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 a scary movie.
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 the story 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.