I am indebted to Aaron Bartlett who inspired this conversation.
When I require an
access
to my past (ie on those occasions when it's actually useful to have an
access
to the past), I
imagine
my life as a made-for-TV reality show. That means everything
I've ever said and done (and I do mean everything) has
been recorded on both audio and video, and archived. So when the tape
is rolled for an audience of one ie moi, it's all there in
painstaking, graphic detail on the small screen (or up on the big
silver screen, depending on which medium I watch it on).
The take-away from watching my past play out on the screen as a reality
show, is I'm OK with most of the actually-happened recorded scenes ie
I'm OK with the way I acted. Other actually-happened recorded scenes
sadden
me. They're those in which I'm not OK with the way I
acted. And what's compelling about watching my life as a reality show,
is that its action-replays on the screen leave me with no doubt that
every scene actually did happen. So whether I'm OK with what I
did or whether I'm not OK with it, I did it. There's no way to
avoid the things I'm not OK with ie the things I did in inauthentic,
inconsiderate, callous moments. I can't edit them out and pretend they
didn't happen. The show doesn't only have scenes in which I'm OK with
what I did. The evidence is conclusive. It's all caught on tape - so to
speak.
At some point in the
conversation for transformation,
the
gravity
of cleaning up the past pulls ever more
relentlessly
until it's impossible to avoid and not confront. Avoiding life's
clarion call to clean up the past, only serves to constrain our ability
to move freely ahead transformed in life - as if one's foot's been
nailed to the floor.
In the interests of processing through and cleaning up my past, I've
engaged in two distinct inquiries after watching the action-replays of
my reality-show life. The first is cleaning up whatever there is to
clean up with other people ie those with whom I've acted
inauthentically, inconsiderately, callously. The second is cleaning up
whatever there is to clean up with myself, and the ways I've
overly judged / been dramatically critical of myself and what I did
with which I'm not OK.
Listen:
cleaning up the past is no trivial exercise, either with others or with
yourself. It takes bravery, courage, guts, and a certain
verve to be so honest. But it's more than that ie there's
more at stake here, much more: cleaning up the past is the
closest a human being can get to their own humanity.
In cleaning up whatever there is to clean up with others, what I've
found works best is contacting all of those with whom the action
replays show me being inauthentic, inconsiderate, callous, and / or
leaving them incomplete. And if they're no longer alive or if they're
simply untraceable, then calling them up in my own experiential
space (if you will) works (with a little practice, this is a
marveloustool
to master, allowing us to be in communication with anyone, from any
time, anywhere). To clean up the past with them, is to 'fess up to what
I did, to own it, to apologize and be forgiven, to accept and be
accepted, to compensate, to 'fess up and be 'fessed up to but not to
justify, and where possible, to make corrections, amends, and
reparations for it. That's what it takes to clean up the past with
others.
But it's in cleaning up whatever there is to clean up with
myself and with what I've done with which I'm not OK, that
I've discovered (this is so interesting) that many of the usual
go-to actions (ie apologizing and being forgiven,
accepting and being accepted, compensating, 'fessing up and being
'fessed up to) only work to a certain degree. What works definitively
with myself, is telling myself this bone-numbing, non-judgemental,
non-critical, simple flat-footed truth: "What I did was not
OK" - period. It's a mano y mano conversation
with myself, the result of which is the restoration of my power and
dignity, and the cessation of the struggle with the past. It's also a
way of getting back in touch with my human-ness, a way like no other
I know to
re-access
my own humanity
(for which I thank you
profoundly, Werner).