When I scan my past for things to fix, I think I’m cleaning things up but I’m actually making a mess.
I have no past. My past is something I create - now - through the power of my imagination. When I go looking for a past that’s broken, I CONSTRUCT a past that’s broken. I will ALWAYS find one because I am the one making it.
The only possible outcome of creating a broken past is to experience a broken present.
It’s like watching a movie. I can choose any genre from the shelf. It’s all about what I want to experience now. If I go looking for a scary or painful movie, I’ll find one. And if I believe it, I’ll suffer. If I don’t want to be scared, I don’t have to watch scary movies.
I’m certainly not going to “fix” a scary movie. I can watch a million scary movies trying to clean up all the scariness: I can adjust my life and go to war with people and launch careers to correct what I see in the movie but it’s easy to see that if I thought the way to peace was to find all the scary movies and fix them all, I could waste a lot of life distressing myself in search of a peace that would never come.
Fixing all the world’s movies won’t work, but I can find immediate peace by recognizing one simple thing:
Movies aren’t real.
Memories are the same way:
Movies and memories are the same in that they are both stories, made up in the mind and recorded. They both offer a semblance of reality but leave out crucial information and exaggerate minor details for dramatic effect. They both completely invent things to round out a narrative and make it hold together.
They’re creations of the imagination. When I forget that, they can give me nightmares, but when I’m clear about that, they can be a lot of fun. They cease to be scary. There’s nothing to fix. I can enjoy them. I can even laugh at them. And when they’re over, I can be grateful for the fun experience.
When I’m clear that the past is something I create right now, I can choose what kinds of nows to create, much the same way I choose which movies to watch. If I’m going to play in a fantasy, which fantasy do I want? Which choice would make for the best now?
I can see that any kind of past (scary, painful, peaceful or funny) could make for a great present. And when one causes me stress I can remember that it’s all a creation of the mind and I can work with my mind to choose what I want to create, now.