THE PAST IS ALWAYS PRESENT

One of the popular misconceptions about emotional health is that a person needs to get over their past in order to be healthy in the present. The past to which they refer is the impact of their parents, the way that they were raised. Healthy people are thought to be people that have moved beyond their history to deal with the present in a reasonable way. Unhealthy people are thought to be stuck in the past, over-reacting with extreme sensitivity to issues that are not as important as they feel.

My 27 years of experience as a practicing psychologist has led me to believe that the past is always present and can invade every reaction that we have with other people. This position is consistent with psychodynamic theorists who have written extensively about this phenomena. The parental relationship creates the blueprint for many of our emotional reactions to events. The past is present everytime we jump to a conclusion before we check out what the other person meant. These jumps reflect assumptions that say more about our relationship to our parents than they say about the person in front of us. We go on "auto-pilot" and believe our reactions because the auto-pilot settings are programmed through out interactions with our parents at an impressionable age. Our emotions are stored in our memories and dumped into the present anytime a present circumstance reminds us of a past circumstance. In that sense, we are influenced by our past and cursed by it at the same time. We need history to prevent making the same mistakes, but are cursed by the strength of the emotions that come from history. It is not easy to be a human being.

I believe that emotionally healthy people recognize that the past is always present and look to separate the present from the past. This process requires us to process our emotions before we act on them. The key to being healthy is to start with the idea that our internal reactions are always dual. It is rare that there is a simple single reaction. There are almost always competing internal reactions. The problem is that each of the reactions are not equal in intensity and internal volume. Our guilt and shame can often overpower our right to be angry. We can often hide our mad behind our sad and call it "hurt". Our fears confuse us and make the process of separating our emotions nearly impossible.

This duality of emotion is our salvation and the key to being a healthy human being. By learning that the truth often lies in our anger and not in our guilt and shame, we learn to harness our anger and use it to solve a problem. We become stronger internally, learn to stand up for what we believe in and represent ourselves fully and completely. Healthy people know this is not an easy task, take on the responsibility and work to manage their emotions. Most importantly, healthy people understand that the past is a present trap into which they will fall if they are not eternally vigilant.