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Don't Double Bag The Past
The jar that holds cotton balls in our bathroom was empty so I reached under the sink to get the back up bag to refill the jar. As I unzipped the plastic bag to reach the other plastic bag that the cotton balls were in, I asked myself, "Why"? "Why do I have cotton balls in two plastic bags?"
And the answer was: Years ago we lived in a house that harbored a chipmunk. Mr. Chips was quite friendly and would often stop and watch Del as he worked at his desk. Mr. Chips had a habit of storing sunflower seeds (left out for the birds) in shoes and laundry baskets for future use. Since we kept emptying them he probably wondered who else was eating his stash.
He also had a habit of finding material, and cotton balls, to make nests. Hence, the two bagged cotton balls. Made sense at the time, but that was years ago. No resident chipmunks since then!
In a coaching session a client mentioned in passing that she really hated dancing. This statement, of course, prompted an assignment for her to go back to why she hated it. What was the original cause of this feeling? After a few weeks of stalling she took the time to relive the event and discovered an astonishing fact.
Here's the result in her words. "My session of reliving my early dance experiences was very enlightening. Having spent all these years thinking that I have NEVER enjoyed dancing, I have obviously been very mistaken. The feelings that I had remembering the dance recital, that vividly stuck out in my mind as being a huge embarrassment was incorrect! I remember actually loving doing a dance with my teddy bear and wearing a little outfit that my mother had tirelessly sewn with little knickerbockers and a cute little top. In fact I couldn't wait for the recital to be over so I could wear them to bed, and I did until I grew out of them.
Over the years I have looked at a photo of me dancing and focused in on my extremely bony knees and the fact that I am in a different pose to everyone else. It came to me this morning that maybe I was the one that was actually in time with the music and no-body else was! My point being, I have built up a huge story around my bony knees and lack of co-ordination that really has never existed."
Most of our lives and our choices are based on a past event that either didn't happen the way we remember, or it no longer applies.
It's as if we drive up to every moment in our lives with a dump truck containing past memories and dump portions of that garbage into a brand new moment. The past was never what it seems to us now. It is only a present construct of an incomplete and inaccurate memory.
Albert Einstein said, " Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are simply modes in which we think." Which means, that if we choose to think, or perceive, differently the conditions in which we live of lives will change.
Sometimes we design our present life in ways that will keep ourselves from returning to the past. Perhaps the past was one of poverty of love, or money, or health. Afraid of the past is the same thing as living in the past. When they asked why he wasn't angry with the Chinese for taking over his country the Dalai Lama said, " Why should I give them my mind as well?"
Learning from the past is different than living in it or fleeing it. Shining a light on the past that is hidden in the closet of our lives, living under the bed, and hiding in the basement reveals the underlying construct of the life we are living.
Wouldn't it be easier to throw the water of Truth onto those memories of the past and let them dissolve into something that will serve us now? It's much easier to unzip only one bag to get to the cotton balls than two. It opened up a world of possibilities to our client when she realized her past memory was a false memory.
When I answered the phone, my client asked me if I had a cold. "No," I said, "Must be the connection since I can barely hear you." When he realized that he had placed the mouthpiece of his headset up above his head and that is why I appeared to have a cold, and I couldn't hear him, we spent the next few minutes unable to stop laughing.
Letting go of the past and letting in the abundance of the present can be just that easy and joyous. Move the focus of your thought, the mouthpiece of your headset, into your life and be present with its abundance for you.
As we move into the season of choosing consciously what we would like in our lives, let's do it with a fresh look, a new awareness, and a willingness to live now. Let's be willing to see what has already been provided. Let's be willing to choose to not "go get," but to "let go and let in" the river of blessings that flows to, and as, each of us in every moment.
© Beca Lewis
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*Article by Beca Lewis author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit The Shift for more original content like this. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.