Exchanging the past for the good that lasts

Many of us have things we aren’t too happy about in our past. Attitudes we’ve held, which now we’re glad to have outgrown. Actions taken, words said—by us, or to us—that we just wish had never happened. On the surface, it seems that there’s nothing to be done about it. But if we dig a little deeper, we really can be freed of the hold those experiences seem to have on us. I’ve learned that the only hold the past can have on us today is how we’re thinking about it now.

About a month ago, I found myself really wanting to be free once and for all of something that bothered me every time I remembered it. However, it wasn’t just a single event. It was memories of a relationship with someone. Although the relationship started out with a lot of love and joy, it twisted and morphed until it became something regrettable. The relationship had been over for years, but every time the other person or any part of the relationship came to mind, I had this “yucky” feeling. I had talked with my Christian Science teacher about how I could dismiss those unhelpful thoughts and feelings through prayer, so I did that whenever things came to mind, but they still kept coming to me. It seemed as if those memories were just unpleasant, irremovable parts of my life.

Then something new came to mind. It’s what Mary Baker Eddy has to say about our past: “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man’s real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. It is ‘as a tale that is told,’ and ‘as the shadow when it declineth.’ The heavenly intent of earth’s shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being. … The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 21–22). Revised and expunged. In other words, changed and deleted.

In Christian Science, we accept that the spiritual man (meaning men and women—everyone) is the real man, and that man reflects God’s perfection and complete goodness (see Genesis 1:26, 27, 31). So our real, spiritual existence is always harmonious and perfect, and it doesn’t need to be changed or deleted.

It seemed like those memories were just unpleasant, irremovable parts of my life.

Now the “human history,” that’s what’s generally accepted as reality. To use a friend’s phrase, it’s the “part good, part not-so-good” we see around us each day. That is what Eddy says needs to be revised, changed. How can we change it? Well, we look at a situation, and we look for God’s qualities being expressed even in difficult times. We ask, “What was the good really going on there?” We revise, or re-see, what’s happened when we recognize the good. Then we stick with that, and drop the yuck.

The yuck is the “material record.” If we’re accepting that reality is purely spiritual, then the material, its opposite, must be unreal. The yuck is a mistake about God’s good creation, ourselves and others included. Now how can we expunge, or delete, it? We delete it when we let our thoughts be filled with what is really true, and mistaken thinking is chased away and replaced with God’s messages of progress and peace.

Here’s how I worked through that process:

I took out a notebook. I got quiet and still, and I let myself recall anything and everything about that relationship—something I realized I generally tried not to do. As tough moments would come to mind, I would listen for a thought reminding me of any good that had been going on. Then I would write down the spiritual qualities and attributes that came to me.

When regret surfaced—for example, the regret that at one point I’d let the relationship suddenly start up again against my better judgment—I listened to God. Thoughts came to me that despite the fact that our actions and choices had become misguided along the way, the mutual desire for comfort and acceptance had been good. It was also good that each of us recognized in the other the warmth of affection we could offer as expressions of God, Love. So for this memory, I wrote down, “comfort,” “acceptance,” “warmth,” “affection,” and “love”—qualities that pointed to God’s constant, completely good and true record.

After a short while, I had remembered every bit of the relationship I could. And moment by moment, I had reversed the material record, replacing it with the spiritual reality. All the negative emotions had been replaced with peace and gratitude for all the good I had experienced. It was like a giant weight had been lifted! Whereas an hour earlier I would think of certain times and feel yuck, just that short while later, when I thought of the same events, the only direction I could turn my thought was toward the warmth and peace that remained. After years, the angst about this relationship was absolutely gone, and I had a lovely list of all the good being expressed during that period in my life. The peace persists still, and I haven’t even needed to look back at the list of qualities I made.

I am so grateful to recognize God’s gracious guidance in my life. And this is largely because of what I’ve learned in my practice of Christian Science. In the words of Mary Baker Eddy: “Beyond the frail premises of human beliefs, above the loosening grasp of creeds, the demonstration of Christian Mind-healing stands a revealed and practical Science. It is imperious throughout all ages as Christ’s revelation of Truth, of Life, and of Love, which remains inviolate for every man to understand and to practise” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 98).