Oh, yes. It's not easy to stay in the present, but it is where the Great Treasure lies. The world mind for the most part is programmed to control out of fear. Letting go and discovering how really and supportive the Universe is is the way out. It's just that even when we experience the Truth, our minds boomerang us back into the fear/guilt/control mode. Just gotta keep realizing over and over again that we can let go and get free of mass illusion and run into the arms of UNIVERSAL LOVE.

Yikes I hope this doesn't sound like a sermon, it's something I have to work on constantly and pretty sure it goes for us all.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

~ Joseph Campbell

I think what we need to do, is when the past comes knocking, let it have its due.
Give it your full attention and do it without fear or judgement, do it with curiosity and wonder.
When you do that, you open yourself to learning a lesson that keeps knocking on your door.
Then you can release it, and the next time it comes around it will be wearing new clothing.
Keep entertaining it, stop trying to avoid it, and by all means, stop feeling bad about the past. Everyone has one! Everyone has regrets, especially those who say they have no regrets! It's kind of like masturbation, 95% of men admit they masturbate, the other 5% are lying. LOL

When I remember my childhood now, I remember the things that used to cause me pain, only they don't cause me pain anymore, they are my greatest teachers and allies. I am grateful for them, as they made me a stronger and more compassionate person.

One of the big things about remembering the past is that we usually infuse it with imagination and simply a lot of "remembering" is our mind's projection. I find when my back gets to the wall, when I can't seem to get out of a head full of negative thoughts it's time to let go, to surrender to the universe. As long as the surrender is holding life is like a ride in an amusement park (an E ticket).

When I was in massage school, we had a class on emotional release. The teacher taught us to take negatively charged memories and rerun them, only this time, take charge, kick ass, be the hero instead of the victim. It was a powerful experience for me. I imagined myself in a situation when I was just a child and an adult took advantage of my innocence....only this time I turned the tables on him and really let him have it. When I came out of the exercise, I felt reborn!

It is not the past that is negative, it's the way we feel about it. We can change the past by changing the way we feel about the past.

AAAhhh Makia - you are a wise woman. Strong.

Yes Janice,
And Gooser, let's go......

Yes, simply shutting out past doesn''t seem to work! I like to give it a limited amount of time, but when I'm uselessly rehashing the same crap that makes me feel badly, I throw the bum out. I don't let it rule me if its not making me better.

Like many of us here, I believe that everything that comes our way has a purpose. MAK accepts & lives with hcv - I learned a lot from that. Can't change it, learn to live productively with it.
If everything came from Creator, it can't be all bad. Maybe my perception needs adjustment.

Hey MAK, that exercise rocks. Gotta try it!

OK, here is how you do an emotional release. First you have a friend who can hold the vision points on your forehead. They are above the pupil and half way up the forehead. They will feel slightly tender as they are where the sutures or prominences are. It helps to have someone present, but you can hold them yourself if you want to try that without support, however if it gets more than you can handle, stop and find a friend.

Then you get comfortable. I laid down on a massage table. The assistant was at the head of the table. He had me think about a traumatic experience in my past that was still bothering me. Then he said to remember the sequence of events that led up to it. Then just as it started to get bad, he said to use the imagination to to imagine a different scenario where I was able to come out victorious. Then he explained to the class, that the power of the brain and mind is thus: it doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. Therefore, if one can imagine something with the same level of emotion that the real event had, or more, that the memory can be rewritten and accepted as reality.

I still remember what actually happened, but it doesn't last as a traumatic memory, it immediately gives way to self-empowerment and I no longer feel like a victim.

OK, here is how you do an emotional release. First you have a friend who can hold the vision points on your forehead. They are above the pupil and half way up the forehead. They will feel slightly tender as they are where the sutures or prominences are. It helps to have someone present, but you can hold them yourself if you want to try that without support, however if it gets more than you can handle, stop and find a friend.

Then you get comfortable. I laid down on a massage table. The assistant was at the head of the table. He had me think about a traumatic experience in my past that was still bothering me. Then he said to remember the sequence of events that led up to it, as he held the vision points and offered support by his presence. Then just as it started to get bad, he said to use the imagination to to imagine a different scenario where I was able to come out victorious. He explained to the class, that the power of the brain and mind is thus: it doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. Therefore, if one can imagine something with the same level of emotion that the real event had, or more, that the memory can be rewritten and accepted as reality.

I still remember what actually happened, but it doesn't last as a traumatic memory, it immediately gives way to self-empowerment and I no longer feel like a victim.

Very cool. Thanks.

Thanks for the reminder about welcoming and curiosity. So true, but I forget sometimes.