Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The past, the present= your future

When I counsel singles, I usually like checking them out from the premise of the past; over time I have come to a conclusion that the past is a core determinant of the future. When I counsel singles who have challenges with the issues of the heart, I ask them questions relating to their past and over 80% of the time I discovered that the outcome of their present challenges which can spill over to the future has a tie to it. Singles that have challenges the most are those who have issues in the past which they have not taken care off.

The past tells a lot about what the outcome of the future will be like; if you relate with couples with successful marriages, you will find the relationship between two individuals who learn from the past and do not live in it. If I will do a mathematical equation of the correlation of the past to the present and future, it will look like this- The Past= The Present= The Future. If you take away the past, a person’s life will simply have no more meaning or direction.

Why is the past an antecedent to the future? I strongly believe that it is because the past is where what we call experience come from; our accepted concept is that experience is the best teacher, and so over 80% of our decisions in life come from the experience of the past.

If a lady grew up in a home that her father is irresponsible and if her mum constantly lament on the negligent nature of her dad; there are over 80% chances that she will not have successful relationship with the opposite sex. The experience if she allows it will form the basis of her world view of men and she will become prone to making mistakes in the matter of the heart.

When I heard the story of Jane and the challenges she was having in her marriage, I knew that her predicament stems from her experience from a father that is reckless. She had developed the mindset that all men are irresponsible; that was the unconscious basis that she related with the opposite sex. All the intimate relationship she had been involved in before she got married (5) did not lead to marriage because the men just could not stand her domineering attitude and her distrust for the male gender after a period of time in their relationship. She got hurt whenever they left, and these seems to strengthen her believe about men.

When she met Larry 4 years ago, he seems different. He had been raised in a home where his mum was responsible for their upbringing after the demise of his father. He was more patient, loving and understanding when she confided in him about the experience of her mum. It was obvious that he loved her, and she did have the same feeling for him. A year into the relationship they got married; however, to the dismay of her hubby she still did not trust him after they had been married for 3 years and with two children.

When I related with him on the issue; I told him that the reason he got married to his wife was because of the experience of his childhood. He got married to his wife because she was raised by a strong woman like his own mum; everything about them seems similar except the fact that his own dad was late. Another difference between them is that his mum spoke well of his dad; though he had not known him (he was an infant when he died), yet she had portrayed him as the best man that ever live, while Jane’s mum kept banging it on the head of her daughters that men are not responsible.

Jane’s own problem was that she allowed her mum’s words and how she saw her dad behave form a mindset that is wrong instead of learning from it. She should have learnt that it was her mum’s bad choice of a partner that got her into the challenge they are in rather than generalizing her opinion about men. That would have saved her from the pains she went through in her first 5 relationships; her attitude which had made them leave would have been different. The failure of those relationship had strengthen her believe that men are truly irresponsible like her dad.

Their marriage is under undue stress because two people made decisions that came out of their past experience instead of established rules.

I counseled a single once that was having challenges with keeping her relationship to the stage of marriage; I told her to tell me about her relationship with her parents. She has a cordial relationship with her mum, but she dislikes her father. Like story of Jane, she had been raised by her mum, while her dad had not responsible in anyway for their upbringing. I told her if she would ever have successful relationship that will lead to marriage; she must first forgive her father. Then she will need to stop making the experience of her dad a pivotal point in the way she relates with men; as long as she concludes that all men are like her father, she would not stop having heartbreaks.

What is your past like? What pain have you gone through that seemed to be controlling the way you view the opposite sex? If you do not take care of it, you will not see the kind of relationship you desire come to reality. Let me use this expression; no one who walks and keeps his attention to his back walks straight. Just as the direction of your head determines where your whole body goes; the same goes for your mind. Someone says that, ‘Our lives gravitate to the direction of our dominant thoughts.’ If your dominant thoughts is that of the pain of the past, which is the reality you will keeping seeing in the present and future.

What should you do with the past? Learn from it, and let it be. I am of the opinion that in many matters of life, experience is never meant to be the best teacher. Experience should teach; however, it should not be made the reality because what walked for an individual may not do the same for another. If you treat your new flame like the old one, you will get different result because they are two different unique individuals. Learn from the past; extract the juice like when you squeeze and orange, then throw the rest away instead of keeping it.

When a single that comes to me for counseling has experience a heartbreak, what I ask them is what they have learnt from it. What they have learnt from that experience is far more than what they have lost, because it will help guard them against similar one. Life is like a classroom; the past is one of the classes you have to pass its examine to move to the next class. If all you hold on to is the painful experience instead of the lesson, you will keep repeating the mistakes over and over again. Your experience will be like the vicious cycle; you are neither moving forward.

Everyone that reads this write up has the right to prove me wrong; people who have gone through heartbreaks over and over again are those who did not sit down to understudy why their relationship failed in the first place. They are the type of people who see their ex lovers as the one to blame for all of their predicaments without pointing an accusing finger in their own direction. So when they experienced their first heartbreak, instead of taking a break to look critically on why it failed, they only concentrate on the pain. They rush into another to relieve the pain, only to get hurt again.

How is your present life like? If you are not enjoying any aspect of it, ruminate on the past event that may have lead to the present predicament; learn from it and leave the rest.


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Olufemi Fasanya
08037257479, 08083906495
www.relationship-singles.blogspot.com