The Past is the Past – What a CROCK!!!!

According to Jen

God if I had a dollar for every time I heard this statement, I would be a freakin millionaire!!!!!

The fact remains that our past shapes us. Our past life experiences shape our brains – the engine of our body and our sense of self. Our past shapes our personality and helps shapes our future. To say to someone that they should “stop living in the past” is dismissive and hurtful. Like it or not, the past exists. What needs to happen to accept the past is to acknowledge that it exists. A person’s past just is……

As a therapist it is not my style to ask someone to lay on my couch and start talking about their childhood issues from when they were three years old (don’t get me wrong, for some people this therapy is needed and warranted). Whilst the foundation of my practice is based on attachment based therapy, my style is more about helping people to understand that you, me, your loved ones, colleagues and friends all come with TRIGGERS. These triggers sit in the big fat memory banks in our brains and they rear their ugly heads when we feel uncomfortable or are triggered by past memories. Our past exists, but there is a fine line between living in the past and acknowledging your past.

Having coffee with a friend the other week, she was talking about how her step mother-in-law was critiquing the adult children in her life with comments such as “these kids keep living in the past. They need to get over it and move on, stop living in the past and stop blaming their father”.   Whilst I nod and sit with this ‘listening moment’, my brain is on overdrive with thoughts that such comments by people are narrow minded and simplistic, because it really isn’t that easy. Halt the judgement people…… it is true. It takes many variables to fall into place before one can process what they need to. Simply telling someone to get over it won’t work!

Some ways to process could be:

• Start talking about your past (consider your audience though. Not everyone in your trusted circle can hold your feelings or even know what to do with them).
• Acknowledge that your past exists and that you have feelings (validation is key here).
• Realise that you, me, the man next door, the woman at the shop, we all have triggers. Learn what they are and then take control of them. Some triggers will never go away, but you can become more aware of them and thus able to control them or just accept them.
• Understand that you can’t change your past but you can make decisions about learning from it, becoming stronger and finding strength in it. (For example, consider the following statement – “I never felt like my step father excepted me”. This could be modified into, “I learnt from my experience what kind of father I wanted to be”).
• Try and focus on the notion that the past is not your destiny. Your past does not have to define you. It exists, but it doesn’t have to define you.
• Remember that everyone has a story.
• If you are held back by past events or stories, think about the language and thoughts you attribute to it. What is your recollection of these events and what is the meaning that you give to it? Are you emotionally stuck? Do you replay the stories in your head? Thoughts trigger feelings and feelings trigger behaviour.

Perhaps the comment to the old step mother- in-law should have been, “sounds like the adult children haven’t been heard or validated about how they are feeling”. There is a lot to be said in just listening.

Simply telling someone to “let go” or “that was so long ago” is unfair, unempathetic and simply not okay. A lot of people out there seem to go to counsellors, read a book or attend self-help seminars and think they have the answers. It seems so easy to say ‘just to let it go’ or ‘let’s wake up and feel like a whole new you’. Or other comments that make me cringe include, ‘you need to make a choice’ and here’s another ‘you are choosing to stay in this position’. Well this is all good in theory, but unfortunately feelings, behaviours and the transmitters in your subconscious mind didn’t get that memo and it is tricky to be told how to feel or how to be. It is all a process and if challenged gently and in a supportive way, then yes people’s past can be something that becomes part of who they are, not all of who they are.

The past is the past – when it is processed properly. Triggers exist and that is okay……. but the past is not your destiny.

Affirmation – “the kindest thing you can do for someone else is listen without forming an opinion”