Holding on to the Past: Why Does the Mind Fixate?
RELIVING AN EVENT
Do you think about the past? Is there a particular event, experience, encounter, or circumstance that your mind repeatedly zooms in on with laser like focus? Is this situation still occurring in your life, or is it simply playing like a movie through your mind on a regular basis? Are you stuck in a moment from the past that you can’t move beyond?
No matter what level of trauma, heartache, discomfort, or unsettling experience you may have had, the mind has a funny way of reminding you about it like it’s still happening, doesn’t it? Reliving a moment in the past is a very common occurrence for many people. It can be a minor event that is embedded in your consciousness or a major life-changing experience that your mind remembers as if it is still real.
Why do some people have an easier time moving on from the past than others? What is it about the mind that is different in some people? Is it the mind, or is it in the brain? People who suffer from serious trauma or PTSD must work incredibly hard to rewire new neural pathways of the brain, almost like a complete retraining in order to tell the brain that everything is okay. Reframing what someone considered traumatic into a new positive experience can take years to master.
MOTIVE OF THE EGO MIND
Looking deeper at the mind and the strategy of the ego, can help you make sense of why the past is such a prominent statement in the life of an individual, as well as the collective. It is true that the past can teach many valuable and practical lessons while we live in the world. We can certainly learn from personal mistakes and the mistakes seen throughout history. The past can be a reminder for which direction you want to live your life, or which direction the world wants to proceed in.
But, when the past is constantly hanging over your head, or the collective continues to relive the tragedies of the past and hold them over the present moment, they can serve as blockades to reaching any true sense of peace, personally or collectively. This is not by accident either. The ego’s strong hold is purposeful, designed as a distraction from ever seeking the truth within each and every one of us.
The ego does not want you to see clearly through the eyes of spirit because if you do, you will wake up from the false images the ego presents and choose a much wiser teacher in your life. You will ditch the ego, learn to stay present in the now moment, and let go of the past that no longer serves you, or the collective for that matter.
Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. If you are the ego, and your goal is to lure the mind into continuous distractions to keep the individual from self-realization or true liberation, what types of road blocks would you present them with? Anything and everything, right! You would routinely throw all negative impactful experiences into the forefront, relentlessly force the images into their current experience, and make it almost impossible for them to ever see the truth sitting beneath all of them.
Then, when the individual begins to make some progress, appears to start moving beyond those dreadful experiences and choosing to re-create a better life, the ego will conjure up another drama for you to process through. This pattern continues throughout life, does it not?
How many times have you been dealt a challenge, eventually let go of it, just to experience another one and do the same thing all over again? It is the nature of the human psyche, and only when you begin to understand how it functions, can you choose a more sane teacher in your life, your spiritual self.
HOW TO BUILD NEW BRIDGES AND STAY PRESENT
Letting go of the past is easier said than done. The more you TRY to let go, the more attention you put on that moment, you relive it over and over again. In order to truly let go, carving out a new pathway is essential. Reframing your old experience into something brand new and attaching a positive feeling to it will help you bridge the gap between the present moment and your highest self as a spiritual being.
What can you do to start moving beyond the past to embrace the present moment, the real moment you are actually living in? If you are suffering from severe trauma, seek a professional that can help you develop your own set of tools to reframe your current experience.
If you are dealing with common life events that you just can’t move through, here are a few things to consider as you work to free yourself from images of the past. This will take serious effort, and don’t be surprised when the ego will try and pull you back if you start to make real progress. That’s what it’s designed to do, so remind yourself if that should occur.
DEVELOPING AWARENESS: Becoming aware of when your mind is flooding you with past images is key to letting them go. If you don’t know that this is happening, you will feel like a victim with no control over the situation. You will feel powerless, which is not a fun place to be, especially when you believe it.
Learning to watch your mind, to observe what your mind is presenting you, is the first step in seeing clearly. Developing awareness will become your new best friend! Take some time and simply watch your mind. See just how often you are lured to the past event that is holding you back.
IDENTIFY THE PATTERN: What are you gaining by holding on to this particular past event? The ego always has a reason for staying stuck, so identify what fears about the future might be hiding behind this experience you are reliving. Is it easier to blame someone or something else rather than really looking at it?
Can you see a particular pattern that you fall into when the past memory pops into your mind? What do you experience both mentally and physically? Does your body react in a certain way when these images present themselves? You can trace it as far as you are able until eventually you start diving below the surface.
CREATE A NEW WAY: Now that you see the pattern, you understand why your mind is keeping you in a cycle, you have identified some of the fears you have, it is time to create a new path forward. How do you want to feel in this new experience? What can you put in place of this old memory to start re-establishing a new pathway in your memory?
Instead of going to the negative experience and how that made you feel, you are retraining yourself to connect to a new positive feeling.
For example, if you suffer from any form of anxiety, you know how debilitating that can be. Adrenaline can pump all kinds of physical symptoms your way. When this happens you associate these symptoms with anxiety. However, anxiety is often similar to the feelings of excitement.
Can you remember a moment when you were truly excited about something? Did you get butterflies in your stomach and feel surges of energy pumping through your veins? It’s similar isn’t it? The only difference is how your mind labels the feeling. Can you see that creating a new frame of mind will re-create the experience?
Get creative and imagine how you really want to feel. Use visualization if it helps you to form a new pattern in your thinking. When you see the old way presenting itself again, notice it, then choose to apply your new found feeling and experience to it as it’s happening.
You might need to remind your nervous system that nothing is currently threatening you and everything is okay. Using deep breathing and other physical grounding techniques can help remind the nervous system that fight or flight is not necessary right now.
COMMIT TO A REGULAR PRACTICE: Just like anything in life, regular practice will help you form a new calmer experience. This is not something you can implement every now and then, you must commit to it all the time. Once you establish a routine, and you are genuinely working to reframe your old experience into something that benefits you, it will simply happen automatically. Repetition over time eventually becomes normal.
When you get frustrated that change is not happening as fast as you would like, or you are still feeling the body react to its old patterning, don’t give up on it! Each time it presents itself is another opportunity to go deeper into yourself.
YOUR SPIRITUAL NATURE: As you continue to implement these practices into your life, you’ll continue deeper and deeper into yourself. Eventually you will feel the connection with your true spiritual self. This connection will strengthen the more you choose to nurture it, and the hindrances of the past will dissolve the more present you are with spirit in the current moment.
The ego will want you to put on the brakes, to give up, and stay in the old familiar cycle of suffocation. See this for what it is, a signal that you are on the right track. Use it as a means to dive deeper into yourself, to stay connected to spirit and choose peace instead of pains of the past.
When the ego blocks any memory of who you truly are, spirit is there to remind you of your real home in God, and to keep this memory alive. From spirit’s perspective, nothing is as it seems in this world. There is so much more available to you when you put your attention on the greater awareness. Move toward what you want and you will naturally let go of the resistance from the past.