Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life.
[00:00:08] But internally and in relationships, we may wish for better.
[00:00:13] Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life.
[00:00:21] My name is Dr. Ann O' Hare, and this is the Spiritual American.
[00:00:26] Foreign.
[00:00:31] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Spiritual American.
[00:00:34] My name is Dr. Ann O' Hare and I'm your host. And today we are going to be talking about releasing your past.
[00:00:45] Very interesting topic. Hopefully we'll be able to talk about it in a new way that you haven't heard before.
[00:00:52] So releasing the past. Have you ever heard somebody say, well, it's over now, it's past, Let it go, just forget about it.
[00:01:01] We've heard this.
[00:01:04] Sometimes we can't forget things, isn't it? Sometimes there's feelings and like our heart is affected.
[00:01:13] Our heart meaning like our deep feelings, our feelings that are close to our being are affected with our memories.
[00:01:23] Today I want to talk about letting go of the past in a thoughtful way and in a way that involves the heart and the past, present and future, like what I want moving forward.
[00:01:38] So I was thinking about this, and on one hand, we have the level of the typical level that people talk about this like it already happened so long ago. Why do I keep thinking about it? This is how PTSD works. Also, PTSD works by you have an experience and then there's a big emotional connection with that experience. And because it's so deep and because it's such a powerful emotional connection, it influences me moving forward, affects how I think about myself, it affects how I think about relationships, it affects my worldview and so forth. So it's a very deep thing, what we call ptsd. But even if it's not ptsd, I would say the post Traumatic stress disorder means that it's so deep and it's so painful that I'm having trouble functioning. Like, it's to the point where it's like a red alarm. It needs to be taken care of. But I think that we can look at our past, not just the negative, painful things, but also the positive things. There's a way that we can review the last episode or two episodes ago was honest life assessment. This is part of that. I think, how can we take a look at our past?
[00:03:01] Maybe we want to move forward.
[00:03:04] Maybe we want to be fresh with each moment. I know we talk about mindfulness and things like that. It just seems like a very high aim to be able to think, oh, I'm present in this moment. Now I'm present in this Moment. Now I'm present in this moment. Yes. Ultimately, that's.
[00:03:24] I would say that's part of a spiritual aim, is to be able to be free and clear and present in each moment and uninfluenced by thinking and emotions and memories and things like that.
[00:03:38] But I think what we can do and what I'd like to share is a way of kind of looking at. Looking at my past through the lens of the heart.
[00:03:47] What is it that I would like to keep and what can I let go of?
[00:03:56] What really matters to us is what touches the heart, the feelings, what's meaningful to us. Anybody can remember, you know, a situation. As a matter of fact, there's this saying, people don't remember what you say. It's just how you make them feel. Right. And we can check with ourselves if that's true. Is that true? Do I really remember every detail of what somebody said? Or what am I remembering about my childhood, let's say, or being a teenager or whatever portion of my life or situational portion of my life? What am I remembering about it? Is it painful? Do I remember that is the main memory of childhood, like that this didn't happen, or I felt upset or whatever. Is the main memory that I felt good and cared for and enjoyed my childhood or teenage years or whatever it is, Even in major relationships, my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my siblings. What do I want to keep about that relationship?
[00:04:59] I would assert that nothing is all good or all bad.
[00:05:03] That maybe if we take a look, like I said, through the lens of the heart. So I'm not looking at specific incidences where I can react to and get angry. And this should have been like this, and this shouldn't have been like this. And they're not being a good person in the relationship. Or maybe I was the one. I failed. I didn't give as much as I should have or whatever. But maybe I can look at it in a more holistic way, in a more balanced way.
[00:05:30] Every situation you can say has good and bad in it.
[00:05:35] So I'll give an example.
[00:05:38] I can look at maybe my teenage years.
[00:05:43] Let's say that. Let's take a look at the teenage years. And what is it about my teenage years that I would like to remember that I would like to bring forward? And the thought came. Music. That's the thought that came. I used to go whenever I had a chance in high school, a free period or anytime I would go to the music room and play the piano and sing and so forth. And that was my Go to.
[00:06:07] And as when I asked myself that question, what would I like to remember from my teenage years? It was music.
[00:06:16] So how did I feel when I was able to go play the music or play the piano or sing or so forth? I felt good, I felt belonging, I felt creative, I felt self expressed, I felt really happy and good. So I can keep that.
[00:06:31] Maybe not the details of the memory, but how about whenever I think of my teenage years, I can think I was really happy and I felt like I belonged and so forth. Now of course I can generate other memories right of that period.
[00:06:47] Same thing with my childhood, younger years.
[00:06:51] Let me find what would I like to bring forward from that time of my life I could think of right now my relationship with my sister.
[00:07:01] It's funny, we don't really talk too much now as adults and we were so close when we were young and so the feeling. What feeling would I like to bring forward? Actually whenever I talk about my childhood, I say we, you know, we did this and we. It was like that for us. So I was so close to her that it was like we were always together. So what would I like to bring forward?
[00:07:27] What would I like to remember about my childhood? Well, I can remember that feeling of closeness, that feeling of sharing, that feeling of being together all the time.
[00:07:38] That's a nice feeling.
[00:07:40] So I can remember that. So why is this called releasing the past?
[00:07:45] Because if I say, all right, this is my childhood and what I'm going to remember about my childhood, what I'm going to take forward from my heart is the feeling of being, being together, always having somebody around, feeling like I'm sharing my life with someone. That feeling as a teenager I'm happy, I'm self expressed and I can forget the rest of it.
[00:08:13] It's funny, I'm sharing this now. I didn't know that this is what I was going to say, by the way. Exactly. I did not know that this is what I was going to say. But it's working as I'm talking about it. Why hold on to all the rest of that stuff?
[00:08:26] I don't need to hold on to this incident or that incident. Let me go from each stage or each part of my history and decide what I want to keep.
[00:08:38] What would I like to keep about my nursing career?
[00:08:42] Let's say, what would I like to keep? Well, I want to keep this feeling of that I really wanted to put myself in a position to help.
[00:08:53] So that could be like sacrifice or love, let's say. So love or sacrifice or being a good Instrument to help or to heal.
[00:09:03] That's very moving actually. But I can bring that forward.
[00:09:09] So look at those three things right there. I'm always with somebody, I'm always happy and self expressed. And I have a potential to help and heal and be with others in an impactful way.
[00:09:22] What if that was all I remembered and I didn't remember anything else?
[00:09:30] Very powerful. So there's a spiritual principle that goes along with this and that is that when we are living our life, of course there's many, many details and many, many relationships and circumstances and whatever that we're going through in our life. But when we leave the body, when we pass on, when we leave the body, all of those details are done.
[00:09:54] But what's in my heart goes on.
[00:09:59] What I'm holding in my heart, I take with me.
[00:10:06] Sometimes there's a saying, your final thought will lead you to your destination or your final feelings will help you.
[00:10:12] This is why we do memorial services. This is why we do.
[00:10:17] Different cultures do different things when people pass on different memorial rituals and things. Why? Because we're remembering the person. We're bringing up all the feelings and we're remembering the things that we would like to hold onto about that person.
[00:10:36] So why can't I do it for myself now?
[00:10:40] I don't need to remember every single detail of everything that happened. Why don't I just remember? Yeah, it was good, but. But make it be authentic. Not like, oh yeah, I had a great childhood. In the meantime, your mind and your heart is full of all this painful, painful things.
[00:10:56] So make it authentic. So what I wrote here is what memories do I really want to keep. So let's do it as a reflection. So this will be a short episode because I think I just expressed pretty well that, that the mechanism of what to do. Think of a time period and think of what is it that you would like to remember. So first reflection, first reflection. Question is, am I ready to let go of maybe details, excess de. Excessive details, things that don't matter.
[00:11:35] And also painful things from my past that maybe I'm holding on to in my mind.
[00:11:41] Am I ready to let go of some of that as much as I can? Right. Am I ready?
[00:11:50] Okay, reflection two would be maybe get a piece of paper and a pen and just maybe cut your life up into sections like I just did just now, spontaneously.
[00:12:02] Because I think there's a natural. Maybe we can use the natural stages of life as a guide here. Childhood, teenage, young adult, marriage and children. If you did that, marriage and children, career, things like that and see. What would you like to bring forward from each of those experiences? What is the essence that you would like to bring forward?
[00:12:30] It's actually a beautiful practice.
[00:12:36] It's almost like you're coming to terms with your life while you're still here.
[00:12:42] How wonderful.
[00:12:43] Wouldn't it be nice to be able to release all those details now? I don't need to bring them forward.
[00:12:54] So reflection number three would be, what would be possible if I could let go of all those excess details, painful memories, regrets, whatever it is, and if I could just hold on to that essence moving forward, what would be possible?
[00:13:15] What would the rest of my life be like?
[00:13:19] Would I be able to be closer to being present in the moment? You know, we have, in the Brahma Kumaris, we have a principle. It's called the power to pack up or put a full stop. Like, you move from one scene to the next and you don't remember what there was before.
[00:13:39] I think that if we focus on those heartfelt feelings, the essence of what we want to take forward, it's easier for us to remain present, that there are less thoughts.
[00:13:53] If you notice, you can check for yourself really quickly. If I'm thinking of something negative or painful, there's lots and lots of thoughts and lots and lots of details going on. But if I'm thinking of something essenceful, it's. It's like the heart just says, okay, here it is. And there's not that much thinking. It's more of a feeling. It's more experiential.
[00:14:15] So what would happen if I wasn't thinking so much and I'm just going from one scene to the next? I would think that we would be able to be more present, we would be able to finish things easier. And maybe we could even get into the habit of not remembering negative things, not bringing them forward, not carrying them with us.
[00:14:40] So I'll leave it there. I hope that's given you something to work with. Actually, I'm gonna do it myself now for the rest of my life, because I just did it for those three sections. But I think this is very valuable. Maybe it's a crossroads where we can just say, look, I really would like to free myself of some of this excess and bring forth just what I really care about. So I'll leave it there. Remember, our slogan is heal, empower and serve. And until next time, take care of.
