Does Our Past Mean Anything?

We learn what Reality is not. We learn what Reality is. And then we learn how we live accordingly and how to help others, particularly our patients and clients, do so. This is the purpose and plan of our one-year Psychotherapy Certificate Course.

Now, the first step is to understand what Reality is not. For us to understand what Reality is not, we ought to understand that what we currently perceive, the way we perceive it, and the basis upon which we perceive it, makes it all meaningless. Yes, it means nothing. It does not mean anything. At first blush, the reaction to this might be one of anger, disempowerment, and fear. However, when we take a step back and take the time to explore this further, we discover quite the opposite experience. To illustrate, let us think about the last time our partner said something to us because he or she may have been very upset. We made something out of it. We made it mean something. Yet, soon enough we realized  It did not really mean anything. We then resolved to no longer make a big deal out of what our partners say or do, just because they are upset, but on the day that they say or do something, we forget our resolution and automatically go into our meaning assignment mode.

Here is one example of why this is:

We are the ones assigning meaning to things. Some of us are more aware of that than others. However, even when we are aware that we are the ones assigning meaning, we are not yet aware enough to not react to our own assigned meaning. It then becomes easy to forget the fact that we are the ones giving meaning and then we look for things to confirm that our reactions are justified. This is also why, our thoughts, perception, feelings, and behaviors, that follow them, really mean nothing, because they come from the same faulty source – our own assigned meaning. But, again, we are so involved in our own meaning, we don’t even realize it.

Now, let us say, “Ok. It is obvious, evident, and logical that it is not the life event, or the situation, or the circumstance, rather, it is the meaning I gave it, but why is the meaning I gave it meaningless?” The reason why the meaning we assign to things does not mean anything is because we rely on our past to assign the meaning. As Einstein says, “The distinction between the past, present, and future, is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” In other words, we are relying on an illusion to assign meaning.  And, now you may ask, “how could my past be an illusion?” There are many reasons for this. Ask yourself right now, “how much of my past do I remember accurately?” Studies show that we reconstruct prior events because we don’t remember them as they actually happened. We use stories to make up for what we don’t remember. We also use what other people told us about what happened to fill in the blanks, all of which lead to a combination of meaning we and they assigned to those events. Our past is merely an illusion, it is based on what is meaningless because we have constructed it.

 Now, because our incessant thoughts are also based on our past, it may be evident to everyone that our incessant thoughts also mean nothing. Now, because meaningless incessant thoughts are the ones that drive our feelings, we can easily understand that our feelings also do not mean anything. No, we did not say that we do not usually make a big deal about our feelings. We know we do. We all do. But what is also important is that the next time we catch ourselves making a big deal about a feeling, it is worth at least remembering that we are making a big deal about nothing. For our feelings do not mean anything because they are based on our incessant thoughts. Our incessant thoughts do not mean anything, because they are based on our past.  And our past does not mean anything, even though we strongly believe that it does.

It raises the question, then, “Who are we without our past? What’s our identity?” Yes, we have learned to confuse our identity with our past. We have learned to miss the fact that our identity is based on the collection of our beliefs about ourselves. These beliefs get strengthened as long as we remain in our past, reinforcing it, and constructing our identity. On the other hand, these beliefs can also be shifted, to either construct a new identity or to start living our true one.    Our brain has a preference for the familiar. We prefer to even continue to suffer instead of giving up a past that we have constructed for ourselves only because we see our past as our identity. Of course, what happened, did happen.  However, the meaning we gave, and how we remember what happened and how we continue to re-remember, is what constructs our past. And that did not happen. An example of this is how one event may have taken place ten years ago, and it takes place again, today, and we find ourselves assigning a meaning that is different to the one assigned ten years ago. In other words, an event is an event. An event is not our past, otherwise, it could not change from then to now. What is our past is the set of meanings, memories, and stories, and it is all a construct.

Yet, there is a way out of this. And for this, we ought to keep exploring, keep inquiring, and keep exercising our awareness muscle. And, no, no one needs to spend years to get there. Above all, let us just stay on the glass elevator, let us keep looking around, observing, noticing our own thoughts, and the natural progression is that the higher the glass elevator goes, the more we will able to see. And for sure, what we see is what we get, which means the more we see the more we will get. Then, we will be able to fully understand why giving up the past is the most natural thing to do. We will be able to fully understand how giving up the past, the meaning we’ve been assigning to things, the meaning we’ve been assigning to our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, allows us to really reach aliveness.  We will also be living the result of giving up the notion of the past because we will elevate ourselves to a new way of navigating the world, in addition to living freedom, full self-expression, self-fulfillment, and authentic success.

May Awareness Be with us, all. See you all on Tuesday, September 22nd, 7-9pm EDT for our third class-Cause and Effect, as part of our Psychotherapy Certificate Course.

Until then,

Karen and Mardoche