Affirming the Past

Affirming the past.

When you hear that,
it sounds like forgiving what happened.

The painful things,

the things that hurt you,

rethinking them all as good things.

That is how it sounds.

However,
affirming the past is,

perhaps,
not about forcing yourself to accept it.

It is not about turning things you disliked
into good events.

Things that were painful
can remain painful.

Things you cannot forgive
do not have to be forgiven right away.

Even so,

at some moment,

the arrangement of the past can change.

Events you always thought were in the way
are placed somewhere else in your life.

They have not disappeared.

It is just that,
they no longer define your entire life.

Perhaps,

affirming the past
is not about learning to like the past.

It might be about
no longer letting the past diminish the value of the present.

Right now,

within me,
something is surely ringing.

That sound,

is not a temporary mood,
but possesses the strength to take on all the time that has passed until now.

Then,

the past, little by little,
begins to line up there.

That encounter.

That failure.

That ending.

Things that had been rolling around separately,
are being arranged into a single life.

While the arrangement is short,
it can collapse from just a small event.

Yesterday's happiness,
can sometimes turn into doubt today.

However,

when a long period of time connects into one,

it becomes harder for the meaning of an entire life,
to be overturned by the events of a single day.

Just as it is easier to feel the value of what is there,
in a sequence of tens of thousands of characters,
rather than a sequence of three.

Life, too,

has things that can only be seen,
when a long period of time is connected.

To affirm the past,
feelings alone are not enough.

It requires a structure.

It is not a structure that
forcibly beautifies what has happened.

Even if the present wavers,
it is a structure where life itself does not collapse.

Within that,

the past is finally
placed as the past.

―― ✦ ✦ ✦ ――

Flow of this observation
▶︎ Next observation｜Happiness is a life that has resonated
▶︎ Previous observation｜Is happiness the "now"?
▶︎ Starting point｜The End of the 4 Quadrants──Illusion B

―― ✦ ✦ ✦ ――

🖋️ Tenmei Coach Yuki Shoji
Proponent of Tenmei Structure® / Resonance Studies™