Does the realisation ever hit you that you often live in the past? You are going about your day-to-day life, juggling multiple roles, managing work, family, self-care, and community tasks, yet your mind is miles away.
While you are performing well on all fronts, your thoughts keep darting back to yesterday and yesteryear. And while some memories may revolve around happy times - love, laughter, precious family moments - many unfortunately focus on more negative things - perceived failures and mistakes, missed opportunities, past betrayals, or unresolved conflict.
You try to push these thoughts to the back of your mind but they regularly reappear, casting a dark shadow over your days. So, how can you create an emotional state where your previous experiences, mistakes, or traumas no longer control your current thoughts, identity, or well-being? Is there a way of making peace with the past?
"Yes," is the good news, according to Kadam Adam Starr, a Buddhist meditation teacher at the Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre in Dublin. He will give a course, titled "Making peace with the past, embracing the future", at the Connacht Hotel on Saturday November 14 from 10am to 1pm.
He believes many of us wake up each day feeling weighed down by the past, others are weary worrying about the future. Both can be heavy loads to carry.
"Maybe it was a difficult week at work, a relationship that ended badly, or a painful period in your life that still seems to follow you around. Or maybe it’s the future that occupies your mind," he says. "There’s certainly plenty to worry about. AI replacing jobs. Climate change. War and economic uncertainty dominate the news. For many younger people in Ireland, even buying a home can feel increasingly out of reach.
"It’s understandable that we might sometimes wonder how can we feel optimistic about our life or future with so much uncertainty."
Walks of life
However, he says that more than 20 years teaching meditation and Buddhist wisdom in different countries and spending time with people from all walks of life, has taught him many important lessons.
"I’ve seen something encouraging again and again. We may not be able to change our past, but we can learn to make peace with it. And although we cannot know what the future will bring, we can learn to become more at ease with uncertainty. We can learn to live one day at a time.
"A good place to start is with a simple but profoundly liberating insight. Our life is simply what’s happening now. The past is a memory of something that once happened. The future is a thought, feeling, or belief about something that may happen. Yet, however often our mind rewinds to a past now gone or fast-forwards to what might happen, our actual life is unfolding here, in this moment. Imagine how much mental space we could free up if we became better at recognising this?"
He explains that being present does not mean pretending past events did not happen or refusing to plan for the future. It involves learning not to spend so much of today mentally living somewhere else. Meditation can help us do this, he says.
"Even 10 or 15 minutes each day can be a useful beginning. Sit quietly and bring your attention to the sensation of your breath as it enters and leaves through your nostrils. When you notice that your mind has wandered - perhaps back into an old conversation or forward into tomorrow’s worries - gently return your attention to the breath. Again and again, come back to that sensation of breath.
"We're not trying to stop thinking. We’re simply learning that we don’t have to get lost in every thought that appears. Eventually, the mind will settle and we come to experience a degree of inner calm or inner peace and the natural feelings of happiness and wellbeing that arise from that."
Over time, he says this simple practice can help us feel more grounded and at ease in the here and now with greater access to inner calm, peace of mind, and joy as we begin each day.
Peace of mind
"With consistency, that experience can become more familiar. Rather than peace of mind being something we experience only when life is going well, we can gradually develop a deeper and more stable inner calm, genuine happiness, and resilience that helps us navigate whatever the day brings. Not perfectly. Just more and more over time."
Meditation can help us open doors to change, says Kadam Adam. "Something deeper can begin to change [with this practice] - how we see ourselves. We become increasingly familiar with the potential we all have within us to live with greater inner peace, happiness, and freedom in everyday life. That can bring a new found sense of groundedness and confidence in who we are, and the potential for who we can become.
"Not because we suddenly have everything figured out, but because we begin to trust our capacity to meet life differently. Instead of being continually pulled back by the past or unsettled by what might happen next, we can increasingly live and act from this more grounded place of peace and potential. We feel less burdened by what has gone before and more confident and optimistic about whatever the future may bring. We don’t have to keep reliving the past."
This is important, he says, because our instinctive reactions to what is happening today are often influenced by what happened yesterday or many years ago.
Sometimes, something as simple as someone making a throwaway comment or an ill-timed attempt to be humorous at our expense can be enough to set off a range of uncomfortable feelings within us.
"Someone says something that touches on an old wound. A difficult situation reminds us of a previous experience. Before we know it, we are reacting not only to the person or situation in front of us, but to years of accumulated hurt, pain, or frustration. Without some space in the mind, our reactions can feel almost automatic. Meditation can help create that space.
"Gradually, we can learn to recognise an old reaction without immediately acting on it. Instead of allowing the past to dictate our response, we have an opportunity to ask - is there a better way to respond to this now? We can begin developing wiser, more compassionate ways of relating to ourselves and others - responding to the life that is actually in front of us rather than continually reliving a past long gone. In this sense, making peace with the past doesn’t mean erasing it. It means no longer allowing it to determine our experience in the present or to continually shape our future."
And what about that future? Perhaps one of the most useful things we can learn is to accept the fact that uncertainty is unavoidable.
Kadam Adam says we do not know how AI will change or replace our jobs, we cannot be certain how the global economy will look in five years, and we are unable to predict what challenges we, or the people we love, will face.
Anxiety about the future
Much of our anxiety about the future comes not simply from uncertainty itself, but from our struggle with it, he maintains. "Maybe we get caught up in thinking, I can’t accept it if this happens. Things have to work out the way I want. I need to know everything will be OK. But life simply can’t offer any of us guarantees. The solution is to learn to fully and wholeheartedly accept, and thereby be at peace with that reality.
"As we do, we will discover this can bring us the peace of mind we all long for, and hope will come with certainty. Acceptance is not resignation. It doesn’t mean becoming passive, ignoring problems, or giving up on trying to change our lives or the world for the better. It means starting from the reality in front of us, rather than fighting against it."
When we accept that life changes from day-to-day and that the future is uncertain, we can use our energy more constructively, he says. Instead of using it trying to mentally control everything that might happen, we can ask ourselves what is the best thing we can do in the current situation.
"One simple phrase I find helpful to use is:-'I accept this, so I can be at peace with this, so I can find a better way to work with this'. Acceptance creates space. And within that space, we can discover in time that we are more resilient and resourceful than we previously imagined. Eventually, we may discover something even more important. The quality of our life is shaped not simply by what happens to us, but by how we learn to respond to what happens.
"We cannot choose every circumstance. We can’t change what happened in the past or guarantee what will happen in the future. But today, we can choose how we relate to ourselves, others, and life. We can choose patience over anger, compassion over judgement, acceptance over resistance. And each time we do, we are quietly shaping the life we want to live, a life of growing peace, happiness, and meaning."
• Kadam Adam Starr will give a course titled "Making peace with the past, embracing the future" at the Connacht Hotel on Saturday November 14 from 10am to 1pm. Admission is €25 and people can book a place on the course by logging on to www.meditateinireland.com/galway/ There is an €18 concession rate for the unemployed, students, and senior citizens. To avail of this email [email protected] People can also turn up and pay on the day of the course.
• Meditation classes, organised by the Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre in Galway, take place weekly at Ground & Co Cafe, Salthill on Tuesday evenings at 7pm.
