Sunday, August 5, 2012

Nostalgia: What It Is & What To Do With It

Watching TV & movies has cast a clear reflection of my past. I'm often confronted with difficult emotions regarding the loss of what I thought to be the greatest friendship. Lately it's been walloping me upside the head more than has been typical in the years I've been dealing with this loss.

Thinking of the past, good times and bad, I can't help but get nostalgic. So, naturally, I set my mind to the task of rationalizing my emotions. When functioning at even half capacity my mind is more whole than most. I'm not bragging: it rather sucks.

But this time it worked in my favor. And when I found answers via the www they were only confirmations of my instincts or suspicions. See, when I thought of the word, "nostalgia", I felt a weight: it was moving me out of my present. Present is home to me. The word, nostalgia, caused an ache within me. Turns out nostalgia is a compound of two Greek words, meaning...homecoming and pain/ache.

Ah~ha! We bandy the word about not even realizing it binds us to a deep emotional trauma. The word binds home, that which we inhabit, to pain. Ultimately we inhabit the present, so it's clear to me, via the Greek word, nostos, denoting action or journey,  when we embrace of the word " nostalgia" this moves us to an energetic space of pain we associate with our past. Here is where it may get tricky.

The past and present are illusion. Time and space are conditions we agree upon as a consciousness. There is actually only the present. So even though an emotion seems to dredge up our past, it's really only making us aware of another present. Do you follow? All experiences are eternal and infinite. Our memories; what we recall and the flavors we assign to those experiences dictate who we are as a person. We are under the assumption that the past cannot be changed, yet even within the confines of our limited time space the mind can quite logically conclude that seeing as how the past is happening now, simultaneously with our present, we are able to change the way we felt about previous experiences.

Conversely, as you went about your life in the past you were also subconsciously aware of your future self and future experiences, so your memory of events was auspiciously selective.

What does all this past, present, future talk have to do with the price of tea in China?

Well, do you ever feel closer to your past than when you are feeling nostalgic? I know I sure don't. It's like it happened yesterday. Perhaps, like me, you wonder why you remember these things at all, whether fondly or regretfully.  I am often lamenting this current fact of nostalgia; all the while admonishing myself becuz I know the past is gone and I can't go relive it again. Even if I wanted to I cannot recreate the exact experience I've held in my memory.

So I'm left feeling as if I've just tried to take a step up the evolutionary ladder only to slip on the rung and fall off the freaking ladder completely. I question, "why must this pain from the past be so present? and what did I do to summon it?!"

Answer: Well if I wish to release a hurt from my energetic being I have to pick it up and move it. If it's at arms' distance where I'm more comfy with it, then I'm just letting it still be part of me. I sure don't want to hang onto lower vibratory resonances that are in stark contrast to that which I desire and attract to myself consciously. It's bubbled up cuz it's time to heal.

It might not be a simple dusting of your mental cobwebs & kiss upon your heart sores, then wa~lah! you're right as rain. The change may be incremental, but it is change no less.

You're able to transform a memory by allowing yourself to feel it. All you need to do is to recognize what the purpose of nostalgia is. Words are woven intention and the most benevolent utilization of this language of ours ( handed down to us thru the ages ) is self-healing.

Reality is always a reflection of you. Your self, your energy, pours through time and space to create all experiences, past/present/future. Eschew ideation of guilt: self love and self healing is the greatest gift you can give to the world we all share.

So, let us all use this word with awareness of its magic and let us recognize our innate ability to transmute energy from low frequencies of sorrow, pain, fear to the higher frequency of unconditional love.

How?
When that feeling of nostalgia comes over you embrace that you are now inhabiting your past and present at once.

To deny, ignore, or become angry about your state would only serve to strengthen or expand the very energy you don't want to be feeling anymore.

Ask yourself why this feeling has come up. Be patient with yourself if you feel as though this is re-hash. It may be, but that's because you missed etwas the first or tenth time around. Had you learned all you wanted or needed to know from that experience you'd not be feeling this way. If you're really sure you're not getting anything out of it then I suggest you use EFT to clear unwanted energies that may have become blocked.

If it helps use your logical mind to work through this all. The mind cannot get us to unity, but we need to use it along the way. I've laid it out as clearly as I can here, but feel free to ask me to extrapolate.

We have the gift of perspective and our open mind can more readily view any given circumstance from a slightly different angle.

For me, personally, this time I thought of what our friendship was like for my best friend. Put myself in her shoes as best I can. She had many friends and unlike me wasn't lonely or alone when our contact with one another ebbed. I didn't offer myself to her, often keeping insights and opinions to myself, in the way I did (the way she found offensive)recently. And I wonder what she recalls of me...like did I even cry in front of her when we were both sober? Remember, it doesn't matter if in my mind I did or didn't. Her perspective and opinion of me is based upon what she recalls of our time together. I think that she was probably aware of my manipulative nature. I had thought stating the fact(often) that I am utterly insane and faking it really well for the world was enough to convey that idea to her. But looking back now I recall how she rolled her eyes when I claimed to be nuts. Seems like the cushion I was trying to give her to soften the blow of our future interactions was ignored. I'd like to ask if I was a poor friend and if so, then how? I felt I was fun, interesting, and as honest as I could be with shadows pulled up around me. It'd help me to be part of the human race, but that is not as yet happening. Maybe, though, the person I thought she was never even existed...simply becuz she recalled or didn't recall certain things (ahem, drug use/blackouts) or she just felt differently about our shared experiences than I did.

My fond memories of Tracee are not many. What is clear is crystal and much more is muddy. I see that at the time I was forming those memories (in my past) I was believing there would be, could be no other friendship as meaningful to me as that one with Tracee. Now I know that's not at all the case, so maybe my mind won't feel the need cling so tightly to those memories.

The magic of nostalgia has brought me to this collection of experiences and since I am aware that I'm there to learn, to learn to let go, to heal the pain I am able to examine not just my memories, but the manner in which further past and future contributed to the creation of them.

After looking at it from different perspectives I can contribute new or different energy to the memory & since we are very much the sum of our respective perceptive stored and shared experiences my memory changes then and now and in the future. I am able to more fully love the way things unfolded and love is the most powerful creative force extant. Being in the past & aware it is my present I know that I gave love and forgiveness and that my memory will be forever changed by being brought out of the shadows.

Honestly, I don't feel awesome about the whole thing. I feel like I've let go and healed. How much; time will tell. Maybe for awhile I'll stop crying every week or thinking about her every day...or maybe I just won't need to cling to her as the sole evidence of my humanity. After all, now I have friends and my best friend is my boyfriend. I'll maybe not ever know if or how I was a bad friend to her, but if I was a good one, from her perspective, then she prolly wouldn't have abandoned me. If I was the me I am now then it'd be different. I like to think that this love and light version of me was present for brief shining moments in my past. It doesn't really matter if they are or they are not though.

I am who I am now. I love who I am now. The other me was so that I may know the dark and I thank it truly for without it I would not fully know the light.

~*and so it is*~
Mindy

Mayan Tzolkin: 9 Wind. Oh gawd, this never fails to amaze me! Nine is patience & Wind is actually Tracee's sun sign.

http://www.mayanmajix.com/TZOLKIN/DT/DT.html

It says exactlay this:
"The energy of Nine is one of getting a better perspective of the bigger picture. With the energy of Nine plans or patterns begin to come to completion. Nine requires patience and perseverance that is found in the bigger picture, otherwise there is great suffering from the lack of insight. The completion of cycles of action is all-important to Nine.

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