Your Past Shapes Your Present
But it doesn’t have to dictate your future; neuroscience tells us you get to choose
“Life can only be understood by looking backward; but it must be lived looking forward.” — Kierkegaard, Danish theologian
A friend confided in me one day that while she knew she could use counseling to move forward in her life, she hesitated because she wanted to address the current issues in her life, not the baggage of the past.
Fair point.
However, as Kierkegaard wisely said so long ago, life can only be understood by looking backward. And once we understand, we are more empowered to live forward better, stronger, and with more joy!
Dipping into our past often clues us into the “thing underneath the thing.”
Childhood experiences leave an impression, an imprint of sorts. This could be an untrue belief, an unmet emotion need, or a big question on our psyche that we continue to ask in our adult lives.
For example, when something you had no control over as a child happens, let’s say your parents divorce, (anyone else grow up in the 90s?), it can leave you with a big question mark of “am I wanted.” You then move into your adult life asking this question of your spouse, your boss, your children. And more often than not, you do this unknowingly.
Here’s where we can fall down the stress-spiral. 😵💫
If you perceive a “no” to that question, you feel charged, triggered, jabbed in the heart, whatever term you want to use. You feel stressed.
Your Life Story is Written in Your Body
Our upbringing, culture, experiences, and traumas all inform our expectations, our sense of internal safety, and how our nervous system unconsciously responds to stress.
That last one is big.
Our nervous system is smart and it takes all our experiences, including those aforementioned unconscious beliefs and questions, and uses them to discern the level of threat you are under. And your whole system responds accordingly.
Meaning, if you’ve had a lot of alarm in your system throughout your life, then your nervous system is on high alert, it’s familiar and practiced in flooding your system with the biochemistry of stress.
Dr. Hillary McBride, in her fantastic book, The Wisdom of Your Body, says it this way:
“The stress response itself remains unique to each of us depending on our life experiences. Whatever patterns we have used most in the past are the ones that form the neurological grooves in our brain-body system.”
And this flooding of stress deeply impacts our day to day life.
The more stress you experience, the more clouded your thinking becomes. The more clouded your thinking becomes, the less awareness you have to move through life with ease verses getting consumed with overwhelm.
But here is the beautiful truth, neurons that fire together, wire together! Meaning, we can rewire our brains to form new neurological grooves. Grooves of less reactivity, less charge, and less overwhelm.
We, in our brilliant human design, have the capacity to begin to learn how our body is responding and make those responses conscious. And from here, we can choose to return to clarity, connection, and joy.
Imagine moving through life with a settledness in your soul that is not dependent on your circumstances.
Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul, calls this unconditional joy.
4 Steps to Rewiring Your Stress System
1 Bring to mind something mildly stressful, but make sure you can stay in your comfort zone of presence, so no higher than a 4 out of 10 on your stress scale. Feel the feels. Remember, you must feel to heal!
2 Notice what is happening in your body: sweaty palms, heart pounding, any form of contraction. This is how you begin to make your unconscious stress response conscious. Notice without being judgy or critical, rather more curious. Now, shake that off.
3Take a few slow, smooth, full breaths to make space to listen to what your body, mind, and heart, needs to hear today. More feeling, less thinking. Here are some possibilities I commonly see:
I am worthy
I am enough
I do belong
I am wanted
4With your adult wisdom and a ton of self-compassion, speak it over yourself, even out loud! Notice bodily sensations that bubble up, emotions that rise to the surface, images that flash in your mind, perhaps even envision a spiritual figure or trusted friend giving you this infusion you need.
Finally, savor the goodness, the openness, perhaps the expansion you feel in your body and heart with this simple practice.
Neurons need a bit of time to rewire together, so sit with that image, or allow a smile to come to your face as you sense this goodness throughout your whole being.
You now have the framework to begin to wisely use your understanding of your past, to live more fully embodied and present into your future with more unconditional joy. Bliss.
Feel free to share your discoveries in the comments, I am listening!
