Magically Dissolving the Past
BY: T. Franklin Murphy |May 2018
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Living with What We Have Been Given
We live in the present. A tightly bound package of experiences from the past. The past lives in us but does not determine our future.
Sensitive childhood emotions don’t simply dissolve with a little insight. A wise guide may help identify origins of dysfunctional reaction, but the destructive action may continue. The insight only serves to give a deeper understanding of the cause. The work of change still must be implemented. Stubborn childhood issues challenge our healthy resolves throughout our lives. We must continually work through the internal resistance to achieve intentions. Yet with some self-directed compassion for personal soft spots, we can—with time— live effectively despite impoverished childhood. The emotional marks etched in our brains may still unpredictably resurface, wreaking havoc; but instead of crumbling, we can stand-up, stick out our chest and move forward.
We must—if we are to succeed--weave the emotional past into the tapestry of our present. The past will always be a part of who we are—including how we feel. The threads of the past may be a different color and texture than what we would prefer; but with guidance, skill and patience, we can artfully blend what has been given with our desires of what we want to become.
Perfect pasts are not a requirement for a healthy, joyful present. Perhaps to easy of a past, with too much given, may interfere with the realities of a grown-up life where challenges must be courageously faced, avoided insights unburied, and effective approaches implemented. Childhood’s prepare the individual for a long-life of self-sufficiently. The demands for existence in human society are complex and dynamic. No childhood imparts perfect wisdom. The adult, recently freed from the nest, must test skills, make adjustments, and practice new approaches. We survive not through perfect training but effective adaptations, flexible to changing environments, and continued guidance from respectable teachers. "Perfect pasts are not a requirement for a healthy, joyful present." Childhoods, already in the past, fall within the realms of the things we cannot change, we can dwell on the negative impacts of childhood traumas, but the past remains. The part of our lives that is moldable is the present. Here we make choices, here we act, here we feel pleasure and pain.
Often unfavorable experiences will demand extra work in the present; but we still can broaden visions, enjoy relationships, and achieve dreams. 
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