks him if it is true that living a life of crime is in his blood. Jimmy, wanting to make a good impression on her, but also quite honest in the way he feels, replies that a more prominent tendency to commit crimes might be part of his DNA, but it is up to him whether he will ever allow it to get out or not. Being solely responsible for his small child after the death of his wife, he is determined to live honestly and within the boundaries of the law.

When I read that part, I was stunned at the accuracy of the statement...Jimmy is completely right. Regardless of what’s handed to us at birth, or throughout part of our lives when we were not in a position to change circumstances, we are in charge of what will happen to us and to our loved ones from this moment on.

Certainly, if one has lived a horrible reality, it is understandable that they feel compelled to act a certain way, yet, they are still responsible for the choices they make in the present, and those they will make it in the future. While past legacies and past mistakes might explain the cause of a certain type of behavior, they still don’t excuse it.

At some point, one must choose if they will continue to abuse themselves and others using their past as a validation for their poor choices or if they will pick themselves up and decide that enough is enough.

The cards one is dealt are important, but the game still has to be played before anyone can be labeled a winner or a loser. We have no choice on the cards we get, but we do have control on how we will manage our hand.

Last night I was busy until very late and didn't get the chance to write anything new, so I found a beautiful video that is definitely worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5__nya2ICJk&feature=related

Grab a cup of coffee and settle in to watch for a couple of minutes; it will gently nudge you to go out the door to embrace the day ahead. Don't forget to turn the sound on, if you can.

The Guilt Trap

Have you ever felt really bad about something, and promised yourself that it will never happen again?
We often feel guilty about things, even when the circumstances leading to the fact are out of our sphere of control, or others – because of their own scales of judgment – accuse us of having done something wrong.
Guilt is often used to control others' behavior. At its core guilt is a natural instinctive guidance system to help us discern right from wrong, but this has been manipulated and corrupted throughout time, with the intention of controlling others usually for selfish reasons.
Misplaced guilt can gradually spread into all aspects of our lives, like weeds overtaking a lawn, resulting in destructive choices.
It is helpful to distinguish the difference between guilt and remorse. Guilt is what one feels if they have done something intentionally "wrong"; again, this is a very subjective matter, as some acts can be legitimately wrong or simply erroneously perceived, by ourselves and others.
Regardless, guilt is the emotional response to having done—or thought— something about which we are ashamed.
Remorse is quite different. Remorse is triggered when we are genuinely sorry for an inadvertent action or when we have neglected someone or something. There was no intent to harm, and we feel genuinely sorry for what has occurred.
Chances are we feel guilty when instead remorse is a more appropriate response.
Guilt is a trap which keeps us focused on the past, reliving what we did wrong.
Remorse is a much healthier, productive emotional response: acknowledge what occurred, take responsibility if appropriate, and then work toward not repeating the same incident. It is proactive and allows us to move forward whereas guilt produces stagnation.
By avoiding mixing the two, we can more easily process the triggers hidden within the shadows of our subconscious, and take, for the first time maybe, a good look at the blocks that prevent us from moving forward in our lives.