The Power of Now

It has been my own experience that some need their drama to define themselves. I remember well one who was railing to me against a minister that had hurt them deeply in life. I was appalled and ashamed at what she said he had said to her. She was in her 80ís and I could not imagine who among my peers in WCG would be so cruel and stupid. Well I could actually.., but she needed help with this. After listening for 30 minutes I finally asked who this minister was and when did this happen. She screamed at me "Rev. Butler and it was August 12th, 1933!" It was 1978 or so when she came to me. Even in the ignorance of my mere 27 years I remember thinking "yikes." Butler was long dead, yet he lived.

I certainly have played that game and sometimes still do, though less and less. I won’t let the past define me or others define me based on their perceptions of who or what I used to be. Perhaps not letting them is too optimistic. I should say, I accept it as something they need to do but not something I need to buy into and take personally. Every honest human being knows themselves better than any other can possibly imagine and get it more correct than others can with fleeting judgments or invoking their own accumulated pain to define others.

It is drama that freezes one in place spinning hurts and pain of the past in ways that merely lead to more spinning and pain in the present. The spinning and pain accumulate like so much stuff in the attic. It is the energy behind lives. It takes time and energy in the present to keep that of the past going. It is the false belief that if we don’t keep the past in mind and alive, something will be left undone or someone unpunished. It is what the ego needs for identity.

I remember a first time visit to specific church member mobile home where I found my mind going blank. It seems these people could not physically throw out anything including the garbage and so we sat at a small table with white garbage bags filled and piled from floor to ceiling, front to back, side to side. What did not fit in the home was under the home outside and packed all around this place where these two people lived. It was an amazing experience and in hindsight, a reflection of the baggage this man had crowding his mind. His home was a stark reflection of his inability to let go. His past garbage was his current décor. Of course he was mentally ill, but I would not have known then how to define it or perhaps recognize this outward manifestation of how the man thought. I might have shook my head then but now I see how we all have the potential to lose site of the life garbage and pain body we have stacked so neatly where we now are endeavoring to live. This man had literally tuned out what he was doing and it all seemed quite normal to him now. There was no sane reason for this man to do this physically, and there is no sane reason for anyone to do this emotionally. You’ll get sick or at best not have much room to maneuver.

This is not to say there is not a processing time of months or even some years of events past, but I am not speaking of that. Even an animal has to flap and shake itself off after a painful or tense situation to drain off the excess energy raised in the fray. But it is relatively short lived and animals have the wonderful ability to bring themselves back into the present.

I am speaking of creating an identity for oneself based on past pain. Take away the drama and the ego would not know exactly who it is anymore. It would have to get out of the past, which contains all the stories and drama that dictate the present , or resist projecting themselves into the future where fears can be imagined and cultivated, to be present and at peace. But then again, the ego lives in the pain of the past to define itself. The ego, the false self does everything it can to avoid the present, which is the only real thing any of us have to work with. We all know of people who left without their pain, illnesses, negativity, complaints and woe would probably have to go out and find a new batch or risk having to be likeable and present.

Simply put, the sum total of all painful experiences, if cultivated and held on to into the present can ruin you. The mind and body were never meant to store psychological time, that is the sum total of painful experiences kept alive by the unconscious, running mind in the present. There is a vast difference between one’s life and one’s life situation.

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