Yearning and Learning

Henri Nouwen wrote these words in his journal during the deepest depression of his life, "The years that lie behind you, with all their struggles and pains, will in time be remembered only as the way that led to your new life. But as long as the new life is not fully yours, your memories will continue to cause you pain. When you keep reliving painful events of the past, you can feel victimized by them. But there is a way of telling your story that does not create pain. Then, also, the need to tell your story will become less pressing. You will see that you are no longer there: the past is gone, the pain has left you, you no longer have to go back and relive it, you no longer depend on your past to identify yourself...You can tell your story from a place where it no longer dominates you. You can speak about it with a certain distance and see it as the way to your present freedom. The compulsion to tell your story is gone. From the perspective of the life you now live and the distance you now have, your past does not loom over you."

Regardless of who we are, we all have pains and hurts from our past. Everybody has what is commonly termed, in today's vernacular "baggage." But this baggage does not follow us around through some strength of its own, but like real baggage, it is something we carry with us, and many times it can become so heavy that we can no longer walk forward because we are so weighed down. It is when we are in that state of paralysis that we are most awakened to the need to stop carrying that baggage. It hurts our present freedom, it causes us present pain, and is detrimental to our present relationships. We can blame our baggage for our lack of progress and growth; we can blame our baggage for our present actions, but it is merely an excuse, for if we recognize the presence of the baggage, then we have no reason not to deal with the pain and consequences it is causing in our present life.

For the moment we say "oh, it's the fault of my baggage," is the moment we ought to say "I cannot let my past rule my life anymore." The lack of affection I have received in the past from persons I most wanted to receive affection from should not cause me to cling irrationally to those who I want to receive it from today. The excess of affection I received in the past from people who I love and care about, but did not need as much affection from should not cause me to push away completely those who I care about, but do not need that excessive affection from today.

This does not, however, mean that our past does not and will not affect us today, for it always will to some extent, but we cannot be governed by it, and we cannot live in constant fear that the past will be repeated. This difficult realization, as painful as it might be, will free us and allow us to tell our story out of compassion rather than compulsion, such that we may commisserate with those who are experiencing today what we experienced yesterday. Much like the words of Longfellow in his poem "A Psalm of Life," where he says

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

We must shed our baggage and leave it in our past where those events occurred. We must remember it, to be certain, but more so we can empathize with and be more understanding of others than for it to motivate or dictate our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions.

The question, however, is how does one stop carrying his or her baggage? There is no "quite simply" response to the question, I must admit. But I believe the first step lies in recognizing that we are carrying it around with us wherever we go. If we find ourselves preparing to use the phrases "Well in my last relationship..." or "When I was dealing with my father..." if those phrases are to be followed with "So that's why I did what I did." If the answer to the question "Why did I do x?" is "Because of such and such happened to me in the past?" then we are carrying our baggage with us. It does not mean that we do not learn from the past, but we do recognize that in spite of similarities we may see between past circumstances and present circumstances, or between the people who were in our lives previously and the people who are in our lives now, we must always recognize that the circumstances of today are not identical to those of the past and the people we are with today are not identical to the people of the past.

It is in realizing the differences that we are able to best apply the knowledge we gained by our past experiences rather than simply trying to avert the identical consequences out of pure fear, and ending up causing more damage than good.