One of the most difficult challenges to long-term relationships is the time we spend together fussing over our shared pasts. Whether we’re with siblings, parents, children, other family members or friends, we drag around our conflicting memories and dredge them up over and over, analyzing them endlessly or sniping at each other whenever we get a chance to make our points—that we were right, back then, and others were wrong, that we were justly aggrieved and unfairly injured.
Our pasts are all dark and filled with resentments; none of us is an exception. We just didn’t understand very much. We were misunderstood and mistreated. And pretty mean, too. And stupid. And insensitive. And at times downright destructive. We generally made a mess of things—certainly our relationships—and none of us, none of them, were ever as forgiving and accepting and appreciative as we should have been.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just agree to let the past go, rather than try to change it, or dwell on its disappointments? What a relief that would be. Because, in fact, we can’t change the past. It’s not possible. The past is gone. It has passed. Maybe that’s why they call it “the past….”
Spending present moments trying to fix or change our variously muddied versions of what happened in the past is a perfect waste of infinitely valuable present-time.
The present moment is the only time we’ll ever have to be kind to each other, laugh together, share interests and good times. The present is the only time we can ever actually hold in our hands, make the most of, do something with, and about. The present is the only time we’ll ever give or receive anything, any gift at all. Maybe that’s why they call it the “present….”
The past is just gone. It isn’t, anymore. It can’t be fixed or remedied.
When we spend the present moment attempting to rectify something that happened in the past, we surrender all the fresh possibilities inherent in our sparkling new moments—to our sad pasts! Because in attempting to fix the past, we relive it.
If we want justice, vengeance, fairness, recognition, or love because of our unhappy pasts, and choose to use our present moments to work hard on addressing all that sad past stuff, we’ll just stay stuck back there in all its ugliness. By hauling our dismal pasts into our present moments, we’ll not only fill up our present moments with past hurts, guilt and regrets, but we’ll also insure that our futures will be as bleak as our pasts were—because we are not using our present moments to create happier realities.
Similarly, while reliving happy memories may have its place, when we dwell on them, try to relive or recapture them, we lose our present opportunities to create new joy. No matter how tender or alive the past feels compared with the present, whether incomparably sad, or incomparably sweet—either way, our happiest option is to leave the past behind us, get out of our past completely, and focus on what’s next, on creating whatever different possibility today holds for joy. (It helps if you can see yourself, your identity, as a very light, empty container ready to be filled with present possibilities, rather than a heavy one already filled to overflowing with past influences.)
One can listen attentively to another’s past grievances, or express profound regret at having caused them pain. However, apologies work because they’re rooted in deep caring during the present moment. The only part of apology and forgiveness that heals is the part that conveys, in one way or another, “I deeply care about you now, you’re important to me now, your happiness is important to me, now.” Add to these a mutually concerted effort to let the past go, to forget that the injuries ever happened, and we have received a brand-new gift: a lifetime of new, present-moment opportunities to contribute to one another’s lives upon which to build our future relationship.
And what is a relationship, after all, but an opportunity to serve another person, permission to love them?
Will we ever hurt each other again? Of course we will. The uncontrollable and unavoidable cost of human relationships is their potential for unpredictable pain. We’re called humans because…well, we’re human! How we handle that pain, however, is what makes human relationships possible.
Unfortunately, beating one another over the head with our past sorrows never changed anyone, or any relationship, except perhaps for the worst. Whether we decide to leave our dear ones, or to keep on loving them, our best response to being hurt or having been hurtful is always to let it go, right now. Forever. It didn’t happen. And instead, do your best to make the next instant a great one, either with them or without them. That’s the best we can ever do anyway, for ourselves or for anyone else.
When we accept, appreciate and forgive ourselves and each other, right now, we’re free to focus on doing our best to create new loving and happy present moments, whether apart or together, right now. And if we don’t experience happiness right now, if we don’t choose to share love right now, when will we ever? Now is the only time we will ever have to do anything.