Past, Present and Future
Our memory of the past is just what we say it is. We feel like we have a video machine in our head, with an accurate recording of past events. But what we really have is what we say happened. In any case, what happened to us doesn’t really matter; it is only the meaning that we place on what we say happened that matters. Because we relive these stories over and over in our head (“remembering” them), we create neural pathways in our brains that have us tend to play them even more. Who we are, and who we are being is often defined by the neural pathways that we have built in our brains by our beliefs and decisions, by the stories that we play over and over.
Because of our neural conditioning, the future seems to be determined by circumstances out of our control. The experience of the present moment becomes passive and reactive (we wait to see what happens, then deal with whatever shows up.) We are waiting to see what happens, but all the while we are expecting more of the same.
When we are waiting to see what happens, we are taking little responsibility for what we want to be in our future — and so what is in our present becomes more reaction than creation. For most people, the future is rather predictable. If you ask them what the future holds, they will often say, “more of the same!”
We act as if we are in a boat that is being controlled by the wake behind the boat. It may seem like the boat is going in the same direction as the wake, but does the wake behind the boat actually steer the boat? Of course not! Is the wake behind a boat a good predictor of where the boat is going next? No; it only tells you where the boat has been, and says nothing about where it is going. The wake is like your past; your past doesn’t really have any bearing on the future. Anything you can predict in your future comes from the past. Our feelings, or the “evidence,” about what will happen to us is all from the past. Where the boat is going is NOT determined by the wake behind the boat.
Most people can’t see how to make their lives what they want because the future already seems set in stone — they have no space to make the future that they want. For the most part, we don’t have a future because it is already filled with the past. Clearing our past, recognizing our old beliefs as beliefs rather than truth, gives us the ability to clear those beliefs and often create new, more powerful realities for ourselves. This is why clearing is so powerful. By clearing and completing something from the past, you actually take it out of your present and future; you make space in your future for something else to happen.
Yet even with clearing, who we are in the world still tends to be a reflection of the past, and a reaction to the present. We will continue to “be” our past so long as we don’t do something to step out of it or create who we want to be. We continue to be our past when we are disconnected from something larger in ourselves.
So what does the future actually hold? Anything that you know right now about the future is really just expectations from the past. The only thing that we can know for sure about our future is that it is uncertain — anything can happen! The real question is: “Will you create your future, or will you just react to circumstances?” Will you continue you to play the ‘old’ groves in your brain, or will you create new ones?