The problem or challenge you are experiencing right now is not in your past. And you know what? It doesn't lie in your future, either. No, the problem or challenge you are experiencing is only there now, if at all.
You read it right: problems and challenges do not, in fact, exist at all in the past or in the future. Well, we might even reverse it more strongly: they only exist because we sit with our minds in the past or in the future. Because just consider yourself in this exact moment. What problem do you have right now, in this wafer-thin moment when you read these words?
You may be saying, "Yeah but Edwin, I'm in physical pain right now." Okay, clear. Then that's an acute problem right now. But even with pain, our brain works in fascinating ways. If you're in pain and you focus completely on something completely different, suddenly that pain is gone or fades into the background. J
e can thus change your experience right now simply by shifting your focus. Of course, if you are really completely buried in pain, then it becomes a different story. Then you have to go on painkillers or to the hospital, I get that too. But everything else? Is that actually a problem now?
The great illusion of the "Now Problem"
Let's look at the things most people fret about. Some people immediately exclaim, "Yeah, but Edwin, I don't have any money right now, so that's definitely a problem!"
Okay, great. But is that a problem now? Really now? As you sit here quietly, as you read this article, as you breathe? No, not right now at this exact moment.
Now you are safe, you are consuming this article, and nothing at all constructive will happen to that money shortage by stressing about it now. So: be free.
"Yes, but Edwin, it does become a problem!"
See, and there we go already. That's where we step into the future with open eyes.
"Because on the first of the month I have to pay my bills and I can't."
Okay, but it's now halfway through the month. You have fourteen days left. Are you seriously going to literally kill yourself and stress for fourteen days until that one day arrives?
Or are you going to take action now in the present moment , so that by that first of the month you do have something settled? At least now it's not a problem, because it's simply not the first of the month.
Now you may be thinking, "Yeah, nice easy dick this, Edwin. Nice easy talk." And I get that. It's also very easy to say. But go ahead and do it, because it's damn hard done. And it's all because of that wonderful but sometimes oh so irritating mechanism in our head: our mind, our brain.
Why your brain is a doom machine (And why that makes sense)
Oy, our brain... That biological device in our skull really only wants one thing: to avoid pain. And to avoid pain, it is constantly conjuring up hypothetical pain scenarios. It's an evolutionary survival mechanism.
In the absolute "now," there is almost never a problem unless there is a tiger in front of you or you are experiencing acute physical pain. But the rest of the time? How many acute, life-threatening problems do you have right now? Most people have none. Absolutely zero.
But what does our brain do? That continuously dishes out to us a predictive representation of reality[1].
- The past: The brain digs into old memories to check what went wrong. "My past was full of problems and my body is still suffering from them now." Yes, when you think about it it does! Then you retrieve something from the past and only then do you feel it in the now. If you don't recall it, there is nothing wrong with it now.
- The future: The brain kind of simulates what could go wrong so you can anticipate it.
When is your brain useful, and when is it clumsy?
Let's face it: that time machine in your head has a function. Of course, it's super convenient to learn from your mistakes. It's handy that my brain remembers that it's not so smart to say to a complete stranger lady, "Gee, how nice, are you pregnant?" when in fact she's just a size up. I experienced that once. So I will never do it again. Great that the past has taught me that lesson!
It's also helpful when I cross the road. My brain immediately makes a prediction: Is that car coming fast? Is it safe? Sometimes you are deep in thought and your body stops all at once because a car is coming rumbling by. Your unconscious has already scanned and saved things before you were consciously there. That's fantastic. That's how we stay safe as an organism.
But when does it get awkward?
It's exhausting and utterly awkward to continually put all the mistakes of your past in front of you like a giant slide show. You paralyze yourself with it. It makes you perfectionist, because "oh, I absolutely cannot make mistakes," and it makes you feel miserable.
It is also completely awkward to continually project an incredible doomsday scenario into the future. "What will go wrong this year?" If you fill your future with misery, it will make you dead unhappy now (in the only moment you actually have)[2].
Time is a construct of the mind
For some people, it's a huge liberation to realize that the best thing about the past is that it's over. So let it be fucking over!
The realization to make is this: time is a thing of the mind. We have an inner perception of time, a kind of timeline in our minds. But that future doesn't exist outside your head at all. It is a predictive representation of reality, not a real reality.
Essentially, we live in a vertical time. Your body is vertical; it is always in the NOW. There is only now. Just for planning purposes, of course, that's awkward. If I want to meet with you and I say, "I'll see you in the now," it gets complicated. "Then when?" "Yes, in another now." That doesn't get anywhere. So we devised a horizontal timeline to function and plan.
The same goes for the past. You can't physically go back to yesterday. You can't go back to last week. You can go there in your mind, though. You can recall memories. But we know from piles of scientific research that memories are plastic[3]. They are constantly changing and are by no means an objective, reliable representation of what really happened in the past.
In hypnotherapy, we sometimes joke with clients:
"Did you have a bad childhood? Do you want a good one?"
That sounds bizarre, but we know we can change those memories and their emotional charge in your mind in such a way that you suddenly get the profound feeling that you did have a good childhood.
Is that historically "true"? Maybe not. But does it feel better now? Absolutely. And how can that be? Because in fact, the past now doesn't really exist either; it exists only as a neurological pattern in your brain right now.
The Exercise: How to instantly make 99% of your problems disappear
So how do you break free from this? How do you stop that constant projection of doomsday scenarios and that emotional drag on the past? With a simple but powerful visualization.
Please follow along with me:
Step 1: Visualize your timeline
Imagine that time is a physical line. Visualize the future right in front of you. See the days, months and years ahead of you. Actually feel that future. Feel the pressure or expectation hanging there. Then look behind you and imagine your entire past there. All your experiences, your memories, the beautiful and the ugly things. Feel that past hanging behind your back.
Step 2: Step off the line
When you have that line sharply in front and behind you, pretend to jump off it emotionally and mentally with a big step. Literally step off that line. Now look from a distance at that timeline lying there separate from you.
Step 3: Make the line disappear
Look to the future on that line and let it fade away. Take out the energy. Do the same with the past: let it dissolve into nothingness. There is no more future in front of you, there is no more past behind you. Visualize those concepts evaporating completely.
Handle with care!
All at once, you are then completely unplugged. You are purely in the now. No yesterday, no tomorrow. Just this exact moment.
I do warn you in advance: at first, this can be frightening. This is the ultimate handle with care exercise. Why? Because all at once you are so disconnected from your stories that for a moment you no longer know who you are.
It is incredibly confronting to your "self," to your ego, to your learned personality. After all, your personality lives by the grace of your past and your future plans. If you remove all that, all that remains is pure consciousness.
At the time, I found it very easy to let go of my past. After all, that had been there anyway, I thought. But letting go of my future? Man, that scared the hell out of me. That was a completely different story. After all, it was all going to happen in that future!
There I would become the man I so desperately wanted to be. That was where all the success and all the happiness could be found, I thought. It made no sense of course, I know that now, but that was how I had projected it all in my mind at the time: "Later, when I have achieved this and that, then it will be better."
When I removed that future projection in one fell swoop, my ego collapsed a bit. I thought, Who am I anymore if I don't have to pursue a successful future? Who am I now? I really had to get used to that for a while.
But I promise you: if you go through this, it's incredibly liberating. And the most beautiful, the most magical effect of this shift? That 99 of the 100 problems you thought you had simply disappear like snow in a second. After all, they no longer have a foundation to stand on. By the way, this is also something that people practice with mindfulness[4].
Try it out for yourself. Step off that line, take a deep breath, and experience the space.
I'm incredibly curious about your experience. How did this exercise go for you? Did you find it easy to let go, or did your brain struggle considerably? Let me know in the comments below, I always enjoy reading them!
Helping other people with their timeline
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