Living in the Past

We’ve all heard the suggestion to “live in the moment,” and this is indeed a good suggestion.  As we all know, the past has passed and we only have power in the present moment.  However, I’ve been realizing lately that this goes even deeper than most of us think…

One of the primary tenants of a spiritually focused life is that Consciousness creates our experience.  Consciousness (the sum total of everything you have ever said, thought, felt, or done) not only colors how you experience the events in your life, but draws those events to you to begin with.  For example, if you believe the world is out to get you, not only will you see your experiences as proof of that belief, but experiences will be drawn to you by the energy of your belief that align with your belief.  Put another way, like attracts like or birds of a feather flock together.

However - consciousness coming into form and experience, for the most part, doesn’t happen instantly.  If, for example, you want a certain type of car, it is not very likely to pull into your driveway all on its own with the title sitting in the passenger seat.  You will build up your consciousness around that type of car.  You’ll work on your feelings of worth and deserving around having such a car.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, you will build a vibrational match to that car before you ever get the car.  Once your consciousness matches the car, things will shift and you’ll get the car.  But the conscious of the car was in place before the car.  Put another way, the inventor has the idea of the invention before you can go buy it.  

What this means is that everything physical is in the past.  The consciousness you had yesterday is different than the consciousness you have today and yet the things in your physical experience today are the end result of a consciousness that you had before and has grown since.  

This has been up for me in terms of prosperity recently.  I created a budget yesterday. I looked back on what my paycheck was last week, based on a certain salary that was awarded last month, that came about because of the consciousness that I brought to my work when I was first hired six months ago.  I’m living in the past.  The consciousness that I have around prosperity today is much different than it was 6 months ago.  

“Well, that's a lovely idea, but I can’t pay my mortgage today based on my consciousness today.  I have to pay it with the money I have, which you say is from the past.  So, I have to live in the past if I want to live in my house,” says the part of my own consciousness that is still struggling to hold on to what once was.  And that is true.  As long as we are in the physical world there will be physical world structures and agreements that will need navigating.  The point is not to somehow shun them and work outside of them, but to transcend them.  “I am happy to circulate to you this money, which is a representation of what my consciousness was a month ago, knowing that  an even more abundant experience is current being birthed from my consciousness of two weeks ago and my consciousness today is germinating something even greater yet!”  

Our personal power does not lie in being able to rearrange the same pieces over and over again, expecting there to be a brand new outcome possible.  Our power lies in creating new pieces!  Yes, we must rearrange the pieces, because that is being “in the world.”  However, while rearranging  the pieces, we can be creating more and different pieces, which is being “not of the world,” or not dependent on the pieces that currently exist.

So…  Everything you see around you is the past.  The couch, the car, the salary, the bills.  All the past.  The more you tie your self-worth to these things, the more you give your power over to them, the more you are living in the past.  Rather, enjoy all the things around you.  Your consciousness brought them to you to serve you.  Perhaps this service comes in bringing comfort and grace to your experience.  Perhaps this service is in making you uncomfortable so you’ll purpose yourself towards growing your consciousness.  But enjoy it from the perspective of what once was, not what currently is.  What currently is, is your consciousness - grown and expanded by your every single thought, feeling, word, or deed since.  It is a consciousness that is right now creating and drawing to you new, more expanded experiences that match it today.  By the time they arrive, your consciousness will have grown yet more.  

Of course, this could catch you in the trap of living in an imagined future, and we don’t want that either.  So live in the present by establishing the mindset of “what am I doing with my consciousness right now?  How am I growing it?  What am I thinking that I no longer want to think?  What thought could I think that is more aligned with where I want to go?  How can I be of service in this moment?”