Mindfulness – The Past and Its Purpose

I took a “mindfulness” break and did a couple of articles about transformation because one thing that some people struggle with inside the idea of mindfulness is that change is scary. Being mindful can be a big change for someone, and so, they may fear what will happen if they begin paying attention. I had a couple of thoughts on that idea, and so, the transformation notes. We are back on target with being more mindful today.

Today’s idea is about our pasts. I had a whole article about my history written and then decided was not what I wanted to share. Here’s why. My past is over. There is no way I remember it accurately because no one remembers anything accurately. All memories are transformed by our egos to prove who the ego is. That is all. We twist and change the past to make it mean whatever we think it should. No one remembers their past as it really was, not even the past few minutes. This is something my teachers over the past several years have been telling me over and over again. I finally get it. The story I tell myself about my past is how I will ensure I continue to have to deal with the effects of that story long into my future. The Dr. Joe Rewired series is about letting go of the past and our addiction to living there. Telling my history simply puts me back in it. I am choosing not to do that.

What I want to say though is I learned something from my past and in my past. First, I learned that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I spent a great deal of time attempting to prove that, and I was a really angry person for that period of time. When I realized what was wrong with me was not something wrong at all, but it had a name and a definition and it was perfectly fine. It took time, but embraced being my authentic self, and have been seeking more information about who I am since that moment. I have had ups and downs in my seeking. I have been successful and not as much from time to time. Through it all, my higher self had my back and has led me here to this moment. I say that with confidence as I know that my higher self and not my ego has my back and is always leading me directly to where I need to be to learn, grown, and transform into the being I am meant to be.

It does not matter what was “wrong” with me or that I realized it was not wrong and embraced it. What the detail of that was is unimportant. What is important is that it was a step toward becoming who I am today.

The one thing I have struggled with my entire life is anger. There are many things I have blamed for my anger. What I realize now is that the only thing to blame is myself, or more accurately, my ego, which is not entirely me, but a side of me. My ego became angry when I told the world who I was, and that was rejected. My ego then used every experience that came to me to prove to me that I had a right to be angry. I should be angry. I was justified to be angry, etc. I realize now that I seek reasons to be angry, just to prove that I should feel like I do. I am done with that pattern. The anger is killing me. It nearly has on a few occasions in my life. Anger brought me to the edge of suicide several times in my life. It causes my physical body stress so that I am in constant pain. I also used to be sick all the time, but that has been improving since I have learned meditation and methods for healing myself. The anger has remained underlying everything for my whole life. I am stating though, that I am done with it.

I know that there is nothing to be angry about. Nothing. What I am angry about is only the thoughts in my head which are manifestations of my imagination. They are patterns in my brain. They are addictions to emotional states. They are not real. I make them up, only all the time. That is a freeing idea to me. If I make up all the reasons to be angry. I can stop being angry by making up reasons not to be angry.

I know that it is more difficult than I am making seem. Like now that I know it is my errant thoughts that create anger, I’ll just stop having the thoughts. That’s easy. Well, I know that it is not. That is why I am doing the Dr. Joe series, to learn to rewire my brain, to get away from the addiction of anger that I have. It may be a difficult task, and I am up for it. I have already made great progress. I did end up with the flu the past few days because stress suppresses the immune system, and I work with humans who have germs. Yuck. Stress in my case is pretty much always about being angry. Being angry always seems to be about someone else, and never really is about anyone else but me and my thoughts. I am improving though.

Here is the mindfulness bit. As I become more mindful, I notice the anger. I see it for what it is, useless and damaging. So when it arrives, it does not take over. I stay in control of myself.

I want a peaceful life. I will be creating a life of peaceful existence moving forward. No more drama in my life. No more out of control emotions in my life. I will be at peace, no matter what is happening around me. What goes on outside of me is none of my business. I am responsible for myself, how I am in the world, and how I interact with it. I am not responsible for how the world reacts or interacts with me. That is the business of others and for God, or the universe, whichever you prefer.

Bottomline today, my history is unimportant. It is all lies meant to keep me angry and sick. I choose to break from it and no longer speak of it. I have learned what I need to know from it. It is time to move on. It is time to embrace the unknown future living in the present moment and creating the future now, not from the familiar past, but into the unfamiliar and unknown possibilities. I am super excited!!

-Namaste