This week: Past, Present, Future Edited by: Kit  
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What do you do when your brain insists on reminding you of embarrassing incidents?
How much does your past affect your present, and your future?
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is all about memories, and the way that our mind copes with them.
Kit |
Do you ever have those times when you’re trying to sleep but your mind thinks that what you really need right now is to mentally relive some embarrassing moment from your childhood? Or maybe you had a conversation when you couldn’t find the right words – now you know exactly what to say but, of course, it’s too late. I’m often reminded of the wrong decisions I have made. I am shown, in vivid colour, my mistakes, and the impact those have had not only on myself, but on my loved ones. It’s often said that nobody’s perfect, but I sometimes wonder how I compare to others. It is easy for me to believe that I truly am deeply flawed. That maybe I am more messed-up than others. I’m hardly some career criminal – I have never been in trouble with the law and I don’t ever intend for that to change. One does not have to commit the worst of crimes to be a less-than-good person, though.
Sometimes, people tell me that we’re all sinners and they mean it in a comforting way. Like, it’s okay, it’s natural, don’t be too harsh on yourself – it’s something we all suffer from. Just try to do your best to be better. I do try my best to be better, but I don’t find much – if any – comfort in the idea that I was made to mess up. Because that means that no matter how I try, even if I do manage to prevent myself from repeating my mistakes, I’m likely to find new, novel ways to create more messes. And, let’s face it, though there are some mistakes I will definitely not repeat ever again, I seem to find it impossible to learn that if I want to lose weight I should stop giving in to the temptation of that wonderful carrot cake they sell in the nearest town… Thank goodness we only go there once every few weeks.
I dwell on the past. I admit it. Another thing I’m told is to live in the present, but the past has shaped me into who I am today and it’s hard to let go. Because it’s not just my own mess-ups that haunt me. I have been wronged, too, in a wide variety of ways. I know that it’s good to forgive and forget, and I have forgiven some people for some things, but I cannot forgive everything. Nor do I ever forget. A small example – my boyfriend at the time gave away my keyboard to a friend’s child because he thought I was not using it. I was upset because, whilst it was true that I wasn’t using it at the time, it was my keyboard so he had no right to give it away without my consent. I could hardly ask for it back because the child was super happy with it. That would have been cruel. Which left me without my keyboard. I forgave my boyfriend – his intentions weren’t harmful. But even decades later I haven’t forgotten and it’s made me more protective of my belongings. And that’s just one little thing – much, much worse stuff has happened in my life. How people just let go of their past I don’t know…
So how does one live in the present without being chained to the past? It’s not always easy. The important thing, I think, is to not make negative experiences the foundation your self is built upon. You are more than what was done to you. You are more than the mistakes you’ve made that impacted yourself and others. As with so many things in life, it’s about finding that balance. Don’t try to suppress it – acknowledge what happened. Take from it what you can. Then give it its proper place rather than shape yourself around it. An embarrassing moment from when you were five years old? Yeah, it made you cringe and it may not be fun to think back on but you were five. Every kid has embarrassing moments. That’s just being a kid. Something you did a month ago that ended up being hurtful to another? Well, if you haven’t already, apologise and make things right and if you have, be a better person to them now so that you won’t be bothered by your brain ten years from now reliving that memory.
I don’t know about you, but I’d quite like to create a future for myself in which those unpleasant memories no longer keep me awake. I don’t know if that is actually possible. Sometimes you can’t make things right. Sometimes other people refuse to make things right, even though they really should. Too often, there is no justice. It’s when something’s unresolved that makes the brain keep trying to process the event, even decades later, I think. Too many people believe that apologizing makes them weak. And I mean a real apology, not that ‘I am sorry you feel that I did something wrong’ nonsense – there’s no accountability in that. Too many people are unrepentant. I guess that one way to work on a brighter future is to be someone who does hold themselves accountable and who does apologise when it’s merited. That way, we can try to make things right, or at least help the other person process what happened to them, so that they aren’t kept awake at night, reliving it.
Of course, random events are always there to remind us of the strangeness of life. One time, when I was on my way to school, it was snowy and icy out there. I slipped and, unfortunately for me, what was underneath the snow was very nasty. So I had to go back home and get showered and changed, and ended up late for school – and I was usually a good kid, never late. There was nobody to blame for that. Even I don’t blame myself for it, because sometimes stuff just happens. Those are the absurdities of life that don’t keep me up at night. It was gross, sure, but also kind of funny because of course that would happen to me…
Hope your mind’s being nice to you,
Kit
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The Spiritual Newsletter Team
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Spiritual: October 22, 2025 Issue [#13411]
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