Surprised by Reflections?
The past can give our lives meaning or it can be ignored, however the second kind always catches up to you, it may be slow but it is persistent and very good at stowing away in the back of your mind. It uses your current energy to keep itself alive and if you suppress it, it will lurk in your unexamined long term memory waiting for a passing association, it pokes at your emotions nudging you to anger, resentment, anything that shortens the distance between you and remembering, because it has information for you. You might not have been able to deal with it at the time, and that is fine, time and distance is our friend, it makes thing less raw and gives us scarring to toughen us up, when we are ready we remember and choose whether to deal with it or put it aside again, and each time we do we give it a little more energy and power, the ghost in the mirror grows stronger with inattention.
Though that ghost must be met in the end and not all ghosts are bad, especially our own, they carry what we could not, but that is all that they do, they do not understand or process experiences for us, they just remember, what we do with that memory is still up to us. Which begs the question how do we confront our ghosts, well the way we would treat a friend or ourselves (and often we treat friends better than ourselves, use that and treat yourself as a friend) with kindness, patience and compassionate. Recognise that every single person in the world is imperfect and that you are not better than anyone else, you are not that special and you are trying to be better. Then ask what is it that you wish to teach me?
What else are memories for other than to give us example of how and how not to act, to teach us how to act better in the current moment and how can we be better for the future? The only moment that we can ever effect is the current moment, that is the sole thing in our control, how we act now, what are our intentions now, and our past teaches us how to be better, it is the gift that our ghosts want to teach, it is what they live for, to carry a lesson from our past to serve us in the present, and you invite them to fulfil their purpose by asking for the lesson that they possess.
Often they have the patience to wait until something in the present moment brings our mind back to those memories and the lesson will not be easily understood. Indeed the wrong triggered memory can derail the present moment, it can distract you from what you are trying to do or change the context and colour your impression of what is actually happening. If someone remind you of another person that you hate or has harmed you, your opinion of the present person will be change, it is unavoidable, again time and distance can help unpick the two and being aware of the connection helps to deal with it, but that does not mean you are wrong, the same vibrations can resonate with each other, sometimes caution is needed and advised.
If everything was simple we would not need guidance, advice from others, we could just play simple games and have simple pleasures, but life is more complicated than that and the rewards and pitfalls are greater, and we are all playing against each other and yet rely on each other at the same time. There are good players and bad ones, it takes time to truly figure out who is who, that is what our reflections are there for, to think upon people, how they work, what they do, what their motivations are, what they want, and as part of that work we find out what the answers are for us as well. We are at least as mysterious as anyone either in the world, even more so as there is no hiding from the crazy in our own heads.
Our memories are our attempt at holding the experiences that we need to understand so that we are better people after we have processed what has happened, and persistent memories have more than one lesson to teach. Really powerful experiences can hold many lesson and recurring one, we might need to be reminded that there are bad people in the world or that they are incredible rare, that we are easily hurt or defensive, that we are vain, humble, over-confident, too trusting, too self-centred, the list is as endless as there are human faults. We are imperfect and perhaps that is the underlying lesson in every memory.
When we reflect whether by choice or sudden realisation, it is by asking the question of what the lesson is, that we have a guide through these uncomfortable experiences and the great lessons are in the memories that burn the most and that we have a resistance towards them because they contain our greatest weaknesses, our inclination to poor action and the worst results of our action. A negative is only a positive waiting to be reframed, that is not to say that there are not negative actions in life, just that they can still be a guide to a better place, we only know what we want by also knowing what we do not want, pain and pleasure can contrasts that illuminate each other and it only by knowing both that we can find satisfaction in our lives.
By making our reflections into a deliberate investigation of the lessons that we need to learn, we can change us from being the viewer of our memories, an inactive passive audience member into the actor and star of our show. We can transform into a pupil of life, an eager student who wishes to become a great player, to be a victim of the past needs our continuing consent, we can change at any moment by changing our relationship to our past selves and reframing who we are, we can choose to become wise with our greater experience instead of repeating the mistakes of the past and when we do, we get to be surprised by how much different, happier and stronger we can become with deliberate reflection upon our lives that is focused on the lesson that we can learn rather the lingering suffering of past mistakes.
This is what maturity looks like, the ability to consistently reflect upon what we have done and integrate these lessons and experiences into a better, wiser version of yourself, especially the things we have done wrong or the wrong actions of others that has hurt us. It even allows us to understand that from the point of view of others their actions were in their best interests or the best that they could do given their circumstances, and by recognising that others are imperfect, we can accept our own imperfection. We are all works in progress, we are all trying to be better and most of us fail more than we succeed, that is the human experience and if you reflect on it you will be surprised by how hopeful it is that we are all trying.
