“You cannot change your past, but you can change the way you look at it.”
My teacher once told me a story of a man who had one story to share with whomsoever he met. He had an ugly scar on his arm from a nearly fatal car accident. And every time someone would ask him about the scar, he re-lived the horror of the accident. He would remember how the accident was not his fault, how he had to be in the hospital for a long time recovering from his injuries, how his career suffered, how his family had to go through the hardships of his long absence, how financially draining the hospitalisation was, how for the longest period he couldn’t muster the courage to go behind the wheels, how every morning the scar reminded him of all of these painful memories, cursing the moment of the accident and questioning as to why did it have to happen to him when he was considered to be the safest driver literally by everyone in the community. And even though the scar had faded over the years, yet he continued to live the horror of the accident in his head through memory every time he looked at the scar. In a way, he had a love and hate relationship with the scar.
This was so much more than a story. Change the plot, change the scene, this is very much our story too.
We all have scars – injury through words or actions that other people may have caused us – family, friends, colleagues, relationship betrayals, people lying to us, or not supporting us when we needed them the most, etc. Someone may have said some harsh traumatising words, or done something that has left us wounded mentally, emotionally or even physically five, ten or twenty or thirty years back or more, yet every time we think about it, it brings about the same degree of suffering, we feel the same trauma. We feel aggrieved, angry, hurt, and in those moments even take vows of never to forgive or forget the wrong / harm done to us. We too share the same love-hate relationship with our scars as did the man in the story. We don’t like them, will do anything to change it, if we could. Yet we don’t even refrain ourselves either thinking about those events or talking about it to other people. Every time we think about it or talk about, we go through the same emotional turmoil or discomfort. We feel like victims either of other people’s actions or circumstances or blame it on our so-called destiny. The victim song is the on the replay mode – part of the favourite playlist. Without realising, we become attached to our “victim song”. And now this very attachment whilst continues to bring suffering, yet we find it extremely difficult to let go. We feel that letting go of it would absolve the so-called wrong doers.
The typical human mind oscillates between the past and the worry / fear of the future. Rarely do we live in the present reminding ourselves of all things that we have in our lives at that moment – including the most important that is being alive. The moment we re-live those unhappy experiences, our internal chemistry changes as that produces stress hormones within our brain. The consequences we all know – everything starts manifesting as an emotional and physical discomfort – headaches, stomach aches, anxiety attacks etc.
My teacher would often say, “The Past is dead, except in your head”. He would also remind that when we drive, we don’t look into the rear-view mirror. We occasionally look into it and instantly move back to the windscreen. And that’s exactly how life must be lived. Look front and keep going in the direction of your destination. Look into the rear view to review any obstacles, learn from them and then bring back the attention to the windscreen – to the Present moment.
A very famous American writer Carlos Castaneda said, “One day I found out that personal history was no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped it… Little by little you must create a fog around yourself; you must erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted, until nothing is any longer for sure, or real. Your problem now is that you’re too real. Your endeavours are too real, your moods are too real. Don’t take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself.”
At ‘some point in time’, we really need to drop our past and the painful memories. We have to look at the growth that it brought with the knowing that every adversity is an opportunity. Life will have both happy and sad moments and acceptance of life means that we embrace both. Let that ‘some point in time’ be NOW. Let go of your personal history to live, laugh with more freedom and joy. Let go of whatever is holding you back, let go of the FEAR.