Dealing with the Past

Conversations with Cinthia

The past is hard for everyone. Some long for the past, while others want to erase or avoid it. Many of us want to erase parts of our pasts while holding onto others. But the key to dealing with the past is not romanticizing it or avoiding it; it is learning from it. Cinthia states today that “time is either a guide into your future or a tormentor that can’t be changed.” Which will you allow your past to be for you?

One of the reasons learning from the past can be tricky is that lots of factors impact our memory of it. Neuroscientists have found that people rarely remember the past with perfect accuracy. Sometimes family members seem to genuinely “remember” the same events very differently. How do we know what is fact and what is simply our experience or perception? One key is to be gentle with your past. Remember, the goal is not to live in the past or use it to judge ourselves or others. We do have to resist what we know is untrue. Rewriting the past is not helpful. We can face what we know and find the options we have with those things, like forgiving ourselves and others. Without facing our pasts, we tend to try to redo the same things over and over again. What do you need to learn in order to stop repeating the same mistakes and dynamics? You can borrow from the past, but don’t live there.

We honor ourselves and the past when we learn things that help us going forward. Are there things about your past you can clarify? Time is something that we experience and observe. It relates to sequential events and changes. Memory of the past is useful when we learn from it but detrimental when we use it for self-flagellation. The past is not for beating up ourselves or others. Who do you need to forgive, including yourself?

Address the past, but realize that you are in the present. Repeating the same mistakes and dynamics, continually trying to get what we needed but did not get in the past, contaminates our future. Resist the compulsion to redo everything; allow the past to be over, even while you face it. Don’t ignore the past. Do the work of self-forgiveness. Judging our past actions and judging our past selves are different things, just as judging others’ actions and judging other human beings is different. Be willing to learn and forgive.

Remember, rules without relationships produce rebellion, and hypocrisy happens when we cannot live up to our own standards. God wants to work with you. He has seen your sin, your mistakes, your errors. If He Who is perfect can face what you have done, He can help you to face it. God has power and wisdom to work through all of this. He is not torn between acknowledging the reality of your evil actions and loving you; He has solved that problem. So how is God revealing Himself through you or to you? Is He doing it through your strengths or weaknesses? He wants us each to ask Him about what He is doing with us. We all have things in our past. But we don’t have to let that get in the way of what God wants to do through us. Don’t let shame get in the way of having a relationship with Him. Let Him lead you into being the version of you He intended you to be when He made you.