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If you had a Time Machine and could revisit the past to affect how you live now and the future – would you do it?
You can.
While it may not be possible to alter the events themselves that have already occurred – not in an HG Wellsian sense or like they do on Star Trek but what we can do is personally revisit the experiences that we had improperly met and react to those experiences differently than had we had the first time around.
Incidents in our lives that reached our psyches through stress and intimidation no matter how long ago still influence us today.
The apron strings of a nagging mother can as tightly tied as they ever were evidenced by the voice of ‘mother’ heard inside the head of an elderly man – perhaps even many years after her death.
The grunting and vile unspeakable talk of the rapist is heard again and again as if the horror where re-occurring while the same fear crops up - the same adrenal gets reproduced – the same grief and terror get ‘re-felt’ over and over – even many years after a young woman has been violated. When things like this happen, then the people the places, the events which still control us through the lash of enduring resentments and durable grudges can
If we can re-experience them properly, the new event overrides the old event, changing the time line of the new future recreated. We now live in an entirely new present from the old present that would have been. We have recreated the foundation of our exiting restoring our ground of being into the fertile soil it was meant to be - into which we can set new roots and grow. In effect we become spiritual transplants into the new rich soil.
Let’s say that you and I met one day at the local Starbucks and we shared an hour of chat over a cup of coffee and when you weren’t looking I stole a dollar off the table. After you could not locate your money – you look everywhere, even under the table for it, thinking perhaps you had dropped it, to no avail. I suggest to you that there was not any money there since I had not seen it. I also pretend that I never saw you place it there.
Finally after not being able to find your ‘lost’ money you pull out your wallet and replace the money lost, convinced that your memory must be faulty - that you must be mistaken – that you intent to place the dollar on the table has been mistaken by your brain for actually performing the task. “Old age is creeping in, eh?” I say and my dishonestly – plus sleight of hand and a dash of good humored charm has successfully caused you to doubt yourself. And I am still the charming friend I have always been to you, except I am now one dollar richer and you are one dollar poorer. I win. You lose.
Some years later someone who had noticed the incident from across the room informs you that they saw me slip the money off the table and into my pocket. Under the light of truth you immediately get angry with your new knowledge of the truth. Now you resent (hate) me and you are angry (hate) yourself for falling for the ruse.
Setting aside what can be done about this rise in anger I just want to point out one other aspect: In this example, revisiting the past under the light of truth has not enlightening. While it is true that you now see me for what I am, a crook, you are also firmly in the grips of anger and hatred. In effect your acquaintance has taken you back in time to experience the truth about an event and your inability to handle the injustice is now causing you to react negatively Unless dealt with it now, properly, then this old event has been converted into a new harm to you.
The truth about something, unless met with patience and love, can actually cause resentment unless we are prepared for it. Relief depends entirely not on what the truth is but on how we deal with it. This meditation will prepared you for truth no matter what it is. You will know true forgiveness for stressful objectionable events that haven’t even occurred yet.
Whether we visit the past through random recollection, psychoanalysis, hypnotic regression, or Fourth Step inventory -- unless we are prepared to this time meet the event properly – we waste the review effort. Seeing our part and then resenting ourselves for “our part” doesn’t really resolve much because it only t transfers the object of our anger.
Unless we have mediation to dissolve anger while it comes up for review we will forever be as crazy as we ever were. This is the trap in which many of us find ourselves; waking up and then hating what we find once our eyes have opened. Retreat or face the truth. This is the only choice we have - the only one we have ever had.
Peace and Love,
Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
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