For many of us, our past defines who we are at this present moment. Today, I want to show you how letting go of the past can help you move on to live your life more fully in the present.
When a speedboat zooms across the surface of the water, there’s a white foamy froth behind it that’s called the wake of the boat. The wake is nothing more than the trail that’s left behind. The answer to, “What is driving the boat?” is that the boat moves because of present-moment energy generated by the engine. This is what makes the boat move forward across the water. Do you think it’s possible for the wake to drive the boat? Can the trail that’s left behind make a boat go forward? These are rhetorical questions with obvious answers. I’m sure you agree that the wake is only the trail left behind, and that it’s not what drives the boat forward.
I’m suggesting that you apply this idea to your life. The wake of your life is nothing more than a trail that’s left behind you. Thought of in this way, it’s absolutely impossible for that wake to drive you forward. The wake is not in any logical way responsible for what you’re experiencing or failing to experience today. The wake is just what it is, and nothing more—a trail that you’ve left behind. But have you?
For well over a quarter century now, I’ve worked with people to help them access higher levels of awareness. It’s my experience that most people live their life in the wake by hanging on to personal histories to justify their self-defeating behaviors and the scarcity in their lives. They hang on to past pains, abuses, and shortcomings as calling cards to announce a “poor me” status to everyone they meet, within minutes of their introduction. “I was abandoned as a child,” “I’m an alcoholic,” “I’m an incest survivor,” “My parents were divorced and I’ve never gotten over it.” The list could go on for hundreds of pages.
Your past is over! By bonding to your past, you not only ensure that you’ll be immobilized today, but you prevent yourself from healing. By referring to past struggles and using them as the reasons for not getting on with your life today, you’re doing the equivalent of attributing to the wake the ability to drive the boat. This also works in reverse. Many people refer to the good old days that are gone forever as the reason why they can’t be happy and fulfilled today. “Everything has changed,” “No one respects anyone else like they used to,” “A dollar used to be worth a dollar, now everything is so overpriced,” “People don’t seem to want to help out like they did in the past,” “When we were kids, we respected authority; today’s kids walk all over their parents.” This is also living in the wake and assigning responsibility to the past for why you can’t be successful or happy today.
Imagine a pencil with the ability to only write your past history. It has no use otherwise. All of your past is in that pencil. Are you going to keep it? What for? Are you going to give it up? Perhaps Omar Khayyam will inspire you with his poem:
The moving finger writes and having writ moves on.
Nor all thy piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out one word of it.
You can cry all night about the history in that pencil, all that it contains, and all you wish you could erase—or bring back again—but all of your tears can’t wash out one word of the past, as the poet-philosopher reminds you.
You want to let go of your personal history that’s symbolized by that pencil, but when you walk away from it, no matter how far you walk, you look back and there it is. You’re ready to be rid of your personal history and to more fully live in the present moment. But the pencil is always there when you look back. I suggest that you pick up the pencil, and with compassion, allow the words, wounds, and pain of the past to be written, embraced, examined, understood, accepted, and loved for all that you’ve learned and experienced. The act of picking it up and embracing it will give you the strength to transform the past into song, poem, paint, or ritual if you feel called to do those things, or to throw it away in your unique way.
In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did. Every spiritual advance that you will make in your life will very likely be preceded by some kind of fall or seeming disaster. Those dark times, accidents, tough episodes, periods of impoverishment, illnesses, abuses, and broken dreams were all in order. They happened, so you can assume they had to and you can’t unhappen them.
Embrace them from that perspective, with help if you need it, and then understand them, accept them, honor them, and finally retire and/or transform them in your own way. (I know someone who gives them a new job description.) Become free to immerse yourself in this moment—the now that’s called the present—because it’s simply that—a present to open, relish, nurture, play with, and enjoy and explore.
Make an effort to remove all labels that you’ve placed on yourself. Labels serve to negate you. You must ultimately live up to the label rather than being the limitless spirit that is your true essence. You’re not an American, an Italian, or an African. You’re a member of one race, the human race. You’re not a male or a female, a Democrat or a Republican. You are one with the true oneness, God. You are not athletic or magical, mathematical or literary, or any other label. Transcending labels, particularly those that have been placed on you by others in your past, opens you to the opportunity of soaring in the now in any way that you desire.
Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality. Don’t allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments. Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.