Newsletter - February 2008

The Gift

'Mommy did they have cars when you were young?' I stopped applying my lipstick and looked at my 8 year old boy's innocent face with shock! How old does he think I am. I turned back to the mirror to see an attractive young women looking back at me. And suddenly I noticed her eyes - the eyes full of guilt and regret - the eyes with a past. How did this happen? When did my hopes turn into regrets? When did I acquire a past - I only had a future - my parents were the ones with a past.

We all have a past - some learn from it and move, the rest of us refuse to deal with it and hence raise our Nemesis - the goddess of chastisement and vengeance. We may believe that the past is water under the bridge; the current that washes away the mistakes of our youth. The reality however is that our indiscretions, our lost loves, the addictions we gave into, the opportunities we threw away, all of these want some retribution from us - they need acknowledgement before we can put them to rest.
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When past mistakes are denied, the goddess Nemesis dams up the water of life and prevents it from flowing. We need a great deal of energy to control prevent her from creating havoc in our lives. Our Nemesis deciphers the secret wailing of the water and whispers it into our ear. We hear her voice every time we com e up with a great idea - we hear her saying 'don't be stupid - you will never achieve that - you aren't good enough - look at what happened last time you tried.'

The past we deny turns to guilt or regret. The guilts we hide:
a. Do you remember the time you cheated in a test?
b. Or the time you took something that was not yours?
c. The time you enjoyed a good gossip about your best friend divulging a secret you swore you would not repeat?
d. The time you said things to your children that you wish you could take back?
And there the regrets we lock away:
a. Not preparing adequately for exams that would have given you life changing options
b. The apology you should have made in order to hold on to a cherished friendship
c. The job you turned down because you were afraid of the responsibility
d. Or the intimate relationship you ran away from because you were afraid of its intensity?

For every crime committed against society, our legal system has a punishment. These punishments vary in severity according to the nature of the crime. However, the penalty for the crime against the self is much more severe - it is a life sentence of self loathing and under-achievement.

No matter how well we believe we have concealed the errors of the past, sooner or later, our Nemesis appears demanding retribution, bringing reminders back into our lives of the mistakes we made and the sins we have committed.

To put the past to rest requires courage. The consequences of our actions must be faced and analysed so that we can learn and grow strong. Let's look at cheating for a test. I can say everyone cheats, accepting that cheating is the norm and bury it and thus creating guilt. Alternatively, I can decide to take responsibility, which goes something like this: 'I cheated, I had a choice to cheat or not to cheat and I chose cheating - I am in control of my actions - why did I cheat? Probably because I did not understand the work and I was afraid to ask for help, I lacked the courage to ask for help.' If I don't accept that I need help and ask develop the courage to ask for it, I will repeat the same action over and over again and hence will miss my golden life.

If I analyse all of the other examples, it will become evident that each and every time, I acted out of fear. Fear is part of life and is required for our self preservation. If we are not afraid to cross the road, we will get killed. Learning how to cross the road - wait for the traffic light, look left, look right and look left again - allows us to cross the road and not die. We fear failure - that we are not good enough, that we don't have what it takes, or even that we may succeed and then will not be able to keep it up. Facing our fears it the only price the goddesses Nemesis will accept. Here is a five step programme to help deal with the past.

1. Five Step Programme to deal with the past
2.

Accept Remarks

1 Loss No matter what the details of the situation are, you are likely to be experiencing a sense of loss. This will have a very strong emotional impact on you.

2 Grief The emotional response to loss is grief. People deal with grief differently.

3 Feelings Listen to your feelings and your intuition about what you need to recover. Crying is healing. Screaming, kicking, boxing are all good healers - just make sure you don't hurt yourself or others in the process.

4 New Reality Part of the task of grieving is to accept the new reality and find our way back to feeling more optimistic again - blocking out feelings will delay the healing process.

5 Help It may help to talk to others who have been through very painful experiences and come out the other end. What thoughts and strategies did they use? Or you may need to seek some professional help.

Denying our involvement in our past makes us victims of the present. It also creates the wrath of goddess Nemesis who comes out in full force to punish us, by allowing the past to dictate our future. It goes something like this: 'I can't do anything to change my fate - that's my destiny, that is who I meant to be'. We abdicate control of what happens to us.

The past is never fully behind us; ghosts lurk in the shadows eager to remind us of the choices we made. Permitting ourselves to look back we may find surprisingly

• an old friend with open arms or
  
• an old enemy with a hidden agenda;
  
• or a grown up son with a forgiving heart;
  
• By refusing to look back, and denying the past, we are condemned to repeat it!

Mistakes have a way of drifting back into our lives and when they do, we have to pay for them. The real strength in life is the ability to rise from the ashes and to claim the life that is rightfully ours. Contrary to popular belief, a good life is not a right - we can only claim it if we learn to face our fears and learn from our mistakes.

I am truly grateful to my 8 year old son who made me aware so early on in my life that we all have a past, whether we are aware of it or not.

So let's make the past history, and as we know that the future is a mystery, so all we have is the present which is the real gift of life that's why we call it a present!