The Present Deserves to Tell Its Own Story

Recently, I was waiting for an answer about something that mattered to me. There wasn't actually a problem. Nothing bad had happened, and I had every reason to believe things were unfolding exactly as they needed to.

I just hadn't heard anything yet.

Apparently, that was enough for my mind to get to work. Within a surprisingly short amount of time, I had traveled backward almost a decade and retrieved a story I hadn't thought about in quite a while. Maybe this person talked to that person. Maybe something was said. Maybe something from my past had followed me here.

I could feel myself building the explanation even though I had almost no information about what was actually happening in the present. The story made sense, which was precisely what made it so convincing. I had evidence for it, just not evidence from now.

I've spent enough time learning about the nervous system to recognize some of what was happening. We are extraordinary pattern-recognition machines, particularly when an experience has taught us something about danger, rejection, belonging, or what happens when things go wrong.

Those experiences don't always return to us as memories. Sometimes they return as certainty. We think, I know what this means. I've seen this before. This is happening again. The present offers a few incomplete pieces, and the past is remarkably willing to help us assemble them.

There are experiences in my life that changed me. Some made me wiser. Some made me more careful. Some taught me to recognize things I genuinely needed to learn how to recognize. I don't want to lose that wisdom, and I don't believe moving forward requires us to forget what experience has taught us.

The harder question is what happens when an old lesson begins answering a new question before the present has had a chance to speak.

That day, I caught myself doing exactly that. There was a gap in information, and I filled it with history. I considered the possibilities. I remembered things I hadn't wanted to remember. I felt emotions that belonged partly to the situation in front of me and partly to something that had happened years ago.

Eventually, I noticed where I was.

Nothing had actually happened. I was waiting. That was all.

It was humbling to realize how far my mind had traveled in an attempt to protect me from the discomfort of not knowing. I think uncertainty may be one of the places where our old stories become loudest. When the present hasn't given us enough information, the past has plenty. It has files, receipts, examples. It can build a case remarkably quickly.

And sometimes that case will be right, which is what makes discernment so difficult.

I don't want to dismiss my intuition every time an old experience informs it. I have lived long enough to know that patterns matter. Experience can sharpen our perception and teach us to notice things our younger selves might have overlooked.

But familiarity has its own persuasive power. An explanation can feel true partly because we already know the story.

I've been thinking about how to tell the difference. What does it feel like when the past is offering wisdom? What does it feel like when the past is trying to prevent itself from happening again?

I'm not sure I always know.

Perhaps I don't have to know immediately. Maybe there can be a little space between what I notice and what I decide it means, enough to acknowledge the memory, sensation, fear, or intuition without immediately turning it into an explanation for what is happening now.

Eventually, more information arrived.

The story I had created wasn't the story that was happening. Life had simply been moving at a pace I couldn't see.

I felt relieved, of course, but something else happened too. Instead of being frustrated with myself for having gone there, I understood why I had.

The part of me that had worked so hard to predict the ending wasn't trying to ruin something good. She was using everything she knew to keep me from being surprised by pain again.

There was a time when I needed some of those instincts. I may need some of them again. Releasing doesn't have to mean silencing them or deciding that the past no longer gets a voice.

Maybe it means the past doesn't get the only voice.

I can remember what happened. I can notice when something familiar rises in me. I can listen to what experience has taught me and still leave enough room for the possibility that this moment is different.

I'm trying to become a little more willing to wait for the information I don't have yet.

To let the phone stay quiet without deciding what the silence means.

To notice an old story arriving without immediately handing it the pen.

Sometimes the present deserves the chance to tell its own story.

A Gentle Invitation

As you move through the week ahead, I wonder...

Where might an old experience be trying to finish a story the present hasn't finished telling yet?