Looking to the Past...

Looking to the Past

Facebook is always changing and it is important to keep up with these alterations. Some changes have been unwelcome; but there are some that have added to the social media experience.

Recently, a new feature called, 'On This Day' has been added. You'll get a notification saying, 'You have memories with...... look back on today', and some of your posts over the last few years will be presented to you privately for your perusal.

This got me thinking about the pros and cons of 'looking back into our past'.

We seem to be creatures of nostalgia, and there's nothing quite like a memory from the past to make us realize how quickly time as passed since those events. I know that, for myself, if I hear certain songs being sung on the radio, a vivid recollection will come flooding back. I remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. This desire for nostalgia is easily captured via YouTube, where there is a plethora of memories to dig through - short movie clips, songs, old T.V. and Radio shows, as well as documentaries and other recordings of seemingly timeless events.

What to do about this 'looking to the past'? Is it helpful? Is it healthy? Does it lead to us living in the past at the expense of living in the present? Or is it just a harmless way of passing the time?

I'm a follower of the teachings of Abraham Hicks and the Law of Attraction. They have some insights on this that I, personally, find helpful.

To provide a context, the basic understanding of the Law of Attraction is 'that which is like unto itself, is drawn'. In other words, what you give your attention to draws more things into your experience that is of similar essence. For example, if I focus upon negative things, I will be drawing more negative experiences into my life that match the essence of what I'm thinking about, (mostly by default - because few people deliberately choose a future experience that they do not want). Conversely, if I give my attention to positive things, I will draw more things into my experience that are pleasing to me. If this is true, it will serve us well to be more picky and deliberate about what we give our attention to, because what we are thinking about now is actually creating our future experience of life.

How can we know whether we are creating a future experience that will please us, or one that is unpleasant? Abraham tells us that we can know whether we are in alignment with who we really are or not by our emotions. Any emotion that doesn't feel good is a signal to us that we are focusing upon something in a way that is unlike the way our inner being focuses upon that same subject. The gap between the two aspects of who I am shows up as negative emotion. So, if I am feeling sad, depressed, jealous, angry, bored, doubtful etc., it just means that what I am giving my attention to at that moment is leading me away from my alignment and attracting more stuff that will give me more to feel negative about.

In the same way, if I am feeling love, joy, peace, excitement, passion - it means that what I am giving my attention to, at that moment, is closing the gap between me and who I really am. I am in alignment with my higher/inner self, and am attracting more experiences into my life that will be positive.

The Emotional Scale

Our 'emotional guidance' system helps us to know, in every moment of the day, whether we are widening the gap or closing the gap between those two aspects of me. When I am widening the gap, I don't feel so good. When I am closing the gap, I feel better. Since, at the core of our inner being is Unconditional Love, anything that is less than that, will show up as negative emotion. It behooves us to pay attention to what we are feeling so that we can 'course correct' - little by little, gradually working our way up the emotional scale, and pave the way for manifesting experiences that are more pleasing to us. This takes practice; but anyone who has trained themselves to do this on a regular basis will testify to living a more joyful life experience.

When I am thinking about something, I activate the vibration of it and it starts to attract similar things to it. It doesn't matter what I am giving my attention to - something in the past, something happening right now, or something in the future... the vibration of it is being activated, or reactivated. Have you ever been telling the story of a past, unpleasant event and you felt that anger, all over again? It's almost as if I am reliving it, here and now. Even my blood pressure has risen when I have repeated some stories from my past! Other memories have evoked laughter and a feeling of happiness. If I am worrying about something that may happen in the future, or looking at something right now that doesn't make me feel good, or remembering something unhappy about the past, the emotion I am feeling tells me that I am, at that moment, activating the vibration of it in my NOW- my present state - and Law of Attraction is beginning to respond to that vibration. If I am excited about a future event, or enjoying something in the here and now, or remembering something that made me happy, then I am, at that moment, activating its vibration in my now, and Law of Attraction is responding.

So, looking to the past does not really have any pros and cons other than the emotion the memory evokes within us. If we are looking at our past and it makes us feel good in the remembering of it, then we are closing that gap and paving our way for an enjoyable future experience; if we are looking at our past and it makes us feel uncomfortable, unhappy, annoyed, angry - in fact, any negative feeling - it's an indication that the past, at this time, is not serving us well.

Our emotional guidance system acts as our own, personal G.P.S. Most of us know that we want a desirable future life experience, even if the details are not totally clear. If we pay attention to our emotions, and follow the desire for improved good feelings, we'll gradually move towards a destination that will fill us with positivity and happiness. And from that new platform, we'll continue to create a joyful future.

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