The secret of the past

It's been a busy few months. I wanted to grab this opportunity to share something with you that I discovered accidentally. This little secret gave me a leap forward in my personal evolution and it has helped many of my clients change their lives. If you embrace this and make it true for yourself, you'll experience the same freedom and relief.

The secret is....the past is just a story. It's a tale we tell over and over again to remember and record what "really" happened. Funny thing is, if you ask two people who were in the same event what "really" happened, they'll both tell you a different story. That's because there is no true past. There are just lots of stories about the past.

So, if the past is just a story, what would happen if we just told a new story? What would happen if we imagined it the way we wanted it to be?

Let me give you an example. I experienced childhood abuse at the hands of a family member. For many years, my story about the past was of the horror, outrage and injustice that was done to me. It's true that I felt that way and I had a right to tell that story. It's also true that there is another story about what happened to me.

This new story feels a whole lot better. What really happened to me is that I found myself in a very difficult and challenging place at a young age. That experience defined many aspects of Who I Am today. It taught me how to follow my heart and fight for my right to a great life. I learned skills of survival, perseverance, intuitiveness, and courage. I discovered my passion for self-growth, and an accountability to my reason for being here on this planet. I also was gifted with a fierce determination to have the most amazing life I could make for myself. That's the "true" story of what happened to me as a child. I LOVE that story!

Now, when I float back over my past, I see the things that happened and I notice the Me that was forming in those times. I see the budding of my sense of self-worth when I stepped forward and confronted my abuser. I see the emergence of my independent spirit and courage to meet challenges with focus and intention in the times I felt alone and unprepared to deal with the situation. I became my own best ally and champion. What more power and healing can a human wish for than to direct your own destiny? The learning is in the journey, in each moment.

Once I was working with a client who was experiencing health problems, career challenges and a lot of emotional blocks that kept her from being happy. I noticed that she kept telling the same wounding stories over and over, as if to keep herself from forgetting. It dawned on me that she was the only person in the room who could verify the facts of her tale. If she's her own "Keeper of the Facts" about her past, couldn't she just rewrite them in her head? Who would know or care that she created a new story for herself? A story that helped her heal, find peace and satisfaction in her career, and release the misery. Believe me, the misery has no attachment to sticking around. She's the one who has the attachment to the miserable "facts".

In truth, "facts" are just a selective story, too. We gather selective data (facts) and interpret it to understand their meaning. We can only gather facts based on where our attention is. Facts don't exist at all unless someone pays attention to them enough to write them down and keep a record. And even then...EVEN then, they're just one little bit of data someone gathered and while they were gathering that data they missed millions of other bits of data that were present in the exact same moment. It's the nature of a quantum universe.

So what's the truth about the past? It's the story you choose to write in your thoughts. It should be the story that helps you be happy in the NOW and moves you forward with joyous intention into the future. After all, the future, too, is just a story waiting to be written.