HOW THE PAST LIVES TODAY AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Now you would think that getting over the past would be the simplest thing in the world for a human being. After all, you live in the present and, in fact, that’s the only actual realm of time you can live in. You actually can do none other. That’s because the past does not exist. It is literally past. Nor does the future exist. Only the present exists and that’s why you can only live there. What we call “the past” and “the future” are only concepts in our minds—the past is memory and the future is imagination.

Yet “the past” can live within us or shall I say that we can live in “the past”—in our minds and bodies. How does that work? It works in two ways— one neurologically and the other semantically. Neurologically, “the past” lives in us by the things we have learned and the experiences that we have encoded in our bodies. To go through, or have, any experience is to have a neurological encoding as your body registers the event and your neuro-pathways are activated. Do that repeatedly and you create a habit (a program as it were) for that event. Learning to ride a bike, drive a car, make friends, handle criticism, feel bad about an insult, fear public speaking, etc. all of those experiences can now be encoded in your neurology as a response program that you learned at some time in the past.

Today that past learning is present in you as a result of what and how you learned or experienced something. That is, the effect of the past is still with you as a learning, as a program, a habit. It is in that way that you now live it. You live it not because the past still exists, but because a leftover aspect of the past (e.g., a learning) is still active and available to you and in you today. This does not mean the past determines your present or future, it only means that what you learned once-upon- a-time you are choosing (consciously or unconsciously) keeping today.

This leads to a very personal question. What are you keeping today in your mind and neurology that arose at some time in your past? What old learnings (e.g., beliefs, understandings, decisions, identities, prohibitions, etc.) did you make once upon a time which you are keeping alive today and living? Is it useful? Does it bring out your best? Does it enhance your life? Does it empower you as a person? Is it time to let it go?

This gives you another secret for getting over the past— after you have made a decision to get over it and developed awareness about yourself about how you code something of your past, run a quality control or ecology check on it. In NLP “ecology” speaks about your internal environment— the mental and emotional contexts that are governing your mind-body system. The questions in the paragraph above starting with “Question” are all ecology questions. They give you a chance to check

things out. Are they good for you? Do they bring out your best? Via these kinds of questions you can run a quality control check on your life, on the way you are living your life.

I find that people often have to do this before they are convinced that they need to let go of the past. They hold on to the past because they think there is some value in holding on. They may even fear letting go or worse, they may not have permission to let go. Of course, fear of letting go, prohibition of letting go, refusal to let go— these are the kinds of attitudes or meta-level frames that will prevent you from getting over the past. And for that very reason, getting clear that “living in the past” is not good for you, not healthy for you, and not ecological— is your first step.

Once you are convinced, then comes the know-how processes for getting over the past. And the first of these is changing the learnings. If “the past” lives in you and is activated in you due to the old learnings— then that’s what has to change. The next personal question, given this, is: What are the learnings that you made at some previous time that no longer serves you very well? What beliefs, decisions, understandings, prohibitions, identifies, etc.?

There are especially nasty beliefs about the past that need to be released and/or changed. “The past determines the present and future” is one. Believe that and that belief will create a sense of helpless determinism in you. You will then look to certain past events as controlling factors— unchangeable factors. That’s a great way to feel stuck.

“That past event causes me to think, feel, act, be the way that I am.” is another nasty belief that will undermine your sense of personal power. The truth is that “that event” was just the time and place when you learned something. Maybe what you learned was valid for that time and place. But now that context is long gone. You are no longer a teenager. You are no longer a child. Whatever you learned may have even helped in some way to get you to where you are today. But that doesn’t mean that you have to keep it or that it is the best learning.

Changing these beliefs are easy—if you know how to change a belief. If you don’t, then these beliefs will do a job on you and will determine your present and future. That’s what beliefs do. As self- fulfilling prophecies, beliefs forecast your future and thereby help to create the very thing that you believe in. That’s one reason to be very cautious even skeptical about what you believe—it can create the very thing that you are afraid will happen.

How do you change a belief? The most direct way is to change the confirmation structure of the belief— disconfirm the thought that you previously confirmed and turned into a belief. The worst thing is to argue against the belief. That is the hard way and it usually doesn’t even work. Use the quality control questions to begin a disconfirmation of the old belief. If you don’t know how to do that, ask your nearest Neuro-Semanticist!

For more information: See Secrets of Personal Mastery (1997) Sub-Modalities Going Meta (2004)