I love to watch and rewatch programs. I find they give me a different view each time I watch them.
The first time through, I might just do a cursory watch and follow the story, the plot and anticipate the ending. It is exciting and new and fresh. Then I watch it again and I look deeper and find the writer and the director’s messages from the characters. Recently watching a Christmas in July special, I was reminded how important it is to keep our spirit in the present. Let me try to share what I mean.
Can you think of a time when you were hurt by an event? I am sure you can. It does not take much prompting to remember how a loved one hurt your feelings when they forgot an anniversary or a birthday. It does not take much to remember how a best friend blew you off to go to a concert with another friend. The mind can race back to the time when you were humiliated in front of a crowd at a party. Your heart drops every time you think of the day you received the news someone had died. We live for and in our past because that is what feels comfortable. Although painful, it is soothing. It also serves a purpose of choosing to push against the future.
On Saturday, while I made a supply of delicious sourdough pancakes, I watched a favourite show. The show is now in its 16th season and has seen so much happen. It was a Christmas episode from Season 4 and, of course, the problem was Christmas was ruined by a series of events. The protagonist and their whole gang went off to save the day elsewhere, leaving behind a skeleton crew to mourn the death of Christmas. The show then went on to build up to the true meaning of Christmas and how it was all saved in the end. One of the sub-stories of this episode was a historical break of family.
It makes me think of my friend who recently reunited with their child after many years of estrangement. They just stopped talking one day. My friend always said they thought they knew the original sin, but was never quite sure. They mourned this break but never quite knew how to make it right. They lived in the pain each day. Most recently, fate created the break they needed. Out of the blue, there they were, talking on the phone, purely by “accident.” Or was it an accident?
I called my friend and asked how it was going. Their response was, “It is like we have never been apart. The past is forgotten, and we have both chosen not to bring it up. We just began again.” The joy I could feel through the phone was palatable and I could hear as my friend embraced the gift they were given. The choice they both made to let the past go and not discuss it was the best course of action. The past does not matter anyway. It is gone in the past, and it is only our need to be right, or be made up to, or to soothe our own ego that is in the way.
In this show a father had blamed himself for five years in the death of his son-in-law, drinking himself into a daily coma and living like a hermit. The daughter, angry at the death of her husband, carried it well in her day-to-day life and worked very hard at staying angry. Yes, we have to work at staying angry. (That’s a topic for another column.) The grandson was the pawn in the game between the two, losing not only his father, but also his mother to her anger and grief, and his grandfather, who lived in shame and self-deprecation.
In the work I do with aging adults, I see so much pain that is left over from a life well lived. When we live life fully and with passion and gusto, we are certain to make mistakes, hurt feelings, err in ways that seem unforgivable. However, nothing — and I mean no-thing — is worthy of taking your life’s happiness.
I am going to say something here that will be disputed. In this, my 100th column, I am hoping I get a boatload of mail arguing my point with me. When you move from “no-where” to “now-here,” you must let go of your past baggage and look ahead. No-thing is un-let-go-able. Truly. We all have a choice to hold on or to let go and it is in holding on that we suffer. Human existence is plagued with suffering and the bulk of it is in holding onto resentment, grudges and hurt. In every grief, there is a time of mourning and loss and a time to let it go into the remembering part of your past, and let go of setting up house there.
The poem most read in the many celebration-of-life services I witness starts with, “Miss me, but let me go,” or some form of remember me, but move on. I hear so often, “I just can’t let it go,” and that right there is the choice they are making. We can let it go; we just won’t.
Like my friend moving on and leaving the past in the past, or the other person in my life who had a catastrophic loss, choosing to let the past hurt, or pain, fall away is the kindest gift you can give to yourself. Culture tells us to stay angry and be resentful, but moving from “no-where” to “now-here” requires freeing your spirit from the past traumas. Take your foot out of the memories of the past as you cannot embark on the future, or even live fully in the present, when you have one foot in the past. You are splintered and shattered.
On my favourite show, and the story of my favorite friend, and even in my own life, I have witnessed the gift of living in the present and knowing bygones are bygones to be true and when we live that way, it makes for a peaceful journey. We all have a choice. A choice to be “no-where” or “now-here.” Do you need help making it so? I would love to hear from you.
Cynthia Breadner is a teacher, author, grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers specialized care in spiritually integrated therapies. She works as a long-term care chaplain assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practises fitness, health and wellness. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections. If you have any questions, contact her today: [email protected], breakingstibah.com.
