The Bigger Picture: One of the hardest things for us to do is to let go of our past. It is the single greatest obstacle we face to living in the present, writes Shalini Sinha
Most of us, for most of our day, have our attention somewhere else. Usually, it is in the past, as old experiences define our current moments.
Fears, doubts, worries and insecurities repeat in our minds and we confuse them with our immediate circumstances, arguing that what has happened today has made us doubt ourselves, or that the person in front of us makes us feel stupid. Actually, we've felt like this for some time.
Even our anxieties about the future - or the "unknown" - have their roots in our past. If we don't know what's coming, how can we know how to respond? And yet, it's not inevitable that we should worry about it. In fact, if we recognise ourselves as kind, intelligent, capable people, there is every reason to be hopeful.
Still, most of us are afraid to take risks or make changes in our lives. And it occurs to me that the difficulty is with the condition of our self-esteem and support systems - structures laid down through our past experiences.
Much of what goes on in our society today engages us only at the level of our minds. In this way, many of us try making an intellectual leap to let go of the past and to focus on the present. Our attempts usually involve distracting ourselves or numbing our feelings. In time, however, the feelings build up and spill out, and we end up more discouraged.
The fact is that human beings are not intellectual only. We feel life as much as we think about it. Thus, it makes no sense to value one aspect more than the other, and dismissing one only causes frustration.
Furthermore, not everything from our past demands our attention. What haunts us are the unresolved hurts. The experiences we processed and dealt with have just added to our sense of self and wisdom. What every hurtful experience has in common is that it leaves us feeling disempowered about ourselves and disappointed in others. If accumulated hurts are not resolved, that disempowered and disappointed view becomes our attitude in life.
Regardless of whether we believe in it, identify with it, even defend it, it will never be a factual view of our self or the world. It is just an accumulation of unresolved hurts that ultimately limit our potential.
Luckily, human beings have within themselves a very simple mechanism for healing emotional distress. The first step is to recognise that we are not islands. We do not resolve a struggle by isolating ourselves. Rather, isolation, marginalisation and loneliness create some of the greatest sources of pain among our experience. Thus, to heal an emotion (and every emotion can be healed), we need love, connection and to be noticed.
Most of us struggle to move on from our past simply because our experience has never been sufficiently recognised. This is true for us as individuals, as well as broadly in society where significant experiences of age, gender, class, racism, disability and sexuality are regularly ignored, dismissed and silenced.
Unfortunately, as long as we continue to be caught in our own hurts, we will find it difficult to acknowledge the experiences of others.
On the other hand, you'd be surprised how the world can change when we start listening, taking each other seriously and thinking of each other as able and responsible individuals. It is the secret that has been eluding us as we seek to build the well-functioning society we all need.
Still, sharing our struggles and listening to each other passively are not enough. There is work to be done if we are to recover fully an empowered perspective on ourselves and others. It takes a decision to change our perspective, and this takes awareness.
In truth, there are some things we've experienced that are so traumatic or such great losses that we feel we cannot let them go. We feel that doing so would disempower us. We would lose our voice. Often in these instances, the world around us seems to have failed to acknowledge what has happened to us. We feel a piece inside us has gone missing, and fear that if we let go of the hurt, we will have nothing left. And yet, the way our healing mechanism works is to allow us to remember, learn from and grow from it while we heal. The experience becomes a stronger part of us.
Even those who are creating the deepest hurts in society were not born with maliciousness in their hearts but are the products of vicious experiences. We may not want to admit it or forgive them, but we know it's true. We know it because we, too, hurt people, consciously or not.
We hurt others whenever we get confused, and we get confused whenever we hold onto hurt. Our empowerment begins when we notice how we feel and choose to believe in something that leaves us free - to enjoy every moment.
• Shalini Sinha practises as a life coach and Bowen practitioner in her clinic, Forward Movement.