[Neurons] 2018 Neurons #39 FROM THE PAST INTO THE PRESENT

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2018 Neurons #39

September 17, 2018

Getting Over the Past Series (#5)

 

FROM THE PAST

INTO THE PRESENT

 

 

The past posts on Neurons have focused on the subject of getting over the
past.  While this is not the theme, purpose, or essence of NLP, it is one of
its well-known applications.  The relevance of getting over the past is due
to how many people are stuck living in the past.  And when you are stuck in
the past, you are not present in the here and now.  And without being
present in the here and now-it is difficult to seize the day, enjoy the
moment, and positively prepare for the future.

 

Given that you know from the previous posts that "the past" is not a thing
and not a place, but a concept of the mind, you know where freedom from the
past lies.  If "living in the past" itself is a way of thinking and leads to
certain feelings, physiology, and orientation, then moving beyond that
involves a new way of thinking.  How does that work?  The first (living in
the past) works by remembering some event that previously occurred- and
remembering it in a certain way.  The second (living in the new with an eye
on the future) involves releasing, forgiving, and focusing on the now.

 

The previous posts have emphasized that to get stuck in the past, you have
to keep entertaining your memory- the internal movie in your mind-of an
undesirable event and code it so that you are inside it and re-experiencing
it.   Do that and you have a prison.  To get beyond that, step out of that
memory.  Step into the now, step into a more resourceful state of
mind-and-emotion, and observe it from a distance.  To do that, you may need
to release your desire (or 'need') to understand the past, figure out "why"
it happened as it did- and decide "enough is enough, time to move on."

 

If you start to adopt this way of thinking about what happened, you will
learn how to get over the past and then beyond it.  There are many other
empowering beliefs and understandings that can help.

"The past events are past, experiencing it once was enough, let me learn
from it and move on."  "Today will be 'the past' next week, next month, next
year- I'll focus today on doing the best I can to create the foundation for
the best future that's possible."

 

Now you would think that getting into the present would be the simplest and
most obvious thing in the world.  It is for children and animals.  But
because you are a meaning-maker and because you need referents with which to
make-meaning and because what you have lived through and experience makes up
your own personal referents- you have a bias to assume that what you lived
through and experience is especially real, determining, and controlling.
That's the availability bias at work.  You have it available and so you use
it.  You draw all sorts of conclusions (meanings) from it and you mostly do
it with the cognitive distortions.

This means that to create a real mess in your live and to get stuck in the
past, all you have to do is think like a child- personalize,
over-generalize, awfulize, discount, etc.  And if you want to make things
worse for yourself- outframe all of that with some very limiting beliefs:

              "The past determines the future."

"People can never get over what happens to them in the past, they will carry
it with them for the rest of their lives."

"To get over the past, you have to go through it over and over and over and
that takes years of pain."

"What your parents did to you or someone else did to you contaminates you
forever."

 

That's one choice and even though many people don't know it, it is a choice
that they make.  They may not make it consciously, but they make it.
Another choice is to let it go.  It is to accept that bad and unpleasant
things happen and to then let them go.  You can make a decision that what
you do today and the referent experiences that you create today will
determine your future.  You can decide that what you focus on and the
quality of your thinking is yours.  Then, if you don't know how to monitor
your thinking, you can decide that that's the first thing you will begin to
do- today.

 

Now while living in the present is a challenge- it is a challenge that you
can meet if you so choose.  That is, you can "lose your meta-mind of old
memories and come to your senses" (to adapt a quote from Fritz Perls).  You
can learn to "be here now."  Fritz often said that Gestalt is the psychology
of the obvious- referring to the obviousness of our senses and the
obviousness of learning to really see, really hear, really sense the
sensations all about you.

 

NLP adapted this as it put a renewed emphasis on being able to use
sensory-based language.  Using the language of the senses brings us back to
today's reality- what's happening right in front of you.  It takes you out
of the old trances and the old post-hypnotic suggestions that might lock you
into the past.  It invites you to step into the now- into what you see and
hear in this present moment.

 

To read more about this- see MovieMind (2002) - a basic NLP book without the
jargon. And for sensory based language - Communication Magic (2001) and
Executive Thinking (2018).

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director 

Neuro-Semantics 

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


    cid:261CED33-4408-4124-862B-B9A4B37A367A

    

 

Dr. L. Michael Hall writes a post on "Neurons" each Monday.  For a free
subscription, sign up on www.neurosemantics.com.   On that website you can
click on Meta-Coaching for detailed information and training schedule.   To
find a Meta-Coach see  <http://www.metacoachfoundation.org>
www.metacoachfoundation.org.   For Neuro-Semantic Publications --- click
"Products," there is also a catalog of books that you can download.   

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20180916/6cdf0838/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 3892 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist8.pair.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20180916/6cdf0838/attachment.jpg>