The Past Is Only Now
A Story
Two Buddhist monks, one old and one young, were on a journey from their monastery to a large town. The old monk was the young monk’s beloved teacher. The old man had taught him much about how to follow the vows and ways of a monk, and the young man revered him. It took them two days to walk to town and a day to do their business. It had begun raining the day they left. The rains had only gained strength as the days moved on.
On their way to town, the two monks had crossed a stream. However, on the way back, they found that this stream had become a raging river. As they approached, they saw a woman at the water’s edge pacing back and forth, and crying. One of the vows of these particular monks was that they would never touch a member of the opposite sex, and often they would avoid interacting with them altogether. However, the deeper teaching of these monks was compassion. So, upon seeing the woman so upset, they old monk called out to her.
“Daughter, what is the matter?”
The woman came running up to the monks. She was wild-eyed and spoke quickly, “my children! I went to town to buy food and supplies for my family. The stream has risen so much since that I can’t get across. Please help me. Please. My husband is leaving today and the children are alone and expecting me. They have nothing to eat. Please help me get across.”
The young monk looked away.
The old monk sighed and smiled. “Well, daughter, I may be old, but I am strong. Get on my back and I will carry you across. My companion here will take your basket.”
The woman gushed, “thank you. Thank you.”
The crossing was slow and dangerous. But they managed. On the other side, the woman got off of the old monk’s back, grabbed her basket from where the young monk had set it on the ground, and showered them with gratitude.
Then she left.
The old man smiled, took a deep breath, and began walking.
The young monk’s jaw was clenched. His brow was furrowed. He did not say one word to the old man. He began rigidly walking behind the old monk, staring fixedly at the back of the old man’s head.
They walked in this way for two hours.
Then, the old monk paused for a rest. The young monk remained standing. Silent.
The old monk, took a long breath and spoke, “little brother, what is the matter?”
It was all the invitation that the young monk needed. He opened his mouth and poured out all of his disbelief, betrayal, and anger at the old monk. He just could not believe that this old monk, who taught him so much, who he revered, would so easily and thoughtlessly throw aside his sacred vows, and then act like nothing had happened.
The old man listened and nodded. Kindness in his eyes. When the young monk was done, the old man paused and took in the forest. He enjoyed a breath. Then, with deep compassion in his eyes, he asked, “little brother, I put that woman down two hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”
Re-membering the Past into the Present
We are always the leading edge of everything that ever happened. There is no past. Only now. While we know this intellectually, we tend to be stuck in so many habits of carrying the past with us. Part of this puzzle of being is that our minds and bodies do a very effective job of keeping the effects of the past alive. We remember, and we learn. It would be impossible to survive and thrive without this ability.
This is not news to anyone reading this.
So, in addition to the story, this post offers a few very simple ways to help you as you engage with your own puzzle.
Our neural networks, adhesions in our bodies, movement patterns, and behaviors were all formed from past experiences. We have a host of thoughts that are “memories” of what happened to us. The science and perennial wisdom are both clear on the fact that our memories are never fully accurate, and they change over time.
The truth is that we can’t go backward in time, our memories are not accurate, and they are not appropriate to the present moment (where the content of the memory does not exist.)
When we are working with big things that happened in our past, it often means bringing some reactions that were not conscious into consciousness. We first notice that our reactions are not actually to the present moment. We overreact to a situation because it is not just the situation that is happening in our minds and bodies. The saying goes, if it’s hysterical, it’s historical. For example, an intimate partner makes a small comment, and we find ourselves overwhelmed by an emotional reaction that is way bigger than the comment. Our thoughts start to seek to confirm that there is actually a threat, and the mind actively suppresses other information. This usually pulls us into a vortex of emotions, thoughts, and physical reactions.
Nobody likes this.
It’s a good idea to add: if you there are no emotions at all and you feel numb, it’s also historical. This is just another way that your being is handling a threat that is too much to handle.
So, another next step, so commonly understood as a part of therapy, is to understand where some of the reactions are coming from. There are all kinds of brilliant and beautiful ways that we come to understand how trauma, childhood experiences, or major life events have created our basic operating assumptions about the world. For example, we come to understand that when we react to our intimate partner, we are also reacting to a way that a parent raised us. That reaction was a way that we learned, very early in life, to take care of ourselves. Even the strangest and most painful reactions, if we understand them, are actually our beings trying to take care of themselves.
As we go about the journey of making the unconscious conscious, it is important to remember that it is actually all in service of re-membering the past into the present. We can get sucked into a vortex of meaning-making that ends up being nearly as debilitating as the problem was. If we spend too much time trying to understand why we act a certain way, where it came from, and what that means about who we are, that can end up being a part of the pattern that actually keeps us from changing. Because we keep thinking about what happened, we carry it with us, just in a different way. We are processing and processing, but to the detriment of living.
Learning to stop carrying it is a journey. Here are some ways to help with it:
It’s good to remember that the great power of reactions is that they are always happening in the present moment. That means that they always have some opportunity to bring what happened into what’s happening. We can do something new with what is happening.
In the process of this journey, we end up dismantling some of these old reaction patterns and we usually find that we have a lot of feelings underneath. We can end up inexplicably feeling bursts of anger, joy, sadness, or fear. The job is to follow the 12 Step saying: “Feel your feelings.” We can move from the meaning-making vortex of why am I feeling this way and move toward what am I feeling?
Too much intensity of emotion can be overwhelming. So it’s important to feel, but also to feel like you can handle it. The emotions aren’t always pleasurable… that’s why we cut off the nerve signal to feel them. However, if we can handle feeling them, then we have an awareness that they won’t last forever, they are part of a bigger process of wellness and vitality, and we are here/now. So, if the intensity gets too much, we can orient. If it is still too much, we call in a resource: something or someone supportive and positive. The neat thing is, our resources are also in the present moment and they are something new.
When we remember something bad that happened to us, or get upset because something we had isn’t here anymore, the body reacts as if the problem were sudden and present. The amygdala, the smoke alarm of the brain, says, “something is wrong. React quickly.” The body always reacts. The body is in the present. The breath has probably changed. We can begin by practicing just noticing this. Noticing it in others, too. It is usually easier to start with outsight than it is with insight. In time, we accumulate more tools to work skillfully with the body in the present. I will post more blogs about this.
Orient, orient, orient. This does not mean push the reaction down. It simply means including what is physically around you: the sights, sounds, smells, touch, and taste. You can read this blog post for more on this.
Move the body. Old patterns almost always mean some form of management. There are ways that the body is convinced it doesn’t move or that it has to keep protecting you. When we move the body in a new way, or let it move in a way that it wants to, we are actively doing something new: we are not reinforcing the old pattern.
And then orient. In the present moment of where you are, there is nothing extra to carry.
I will add more posts with perspectives and resources as time goes on. As always, feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions.
Be well.
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