2005 Mark Myhre

When I was 5 years old our family moved to Starkville,Mississippi. My dad had secured a position as a researchscientist at Miss. State Univ. that was simply too good to passup.

Starkville was a small town like many other small towns acrossAmerica. Life was slow and safe and predictable. All in all, notsuch a bad place to live.

For the next 12 years I was a Starkvillian. Like so many otheryoung boys I spent most of my free time exploring the world fromthe comfort of a bicycle seat.

Life was full of adventures. Looking back now, it resembled aseries of Norman Rockwell paintings.

But it wasn't always so idealistic. In fact, for over 20 yearsafter leaving that small town I hated everything to do withStarkville. I called it a nightmare existence in a God-forsakentown.

So why do you suppose I hated it?

I Focused On The Negative

Like children everywhere, my wonder years consisted of goodevents, bad events, and many mediocre and neutral events. Goodtimes that made me feel good. Bad times that made me feel bad.And many events stirred little emotional reaction at all.

However, my problem was that I discounted the good events, whileelevating the bad ones.

The painful events on my past became like anchors - the pillarsof the past. The defining moments of my life.

Certain events would happen, and rather than simply feeling thepain and moving on, I would suppress and repress those painfulemotions.

Paradoxically, while I denied the feelings, I elevated theevents. I would take a painful situation and make it much worsethan it really was.

I Embellished My Past

How do you embellish a painful past? Intentionally exaggerateits stature and importance. Like a playwright constructing aplay, I would add drama for the effect it created.

I would set the stage. Get the lighting just right. Playsuspenseful music in the background. Create a prologue -

"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names havebeen changed to protect the innocent..."

Like one of those old Dragnet TV shows!

I built it up any way I could. I made it sacred.

And no matter what, I could *NOT* feel the feelings of thosepast events and let them go! I needed those unresolved emotionsto breathe life into an otherwise-dead past.

I spent way too much of my time giving CPR to a corpse of thepast. Ever given CPR? It'll wear you out! It's hard to do it forvery long; it's just too much work.

Imagine doing it for decades.

I defined my life by those highly selective events of the pastthat were being kept alive ONLY by my emotional energy.

I Was Giving My Power To The Past

Thoughts and feelings are the very source of your power. Yourpower - your ability and willingness to act - comes aboutbecause of the constant stream of your thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts and feelings are constantly and consistently springingforth into your consciousness.

A stream of thoughts. A stream of feelings. Together they arethe source of your power.

If you're using those thoughts and feelings to hold onto thepast, then you'll have less power available to you now. Powerthat could be used to heal your emotions instead becomesdiverted into holding the past in place.

I Built My Past Into A Frankenstein's Monster

Out of that handful of painful events I created a backbone. Fromthe backbone I grew a skeleton. Surrounding the skeleton I grewmuscles and skin and internal organs. I gave it a heart. I gaveit a voice.

All that growth required conscious effort on my part. I had tokeep reminding myself of those painful events.

"I really was wronged."

"I really was shamed."

"I really was abused."

Building them up and fleshing them out took a lot of my power.But it was worth it. I got to feel like a victim. I got to hidein my self pity. I was entitled. Hey, I EARNED the right toengage in any errant behavior I chose!

I earned the right to blame, to struggle, to manipulate andpunish anybody I wanted. I earned my righteous arrogance becauseof my embellished pain of the past.

I was powerless as a result, but that's okay. I earned the rightto be weak by all the effort I was expending to try to keep thepast alive.

***

I took the best of me and gave it to a past that didn't evenexist.

***

It takes constant effort to keep the past alive. You can't justset it and forget it - like a thermostat on the wall. You haveto keep remembering it. You have to keep using today's power toreinforce the imprisonment of yesterday's power.

We Invest In The Past

The past is over, yet so often our power remains trapped in theemotional investment we've made in certain painful events ofthat dead past.

The past is over.

But the very power we need to break free of those memories isinstead being diverted into a much more sinister goal. We investa lot of time and energy creating a Frankenstein's monster ofthe past, and it's become too big to handle.

The power you need to heal the past is instead being used to tryto keep it alive. It becomes a tangled mess.

You can't heal the past until you get more power.

You can't get more power until you heal the past.

So what's the answer? First you heal a little bit, and youretrieve a little power. Then, in your empowered state you heala little more and get back a little more power. It happens layerby layer.

And it all begins with a willingness to change.