Chewing on the Past

I’ve been chewing on the past like a tough old piece of jerky, hoping it will soften, dissolve and nourish me.

But the more I chew, the bigger it gets. The more I slush it around between my teeth, the more I revive the textures, flavors and sentiments. It then, eventually, turns around and begins to consume me.

I am told that as human beings we have a number of super powers. Attention, memory, concentration. Faith, the spoken word, the breath. Our spine. I am told that each day we have the choice to become something greater or smaller, depending on the capacity of our focus, awareness and attention. What, really, are we focusing on, moment to moment, day by day, year after year? What, really, do we tell ourselves about this life and “the way things are”?

Our lives become a mirror of our inner world, reflecting back to us the quality of our repetitive thoughts, our subtle and oftentimes unconscious beliefs, and our emotional patterning.

“The human mind is the most powerful broadcasting machine there is.” - Paramahamsa Yogananda

So I light my candle, straighten my spine and ask: What does it really take to let go? The trauma of the past gnaws at my consciousness like a hungry pup and I keep throwing it bones in the form of affirmations, vindications and validations. I keep feeding it with my belief in victimhood, my dedication to prove, PROVE, that it was really that horrible and how could they/it/we?? The more I feed it, the deeper it goes. I can feel the neural pathways widening, expanding, reinforcing the story, reLIVING the story until it very much becomes a part of me. I can’t leave home without it. The present it tinged with its color and my identity hinges on its companionship. It lives on in me as I subtley, constantly, and emotionally reinforce it with my own will power.

The candle flickers. The night is still and the stars twinkle a bit in their radiance. I breathe. I tend to my spine. The mountain looms silent behind me.

The Universe reflects my capacity to see it. What am I seeing?

I hear of relationships where so much has happened between the two parties that both are in complete surrender to and bewilderment of the wreckage. How can we go on, day by day, knowing what happened in the past? How can we live NOW without seeing through the lens of what happened then? How do we let go?

I was once at odds with a person in my circle of relations. I was tired of the tension and the stories and the frustrations and so when they came to visit, I decided to try an experiment. I decided to meet this person as a curious stranger, as another being in their earthwalk, as a momentary friend in the vast expanse of a human life. I found that I could just, be there with this person. I could just, hear what they said, feel what they felt and share our time together, free from the baggage of the “past”, which was really my own mental junk anyway. It was lighter. And spontaneously joyous.

“In order to be who are you, you must be willing to let go of who you think you are.” - Michael Singer

When we deep dive into the everpresent openness of this moment, we always find a kind, spacious simplicity. There is no story, no memory, no agenda. There is no trauma.

So, with eyes closed, I allow the megalithic mental garbage to replay in my mind. I look, I breathe, I get really, really, present. I listen, I feel, I sense my body. I become aware of this sacred moment, which never goes anywhere. I get real with NOW. I get so enmeshed in it, tasting each subtle sensation with great focus and concentration and wonder, that I am completely absorbed. And like some illuminating key, I begin to see how it is that we really let go. We get present. We bring it back to the NOW. We are willing to relinquish the pain (and our addiction to it) in order to be more free. We make love to this moment as if its our last, and, in that devotion, we lose the baggage, the story, the electrochemical memory-habit of suffering.

We get free.