Our History

Our History

There’s an old saying in this part of the world – “You can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl.” As is true of many such sayings, there are many variations like boy, city, and so on.

The basic truth is, our history informs our view of the world and the choices we make. This goes right into the cosmic memory that sustains the world allowing it, and us, to unfold.

Clearly, our history runs deep. We have our personal history from this life, our soul’s history through many lives, our ancestral history through many lives, the history of the community we live in, our planet, universe, and the cosmic. There is no separate person, and no one is alone. We’re in this together.

Coming to peace with our history is key for a happy life. This means becoming conscious of those influences, resolving what remains unresolved, and detaching ourselves from its weight.

This doesn’t mean we have to discover all of our past lives, our entire blood line, community history, and all that. It simply means we want to resolve, over time, whatever places of resistance we run into. That’s where there is something unresolved.

While we’re unconscious and attached, our past will rule our life. This may take the form of obsessing over the past as a victim, as regret, dreaming about what might have been, or  obsessing over the future. Even chasing pleasure can be an aversion to pain. All of that is avoiding the life that is here, now.

When we’ve come to terms with our history, we settle naturally into the present. Being here now isn’t something we can contrive. It is the natural result of unloading the past.

And that results from meeting the past and resolving its charge. Letting go of the resistance. Some of that territory can be easy – just see it come up in life and let it go. But some of it can be rough. Stuff we never want to look at or touch with a ten-foot pole.

But ironically, what has the most charge has the most influence. What we don’t want to deal with is what’s influencing our perception and choices the most.

For example, we have a bad relationship experience. As a result, people will often go into avoidance. Won’t make That mistake again! Or we’ll search for a replacement that doesn’t have whatever we think created that bad experience. Say we found the partner was too controlling, so we look for someone who isn’t.

The problem with this approach is it’s an avoidance response. Someone who isn’t controlling won’t necessarily meet our actual needs at all. And it will often tend to entrench our past by reinforcing its “truth”.

What is our truth? What are the stories you tell others whenever you have the chance?

We want to be patient with ourselves. This work takes time. We’re undoing bindings to a lot of history. But the result is deeply rewarding. Free of the charge and weight, good choices become much easier to make as the way is more clear. Results come better. Life is smoother. Happiness is normal.

Not that our past won’t be an influence. Our history may include great learning. And our “Mission” in life is usually driven by our past pain. Many people become healers after overcoming health issues, for example.

But what form does this take? The wounded healer? The suffering artist? The unrecognized genius?

Released from the charges, we’re acting from what we’ve learned and can use to help others rather than acting from what we’re trying to avoid. The healed healer. The visionary artist. The clear genius. There’s a big difference between acting out of pain and being informed by past pain.

By all means, live your history. But live it here, now.
Davidya

Last Updated on June 16, 2016 by

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10 Comments

  1. K

    Thank you – this is very timely for me as I was just thinking about when this would end for me. I am in the middle of meeting the past – been going on for more than a year or so. The answers to what causes resolution of the charge is not clear. At times it feels that I am almost giving birth to something or having something surgically extracted. Sometimes the birthing can be easy and sometimes not. For example, one past incident I was thinking about became unimportant emotionally after it caused the quality of kindness to become well-expressed in me (no I am not bragging, it is just I suddenly understood what kindness was and became a kinder person and that painful incident went away). Another difficult incident, caused the birth of self-compassion in me and boy was that difficult birth! I am almost at the point of when I am in the throes of meeting some aspect of the past – I want to say – can this kidney stone pass through already. They are like kidney stones that have to pass through for some aspect of development to occur. A lot of times praying ends in crying even when I go in to pray with a normal affect. I am hoping all this crying is actually healing and eventually I will come out on the other side – fully integrated and healed. Anyway, I find your posts helpful. Thanks

    1. Hi K
      Well – there’s no real way of knowing when it will end. We all have a lot of history in there. But at a certain point, the process gets easier, the letting go deeper and more complete, and what remains becomes less. Quality of life goes up.

      Waking up helps a great deal as we loose attachment so it’s no longer “mine”. It’s just more trash to take out, easy to let go.

      Essentially the charge is the part of an experience that is incomplete. The energy we experience as emotion. It hasn’t been fully digested or seen. So as it arises in awareness and is allowed to be there, it completes. The charge is resolved and it become neutral. This often takes just a moment. We have a wave of emotion and it’s done.

      In the past, we had kept this repressed (which takes a lot of energy) and when it did come up, we reacted rather than allowed. So it wasn’t being resolved. But when we can be with it as you describe, it completes. This is what they mean by winding down the wheel of karma.

      Of course, you may find different language more suitable to your experience. This is just a pointing.

      I’d suggest it’s good to separate what is opening (birthing) from what is resolving or releasing. The second is the clearing that removes the charge. Sometimes, this will bring a new clarity that allows things to open. We find new qualities or gifts come online. But it’s 2 different things.

      The release doesn’t cause the gift, it was the last block that cleared the way for it to express. Opening can also stretch us a bit so both the release and the opening can have flavours of challenge but it gets easier over time.

      And yes, when we approach a big release, part of the process often becomes being conscious of it first, getting a sense of it, and then allowing the resolution to unfold as we can.

      And yes, both surrender and release can result in more subtle but powerful letting go that takes the form of crying or laughing or both.

      Release first, then a bit of processing, then integration of the changed state.

      The Yoga Sutra describes both friendliness and compassion as gifts that come online. The third part of that sutra is happiness.

      Hope that adds some clarity.

  2. zen pig

    great post. the difference between letting go of our conflicts with personal history, and the idea of dropping our personal history is well put. from my experience, one does not need to deny or forget there history, (don’t even know if that is possible), but to overcome that history that is being covered up, seems to be very important. all I can do is sit and observe what comes up. unless there are better ideas? cheers. zp

    1. Hi ZP
      Well – there is the monks approach but that requires withdrawing from the world. Otherwise, our history is continually revived. But that approach isn’t for most of us.

      A big part of the growth process is simply living life. It will inherently bring up things to be seen and resolved. We just need to be a little conscious of it.

      I have found some deeper work may be used to supplement that, but usually that becomes clear when something arises we don’t know how to clear. Then it depends on the nature of it as to what is required.

      I’ve talked about that in articles like this:
      https://davidya.ca/2014/06/28/healing-everything-part-3-of-3/

  3. Tim Owens

    When I see a homeopathic client, the language I use for taking a person’s case is “finding the charge”. I see it as the current presenting challenge at the center of the person’s stuckness. Through years of experience homeopaths have learned that the headache or knee pain or anxiety the person comes in complaining of is often rooted in grief over a failed relationship or tension from a tragic experience or something else with seemingly no direct correlation to the primary complaint. When the remedy that best matches this underlying complex is given, a very natural processing occurs and the person seems to just “forget” to carry the charge anymore. I have often thought that this healing comes because the “line on stone”, the karmic impression left on the chitta has been removed and so the energy can now move more freely. I look forward to our recognizing the utility of energy medicine(homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture, etc.,)versus medical/pharmaceutical interventions as being infinitely better for the soul’s progress.

    1. Interesting, Tim.
      My exposure to homeopathy has only been around physical things. Perhaps it depends on the practitioner and their orientation and skill level.

      But yes, I’ve certainly found this myself. Not always – sometimes a physical issue has a physical cause. But sometimes, just putting your attention on it leads you to the knot or holding. Then just a little attention facilitates the release.

      I’ve seen various modalities for this but didn’t know this was one.

      In this part of the world, some alternative approaches have gotten enough research behind them to go semi-mainstream. Acupuncture, massage, chiropractic and some related approaches are covered by government insurance now and a few things are available in places like hospitals. But yes, we have a long way to go – energy is not yet part of of the medical paradigm even though it’s the foundation of health.

  4. Jim

    “Being here now isn’t something we can contrive.”

    Yes, precisely, and as this sense grows, it builds momentum, and brings up anything and everything that could stand in its way. My experience is that this is the driver of all of the resolutions; having formed the innocent intention to identify with the Self, with the transcendental consciousness, a vast purification takes place, as quickly as possible.

    Each new sense of identity (Self, Oneness, Brahman, SOB for short – lol) is correlated with additional clarity, more here and now. Resolution becomes primary as we advance through the higher states of consciousness, for each is like a gate to the next, with lessons learned and insights gained. All at the ongoing expense of our stories, some nested within others.

    The experience of continually clearing out and catching up becomes a way of life for a little while, evaluating a steady stream of past events and perspectives. The mind and body adjust rapidly to each change, and soon enough, everything settles down into being here and now.

    This “tunnel of resolution” must be a common enough experience, though it is easy to get snagged on the particulars and create new stories if we don’t realize what is happening.

    1. Hi Jim
      (laughs) well theres another acronym for the process…

      I had a somewhat similar process. As you get close to the first primary shift, the process takes on a life of it’s own. Understanding what’s happening helps us be good with it, making the process much smoother.

      After we step out of the core ego identification, the junk is no longer “mine” so much. It is then much easier to just allow.

      I found that the first phase was dominated by clearing and opening, then the next phase by all the becoming of Unity. Not so much here and now – more everywhere and all time. (laughs)

      If someone moves more quickly, they may also still be clearing during the becoming phase. And so on.

      But yeah – it’s so important to understand so we don’t get too much in the way of the process. Makes it so much smoother. Ran into someone just the other day in a Unity process but they where seeing it as a problem.

      A good reason why I write this blog.

    1. If we don’t understand what’s taking place, we can find unfolding a problem. Same thing happens with waking up.

      Collision with the Infinite was an extreme version – she fought and tried to find someone to pathologize her waking for 10 years.

      Similarly, if you have a strong concept that waking is it, Unity can be deeply disruptive instead of a joy.

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