The past is an interesting thing. Your history is a series of events, circumstances, victories, traumas, turning points and lulls that lead to now. And now it's over. Gone. And only the story of it lives on.

When you recount events form your past, how do you tell your story? No two people ever tell a story the same way. Some people are funny, some are tragic, some are dramatic and some are boring. A recount of exactly the same event can be inspiring, depressing, uplifting or frustrating depending on how the story is told.

If you observe how you live today, how much of your life are based on your past?

In fact, who you are today is based on all of the events and decisions from your past. 

It really depends on your focus and what you made important from your past. When you look at the circumstances as simply being happenings, your focus and your spine creates your story of what it meant. How you view past events and the meaning you decided they had will really flavour your story.

Imagine two people with a broken leg. The same circumstances apply to both people. They are looking at immobilizing that leg for eight to ten weeks, radically changing the way they move around and the way they interact with and relate to people. Regardless of who you are, whether you're an athlete or a couch potato, an event like this will disrupt your routines.

One person may be so angry and frustrated because all his routines are disrupted. His thoughts may be, “I'm so depressed. My whole life is messed up. What am I supposed to do?”

The other person may find the inconvenience has some benefits. He may like the attention and care that he is receiving from others. It may be the first opportunity he has taken to slow down his busy life, rest and allow others to finally do things for him. While he may be sad that he can't do some of the things he really enjoys doing, he may be thrilled to gain the perspective of looking at his life and seeing that it could be better. His thought about the event may be, “Thank God I broke my leg. I would have kept going that way forever without knowing there was a better way.”

These two people will have very different outcomes in their lives from a similar event. The way they respond to future events will also be very different because of the way they hold the past. Imagine if the angry person was still experiencing pain or mobility problems years later. Imagine how often thoughts of how that terrible event that ruined part of his life would come up. On the other hand, the other person may experience a recurrence of pain somewhat associated with the fracture and think, “Oh. Maybe I need to look at what I'm doing and change something in my life.”

You may not have broken a leg or any bone, but you have had a series of events that happened throughout your life which somehow have shaped the way you see your life today. For some people, their birth created problems that still affect them today. For others it was their early childhood. Who didn't have traumatic experiences in their teenage years? And nobody gets out of school without some sort of cultural hazing and brainwashing. If you've had any kind of relationship with another human from friendly to intimate, you're bound to have some baggage. What about all your work experiences? How about your health history?

When you consider all the aspects of your past and how much of your energy and attention is tied up in them, just try assigning a percent of your energy to every event. By the time you get to the present, I'll bet you'll find that a whole lot of your energy is stuck in the past. Probably many parts of your body are experiencing life as it was five, ten, twenty or fifty years ago. Do you think it may be beneficial to bring them into the present so they can be whole with you?

Being stuck in the past is part of being alive. It is so common that with Network Spinal Analysis (NSA), I never start an entrainment without addressing the tension associated with it. This tension creates a distortion pattern known as Phase 1. It affects the occiput and sacrum.

Since the past will affect the way you trust, express passion, see yourself and experience prosperity (Phases 2 to 5), all the other distortion patterns in your spinal cord are linked to Phase 1.  Phase one can actually be used to address the tension of all five phases of tension in NSA.  We do however address each phase directly as well.

Addressing the distortion pattern of Phase one in the spinal cord is one thing.  Healing from the past is another.  When you look at your past and you see things that hurt you and still have a hold on you, there is still some healing to do.  When you see the gift that your past has been to you, and the past hurt has no more hold over you, healing has occured.

Can you assist this process?  Of course.  Time does not heal all wounds.  But it helps to be aware of the event that happened, and know it is distinct from your internal perception of the event.  Conscious choices about how you live in the present are important.  Decisions about the direction that your life will take in the future towards the things you want in life -- rather than away from things you are afraid will hurt you --are critical.

Copyright Dr. Paul Newton 2009