Our Present and Future are shaped by our Past – the education we received, the values and beliefs we acquired, the environment we grew up in, the experiences we had, our memories and the emotions associated with them; they all influence the way we act and react in the Present, and the results we will have in the Future. This doesn’t mean that we can’t change, no, what it means is that even the changes we make, small or radical, they are still influenced by something we did or didn’t do, something someone else did or didn’t do, something that happened to us in the Past.
There’s a strong body of research that proves that we are making decisions based on emotions, that no matter how many lists of pros and cons we draw and no matter how logical and rational some decision seem, we still make decisions based on how we feel, whether our decision supports or not the logical train of thought, the arguments for or against that decision.
As such, I’ll draw your attention to various events from the Past, from your Past… last Christmas, a night out with friends, your first breakup, the day you passed your driving exam, your worst day at work, a random school day, the best day of your life, the day when everything went pear-shaped, etc.
As you bring these memories to mind, you’ll notice they don’t come back alone, they bring along emotions, positive and negative. It’s fantastic to remember times when you felt happy, loved, confident, motivated, optimistic, on top of your game, powerful, encouraged, admired, independent, or rich.
On the other hand, it’s not so comfortable or empowering when you bring to mind memories of events where you felt anger, sadness, fear, shame, guilt, loneliness, discouragement, frustration, grief, envy, doubt, or regret.
How does the Past influence the Present?
In my previous post I mentioned that it is not the memories themselves, or the events in the memories, that cause us problems today – the event is in the Past, it’s happened and we can’t change it. It is the emotions that we have now about that event in the Past, what we are having a problem with.
In other words, when we remember those events from the Past, we re-live the emotions, positive and negative. When the emotions are positive, we are filled with positive thoughts and feelings. When the emotions are negative, we slide down on a slope of disempowering and unresourceful states, we probably even have a narrative about those events, harsh words we beat ourselves with, which only intensify the negative emotions.
We can’t change the Past but we can change the way we feel about the Past, and that’s everything you need in order to Master your Past. There are events from the past which used to make you feel upset when you thought of them and now they don’t. That’s because you “sorted” them, you “got over it”. There are other events from the Past which, when you think of them, still determine you to feel upset.
How to wisely master your Past?
There are two things that make the difference between those memories that used to upset you and now they aren’t, and the memories that still upset you.
At some point in your life, after an event caused you to feel upset, you learned something from and about that event, and those learnings were probably unconscious. You probably learned, for instance, that whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault, you did everything you could have done in that circumstance, or you found other things to focus on and which are much more important to you now and make you way happier. You probably also learned how to better act in similar situations and how to get over that sort of events faster. Again, these learnings were most likely unconscious, meaning you were not aware of them consciously.
The second thing that happened, after you learned whatever you had to learn in order to protect yourself from heartache in a similar event, you deleted the negative emotions related to that event. That’s why you remember events which used to upset you and now they don’t. And it makes sense, because the negative emotions are there to protect you for the period between that particular event and the moment you learn whatever you needed to learn in order to let go of the negative emotions, and therefore to “get over it”.
When you “got over it”
Just think about it logically… if you have your own business, you land a client and you start working together. After a while you realise you priced the client wrong, that actually there’s more work to be done than you had initially expected and the project takes longer than you thought. This means you’re working longer, for less money and you might need to turn other clients away, which in exchange can become quite a problem in your business. You end up feeling upset, angry, discouraged, panicked, desperate, etc. Even after you finish the project, you would probably feel upset and this might cause you to have some cash-flow problems for a while.
Along the way, you learn a series of things: to take your time and find out what specifically the client wants, to decide what’s the best way for you to deliver on the project, to better evaluate your timescales, to better price for the work, etc.
After you learn all these things and you apply them with your following clients, after things go back to being good in your business, you get over it. From now, when you think about that incident, you remember what you’ve learned from the event, without being inundated by all the negative emotions. And if your emotions still come up, then there’s more to learn from that event.
When you didn’t “get over it”
There are other events in your past which, when you remember them, still cause you to feel negative emotions; this means you’re not “over them” yet, and you haven’t yet learned whatever you had to learn from them.
Just think about it… have you had a friend who was in a happy relationship and then, when that relationship ended, especially if it ended badly, they didn’t want to date anyone else because they thought that everyone would hurt them? Someone can go on for a long time not dating anyone, not getting involved seriously or avoiding falling in love with a person, because they just haven’t “gotten over” another relationship. They are bottling up these negative emotions and they are allowing for their Present and Future to be affected by something that happened in the Past.
Thinking of the two examples above, just ask yourself: if you were to be in similar situations, would you rather be “over” that event, or still feel the negative emotions from that event? In which of the two circumstances would you make better decisions?
What if you let go of your negative emotions?
They say “time heals everything”. Even if we accept this as true, how long are you willing to wait for time… to heal everything?
Time Line Therapy is a model, a set of techniques that enables you to delete all the negative emotions from your Past, with an easy, fast and comfortable process, while becoming aware of the learnings that you need to acquire in order to delete your negative emotions. Time Line Therapy, together with Neuro-Linguistic Programming, are invaluable methodologies that enable you to Master your Past, Present and Future just the way you want them.
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