Why bring up the past?

Why bring up the past? The past is in the past, right? Well, yes. But only if you are watching the clock and the calendar.

I was born 68 years ago in 1955 in Independence Missouri. I’m sure that Independence looks nothing like it did 68 years ago and of course I don’t either. Time has passed. And during the time between my birth and today, I’ve had many experiences.

Some of them got stuck in me.

My Multi-tasking Mind

I was reading a book yesterday and realized I had once again shifted into split-attention reading. As I translated the black shapes on the white page into words, my mind had taken a turn away from the words I was reading. My attention was stuck on an idea that got my attention two paragraphs earlier. When I realized my attention was no longer on the words I was reading, I stopped.

As I became aware of my multi-tasking mind, I refocused. I went back to the last sentence I remembered reading and comprehending and started again from that point.

Already Knowing

Experiences get stuck in me in a similar way when they aren’t easily assimilated into the “already knowing” that makes it easy to pay attention to what is happening now.

John Assaraf wrote about this in his co-authored book, The Answer. He discussed the difference between non-conscious and conscious brain. The non-conscious has thousands of times more capacity to process perceived data than the conscious brain. Until something unusual, interesting, or new happens, most of what we perceive is automatically processed by the non-conscious brain.

When I was reading my book, an inspiring idea grabbed my attention and engaged my conscious brain while my non-conscious brain continued to translate letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs without comprehension.

Meaning-Making

As an infant, toddler, and young boy, my brain busily assimilated my experiences and organized the data into significance and meaning-making. This process helped me become familiar with what was safe and what was not, what was needed, and what was required for survival. As my non-conscious brain was being programmed it provided comprehension of my experiences. It seems my conscious brain was free to perceive my present in-the-moment experience because my non-conscious brain was keeping me safe.

When experiences registered as scary or painful in my non-conscious, similar future experiences automatically got my attention and helped me shift my conscious attention out of a relaxed presence into a vigilant and reactive presence. I developed adaptive strategies when something about my present experience reminded me of a scary or painful earlier experience. In this way, as my brain developed, my adaptive strategies were automatically triggered by events that were similar enough to those earlier scary and painful events. The past had gotten stuck in me so that I could avoid future danger. The past remained stuck in me to protect me.

Because of the trauma I experienced, a lot of the past got stuck in me. Life occurred as dangerous much of the time. Fear, both conscious and nonconscious, informed my perception, thoughts, emotions, impulses, choices, reactions, and behavior – automatically.

Maladaptive Strategies

But as my life changed, what had been adaptive and helpful became maladaptive and problematic. The insecurity that I felt in my first marriage had nothing to do with my wife and everything to do with my past. Until I started dealing with the past that informed my insecurity, there was nothing I could do but try to control what felt like a monster inside.

Trying to control and manage maladaptive survival strategies can work temporarily. I can make myself do what I must do to have the life I want. As long as I keep up the effort, it may look like I’m succeeding. But we all have a limited capacity and tolerance for this kind of effort. I could apply my efforts to be functional and efficient at work, but my home life was a wreck. I could effort to be clean and sober but without alcohol (a maladaptive survival strategy) my inner life was a wreck.

Fortunately, I discovered a way to focus my efforts efficiently to benefit all areas of my life. By bringing curiosity to what is happening inside, and applying what I now understand about the impact of the unresolved past, I can gradually reprogram my non-conscious automaticity and get it to work in my favor.

By using the dysfunctional patterns in my life as trailheads to explore, I now use the IFS model to transform. IFS helps me connect current struggles to past experiences and shows me how to tap into innate healing powers. The Internal Family Systems model is a path for healing and resolving the past.

Chrono-Logical

While it is chrono-logical to think of the past as being in the past, non-conscious parts of the past can remain stuck in the unfolding present. Whatever method you use to accomplish this, acknowledge the impact of the past and learn how to release it to bring about a lasting positive impact on your current experiences.