Humans do grow stronger by struggling to lift the weight of some experiences. But once that weight has been lifted, there is no reason for us to continue to carry it throughout each day. And yet that is what many people do with past experiences.
Maybe they wish they’d done something differently. Maybe they wish someone else had. Maybe we wish something never happened. Or that it did happen. But however it happened is however it happened. Once that weight has been lifted it is best set down.
Having to face a dilemma, where we have no good choices, is not some failure that needs revisiting so that we can try to avoid it in the future. Life presents these unbeatable challenges whether we like it or not. We must simply move through them by accepting their inevitability, and that is done by changing our understanding of how we interface with reality.
Otherwise, the danger is, by considering past issues as an ongoing problem, people invest valuable lifetime wondering why this or that good or bad thing, did or didn’t happen to them. Rather than having new experiences, people continually revisit old ones as though they are bodies to be buried and reburied.
Do not carry the dead weight of your past. Your mind is your servant. Do not drag heavy, unpleasant, past experiences into your present or they will cripple your future. Let go by grabbing the present. Forget your regrets; fill your mind with the beauty and grace that exists in the Now. The ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is nigh.
peace. s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.