Everyone Needs a History

The phrase "Everyone needs a history" came to my attention recently.  I couldn't help but think that was a silly phrase because everyone has a history and more often than not we don't even want the whole history.  We want to pick and choose the parts of our history that we like the best and which we think others will like the best while we try and discard the more painful, less pleasant aspects of our lives.  I know, I've done that and it usually has to do with my inability to accept the reality of my life; I really don't like some parts of it.  I want my story to be different than what it is, brighter and happier with more successes and fewer failures, more joy and less sorrow, more security and less fear.  But no matter what my desires are for my personal history the story is already written and the outcome of my story unfolds now and also is currently in the making.

I think it's an important moment when you realize that you are standing at a point between, a place in which we constantly abide but with fluctuating levels of conscious awareness about what it really means to be at the balance point of our past and future. All that we have been, our experiences, our thoughts, our physical bodies, our emotions, our roles have synthesized to help shape who we are in this very moment and the life situation in which we find ourselves.  If we aren't happy with the view of that past vista or our present position we only have the current moment in which to change it.

That being said, we can't effectively change our lives or ourselves without truly embracing our past.  It is not only the bright, shiny things that make up who we are and denying the dark, scary things doesn't make them go away, ameliorate their effects on our lives or change the fact that they happened.  You can't amputate a part of your life experience just because you don't like it and refusing to acknowledge it only makes it cry louder to be heard and to be embraced.

In my own experience I've talked quite a bit with people about my past relationship and the fact that it was abusive.  I could talk about the relationship being abusive, I could talk about my partner being abusive.  I couldn't talk about myself as an abused person nor could I admit that I took a hand in my own abuse.  When I finally did come to see that I was angry and I thought I was angry because it seemed as though here I was kickin' down the cobblestones of life when once again an ugly reality from my past came up to bite me in the ankle.  How dare that happen!  I've been processing all this stuff, I've been talking about it, I've moved on.  But in fact, I had just avoided taking my processing a level further and really seeing myself and my contribution to that experience.  It wasn't a new piece of information that I had come across, it was the same old thing rearing it's ugly visage because I hadn't dealt with it yet and it was time.

As I work to reclaim and rebuild my life I'm aware that all I have is now and yet my history doesn't escape me.  I can choose the aspects of my past that will help to shape my future only if I embrace all of my past, otherwise my past specters will silently wend their way into my future creation and undermine the foundation I am so carefully trying to build.  Denying our history we become prisoners of it.  Embracing our history frees us from its confines and pathological influences.  Upon reflection the phrase "Everyone needs a history" doesn't seem so silly anymore.