Can we move forward and embrace today or the future without reconciling the past?
This is the question I find myself asking today.
I recognize the importance of understanding that reality is today. Investing time in what we could have, should have, or would have done is not using the time wisely. However, can we truly live honestly in today without coming to terms with the road that we have traveled or the places we have been?
I have known people with the ability to let the past go as if it never happened. It is an attitude that I find curious as it is one I don’t fully understand, especially if the past contains significant events. But they manage it. They look forward, focus on the future, and off they go. Is it that easy? If I just take events of the past, the painful and hurtful events that reached in and changed my life and touched my soul, and forget them, would that work? Is it all about making that choice to treat those events and that pain as if they are nothing? Is forgiving and letting go as simple as it is to say the words?
I wonder at their ability to do so as I sit pondering where I have been now and again. I take this or that circumstance out and look at it… what does that mean? Did I learn anything from that experience? Do I forgive and accept?
Sometimes I feel that my mind does this for me without my consciously doing it myself. Events and thoughts “pop” into my mind requesting attention.
Perhaps I am one who believes that until a lesson is learned and accepted, we are bound to sit through the class time and time again with the process likely becoming more difficult. Some lessons come easily while some require thought and realization and forgiveness and work. I have to honestly accept and forgive my past in order for me, personally, to live fully in today with integrity.
I know I am one who believes that our experiences are part of who we are. Sometimes it is painful to look at something experienced in the past… but without looking at it and allowing ourselves to fully feel that and then let it go… can we move forward?
That is the question to which I return… Can we move forward, honestly living in today, without forgiving, accepting, or learning from the past?
4 comments:
Can you move forward? Yes. But which way is forward? Ah, therein lies the reason it is best to understand the past.
The way I've heard it put best is like this.
You are where you are today because of your past. You can't expect to get where you want to be without knowing where you are now.
Thus, to be where you want to be, you need to understand where you are now and that means understanding what brought you where you are.
Hoping you have a great rest of the week and weekend.
TAG
I love this: Perhaps I am one who believes that until a lesson is learned and accepted, we are bound to sit through the class time and time again with the process likely becoming more difficult. I agree 100%. What we resist, will persist, whether that's a lesson that needs learning, a fear that needs facing. Can we move forward without facing these things? We can certainly move in a different direction. But those lessons will follow us until we face them squarely.
Yes we must accept, forgive and learn to keep growing. We can only live in one realm at a time. We must accept and let go of the past to live in the now. Great post.
I deeply believe that we have to do something with the past before we can fully move on. And that can be forgiveness, denial, acceptance, etc. Our past is part of us, it's what makes us who we are today. That doesn't mean that today, or the future - are going to be products of our past. But it does mean that our past plays a role in who we are today...
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