Dear Anita,

Good morning. Thank you for summarizing in your last post. Many different topics covered, and one central theme.

You wrote:

We keep experiencing our past in the present time, and so, this is how we can know what happened then.

How true! This morning what I take from this is the following: the past is not merely the past – it is also the present. It is about the patterns, it is about the reactions. Life continues to happen today, presenting similar patterns, presenting similar reactions as it did in the past. Observation continues to happen. Humanity continues to show many of the same characteristics as what I experienced as a child.  I continue to show this. The difference is that now, I have the liberty to observe. I am not just immersed, I have clarity. I can observe. I may not feel different, as of course I have a lifetime of patterns that have been deeply been enmeshed in me, but yet I do have the liberty to observe. An example is my interaction over the weekend about the clothing and the mother-in-law. I will say that if I saw this interaction just two years ago, I might have thought differently. I might have thought -wow look how patient that daughter-in-law is with her mother, how sweet. I might have thought, oh wow look atThis elderly lady so interested in fashion. I might not have seen any of it as negative, i don’t know. in fact I might have just seen it as simple or sad. Now that I have the clarity of what I know, I can observe different scenarios around me in my life, and that of others. See it for what it is, as you said the past Also occurs in present day.

I sometimes get so fixated on being able to truly feel my past.  To truly process it. But  Based on our conversation this weekend I realize that it is not just digging back to the old, so much of the old still happens in present day. I have the ability to change my interactions, patterns, and baseline state in each and every moment in the present. In the now. Simply by noticing. I do not have to climb back into my childhood and search like an archaeologist for fossils trying to undo old patterns. No, not only does this sound daunting, it might not be as feasible as it sounds like it may be.   In fact, Anita, I feel much lighter knowing that so much of my progress of “undoing” the bad patterns from my childhood can truly be done NOW in present day by observing and being aware of the life around me now. Because I experience the past in present time