What is Your Past?

“THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD. IT’S NOT EVEN PAST!” –WILLIAM FAULKNER

Reading that quote carefully, you will find that your past is never absent from your subconscious. Your subconscious is the host for all things you encounter, and your past is forever present. Unless you can render a difference in your thinking ability, your past will remain yours to harvest and mull over. For many people, the past is something they managed to avoid. Yet, it’s that something that keeps you out of sync and confused as you wonder why you never reach that point of peace. You see, your past is not just a series of dates, events, or old memories stored somewhere in the back of your mind. Your past is the story of how you became the person sitting in the present. Moreover, your past is a record of what you learned, what you believed, what you accepted, what you survived, what you normalized, and what you were taught directly or indirectly.

Our past is simply a series of repeated events because there is no time to correct or change a behavior that could clear your mind. Your avoidance of a subject always follows you, even when undergoing therapy. As therapy helps the client claim and then heal, acceptance should come first. As the control mechanism for thought ingestion, you allow or disallow healthy or unhealthy information. The past and the future are the by-products of what was, what is, and what could be. What will you choose? In the meantime, try not to judge yourself by your past, because you don’t live there anymore. Therefore, your past teaches through the residue it leaves behind—your habits, insecurities, talents, triggers, confidence, and skill set.

In closing, your past is a psychological archive. Sometimes it was written by your own choices. Sometimes it was written by other people’s decisions, and as a result, you had to live with the consequences. Most of the time, you don’t remember the actual moment a belief formed; you only notice the behavior that grew from it. Every time you doubt yourself for no reason, expect rejection without evidence, you succeed easily in areas where others struggle.