Please pause and read before you watch this video:
Are You Pushing Against the Past?
I'm going to start out today's episode with a story.
Logan is a man in his 30s.
Logan was born to parents
whose marriage was not very good.
Neither of them wanted to look at their unsavory personal truths
or at their own dysfunction,
so instead, they focused on what was wrong with Logan.
For example, when his father didn't feel inclined
to dedicate any quality time to Logan
and spend time in his garage working on cars, instead,
instead of saying that the issue
was his lack of desire to show up as a father,
he made logan the problem
for being needy of his time and attention.
And when Logan's dad would get explosively angry at him,
his mother would make excuses for it
and tell logan he had to change so as to not make his father upset.
Instead of seeing the issue was her own relationship insecurities
and how they led to chronic conflict aversion
and enabling of really destructive behavior in her husband,
she made Logan the problem
for not tiptoeing around his father
and not preventing family conflict.
Logan became the family problem.
As a result, his self-concept went to the trash can.
He saw himself as inherently bad
and because he couldn't seem to change that about himself
he spent his life torn
between really wanting to be light and good,
but at the same time
embracing his darkness and badness
as if that were the truth of who he was.
He fell into the only crowd he related to,
he covered his body in dark and aggressive tattoos,
he spent his time listening to heavy metal music,
he hung out every day at a grungy motorcycle repair shop,
he got into fights regularly,
and he got addicted to meth.
Logan made an appearance one day in his 20s
at a family camping trip.
When he showed up, everything was OK-ish
for about an hour, before sure enough,
logan's father started criticizing his life choices.
Now, this whole conflict
escalated until the two of them were yet again,
in another yelling match.
The argument got so incredibly heated
that logan's father jumped into his caravan
to drive off.
Everyone was so focused on the intensity of that conflict
that nobody noticed
that Logan's two-year-old niece Josie
was playing in puddles behind the back of that caravan.
So when Logan's father went to peel out
and disappear on the whole scene,
he ran right over his own granddaughter.
They performed CPR and mouth to mouth,
but when the EMTs arrived
she was pronounced dead on the scene.
Needless to say, this tragedy ripped this family even further apart.
And Logan went into resistance to the past.
I mean, all of it.
His resistance to what had happened
became an absolute obsession.
He obsessed over what he should have done differently
as a child and in his teens,
and on that day his niece died.
He obsessed over how the family should have been different
and what every person should have done differently
The sense that something needed to have been different about the past
filled him with a desperate need to change the past.
He fantasized about a different life he could have had.
Any time he would communicate with his family
he would get furious at them for things they had done.
he could not accept that what happened in his life
had actually happened.
And that it could not be undone.
As a result, he grew more and more unwell
on a physical, mental and emotional level
and all he experienced was utter powerlessness.
Logan increased his use of drugs
to try to mitigate that pain.
When something unwanted happens,
especially when that unwanted thing
alters life
in a way that a person interprets as really bad,
people automatically go into resistance to what is,
and what was.
Instead of accepting it,
they go into an automatic fight
against what cannot be undone.
All of this leads to an obsession
on a mental, emotional and physical level
with trying to change what has already happened.
It decreases health on all of these levels.
It leads to a desperate fury.
It leads to denial,
it leads to slipping into protector personalities,
it leads to depression,
it leads to confusion,
it leads to bargaining.
Acceptance does not mean that you're okay with something.
It also doesn't mean that you approve of something.
All it means is that instead of pushing against something,
you're gonna let it in, or "own" it
so as to recognize it
as real,
or valid.
The problem with pushing against
anything that has already happened
is that it is wasted energy.
It is completely futile.
No energy that you ever put into trying to alter
what has already occurred,
is going to amount to any results whatsoever.
What it does is keep you fixated on what was.
Powerlessly struggling against something that cannot be changed,
instead of pivoting and refocusing all your energy on:
"What can I do from where I am with what i have right now?"
Also,
when we're pushing against the past
we slip into this pattern
where we often expect somebody to change something about what was.
And this puts them in a state of desperate powerlessness, as well.
Nobody can change something they already did,
or something that already happened.
So we keep them in this powerlessness
and make it so they cannot resolve anything with us,
because we're unwilling to accept
they can't change anything about what they did already.
It's literally about what do I need them to do,
or want them to do
right here and going forward.
To stop pushing against the past,
to accept it
and to instead,
focus your energies on what you need to do right now and going forward
is one of the most difficult things to do ever.
Why?
Because it means we have to admit to things being true
that we don't wanna have be true.
It means that we have to look at truths
that honestly we don't feel like we have the capacity to look at.
It means we have to swallow the fact
that we've lost something and that it is gone.
Or that something specifically that you wanted for your future
will never be.
Or to recognize that some things will never be the same going forward
and in ways that you would never have wanted.
Doing so seems to run up against the truth
that you were a creator of your life experience
and that you can prevent what you don't want
and bring about what you want.
But there is an empowerment to be found
in accepting that what has happened
has actually happened,
and that you can do nothing to change it,
and so you must reorient yourself
entirely towards what to do now
and what to do going forward.
In the face of that powerful level of simplicity,
your actual empowerment is found.
All you are left with is:
"What do I do now?
And what do I do going forward to make things different,
and more like what I want them to be?"
All you are left with is the simplicity of what now.
You're gonna hear some people say that it does nothing
to look back at what could have been differently.
I actually disagree with this.
There's immense value to be found
in powerfully becoming aware of exactly what
you should have said differently or done differently
or what you needed somebody else to do or say differently.
Essentially, the "what should have been different".
Why is there value?
Because that powerfully points you
towards what you want to do differently
now, and going forward.
Or what you need them to do differently now,
or going forward.
It gives you a picture of what you want,
as opposed to what was unwanted.
The what now is really your only access
for genuine power.
When you put your focus and your energy
in the "what now?"
that will actually lead
to positive results and positive change.
To use our previous example,
Logan would have to begin by accepting a great many things;
Things like the fact that his father
did not actually want to be a father.
Things like no matter what he did,
he is not going to get that attention or that love
that he wanted or needed from him,
and the reality that he had
a terrible relationship with his father and still does.
Realities like the fact that his mother is a complete codependent
who cares a lot more about her own personal sense
of peace and security in relationships, than she does about her own son.
He'll have to accept the fact
that he had nobody there to protect him,
he'll have to accept the fact
that he was the family scapegoat,
he'll have to accept the fact
that because that was the only way to fit into his family system
he formed his entire identity potentially, falsely,
around this idea of being the bad guy.
So, does he really know who he is?
He'll have to accept that his niece is dead
she is gone, she is not coming back
and that his conflict with his father
is a big contributing factor in her death.
He will have to accept that his childhood is gone.
It's never coming back again.
He's not gonna be able to re-live it.
Logan would have to accept
that what has happened thus far in his life has happened,
it cannot be undone,
he cannot go back and make it different.
It is exactly how it is.
So, basically, his only access for power
is to change things from right now.
It's about how does he need
to act differently himself in his life?
What does he need to do and say differently?
And what does he need,
different from what he experienced,
from the people in his life?
What he has to accept is he has to let go of what was.
This essentially means
that Logan would then pour all of his focused time and energy
into the "what now?"
For example, he might become aware
of what he needs from his father going forward,
and clearly communicate that to him.
He may ask his father for the same thing in return.
He might devote his focus to changing the way he sees himself
and challenging the "bad guy, problem person" narrative
that he adopted and has been maintaining so far.
He might deliberately seek out relationships with people
who live a healthy lifestyle
and who are into self-growth,
so that he's influenced to live a healthy lifestyle, as well
and so that he can experience people looking at their own dysfunctions
rather than simply avoiding that self-reflection
by focusing on him being the only problem.
He might decide to keep a picture of his niece in a locket
as a reminder to try to understand
what another person is really perceiving, feeling and needing,
and why, when a conflict occurs,
rather than to simply slip into defense.
He might make people aware
to make sure they know where the kids are at all times,
especially before moving any vehicle.
He may use the completion process
to go back and create a sense of resolve for what happened,
as well as to become aware
of what unmet needs he had then,
that he can now meet from today forward.
Notice when you are pushing against what happened or what is
as if all of your energy
is going toward trying to make something that already happened,
unhappen or be different.
What do you need to accept?
And once you accept it,
What now?
Where should your energy go now,
to make things more like how you know you want them to be?
Use your awareness
of what "should have been different" about the past,
to pivot,
so that you can focus your energy and your time
and everything else that you have within you,
towards, how you want to behave differently,
how you wanna speak, how you wanna act,
what you wanna do,
what type of experiences you wanna have.
Let your awareness
of what other people should have done differently
make you aware and pivot
towards how you want them to act
and what you need from them, going forward.
Use your awareness about what was unwanted,
about what was,
to reorient yourself
so that your focus, your time and your energy
on a mental emotional and physical level,
is dedicated towards what you would want to see, instead
for the now, and for the future.
Have a good week.
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I wanna thank you personally
for the bravery that you have to step into awareness.
I'll see you in the next video.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte Join the volunteer subtitle group on Facebook ASK TEAL TRADUCTION/TRANSLATION