Dear Readers,
Recently I stumbled upon a question from a reader that intrigued me : are we prisoners of the past?
Please give me your thoughts on that.
Love,
Paulo
Are we prisoners of the past?
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Yes. I have had a lot of counselling that set me free from my past. I still have far to go on my journey to becoming my true self. The thing is that the way we react to life is a display of our childhood experiences if we grew up in dysfunctional places or with dysfunctional people. To us our childhood experiences are the only ‘normal’ that we know. So as adults we seek out the same experiences and repeat these patterns voluntarily. Until we become aware of this (usually from hitting Rock Bottom due to a life event that is so bad that we have to stop in our path and change) we really are prisoners. Once we learn what is happening and why, we become free to make choices. Until this happens, none of our choices belong to us because they are echoes of choices that were made for us as helpless children.
Love and light to anyone else on the path to healing their life.
this may indeed be a very late comment but sincerely every thing,thought or event in life has a reason/purpose for being.
Just this morning while observing my morning cores, a particular thought/question cross my mind;
“Can Our Past Determine Our Future”
It’s some how the same thing with the subject discussed here but it’s just that it has somewhat a different twist. Well to me what i deduce from the question after much reflection is that, to a very great extent we can say that our past does not necessarily determine our future just like all what i have read here so far,fine i agree with virtually everybody that said “We may actually be the prisoner of our past if we fail to let go of the past”, some may even said our past can not determine what our tomorrow will look like. In fact i have hard it severally that what we do today will determine where will be tomorrow. This now bring us to the issue i want all to thoroughly reflect on, analyse this;
Our today(which is our Present as well) will definitely be our past by tomorrow. Tomorrow that is said to be the product of Today(Today that is already past by Tomorrow), but we should never forget that Yesterday(our past) had once determined Today(our present)just like our Today is determining our Tomorrow now, so i am not ready to turn my deduction into conclusion till i here from Paulo the sage and from the pool of great sages i have in here. Now, this is what i deduce;
Yea, we may agree not to be a prisoner to our past but since what we do in the past(yesterday) determine what we are now(today) and what we will do now(today) will in turn result to what we may become tomorrow(future), then our past(which we said we can choose not to be a prisoner to)may not directly affects our future, but through today(present) it indirectly has say in our future as well.
Now, am left with Conclusion:
Anybody???
Are we prisoners of our past?
I think we can chose to be prisoners
If we live our lives forever looking back, we will miss the beauty of today.
As humans we can only focus on one thing, we are not multi-taskers, that is a modern lie, we live in one moment, and we make it our own.
Life flows, our thoughts affect our feelings which affect our experience, which affect our thoughts
to chose to live in one particular painful moment repeatedly, is to be captured.
to chose to live in a particular pleasurable moment repeatedly, can shift our focus away from seeing a new pleasure
We lose the potential of a new moment, and therefore the potential of who we can be, remains hidden.
There is a saying, the best revenge is to live well.
I know this is a late comment, but I only stumbled on your blog today. I like it, it gives so much food for thought.
No, I don’t think we are prisoners of the past unless we let ourselves be prisoners by the limitations we set. If we aim to understand the reason and circumstances we learn from the past and become so much more aware of what is happening in our life now. Freedom is not a life without boundaries but a life within boundaries that make sense and keep us safe. Everything that happened in the past is a lesson, but to learn from it we need to understand it and not judge it.
You become a “prisoner” of the past for as long as “you” allow yourself to be one ! LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS, BUT, IT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS . . .
Yes, we are prisoners of past… more of our past expectations and dreams that didn’t happend than of things that actualy did happen..it is always easier to regret for bad choices that we made, than for choices that we didn’t have courage to make…
it is very hard to liberate oneself from missed chances…
I think yes,we are prisoners of our past life.But not our whole this life, we have the chance to choose and learn.
we prison ourselves just because we feel weakness to change something in our lives. people are afraid of being placed in new lives with new souls and visions. thats why past is always a prison for those who have fear to change everything around.
at some point or another we all become prisoners of the past,
keep the love letters, throw away the bank statements
EL PASADO ES PARTE DE NUESTRA VIDA,Y POR LO TANTO NO DEBEMOS COMPARARLO CON PRISION SI NO COMO RECUERDOS BUENOS O MALOS SEGUN COMO A CADA QUIEN LE HAYA TOCADO VIVIR. LO MEJOR ES ENFOCAR NUESTROS PENSAMIENTOS A UN FUTURO MEJOR.
In a way yes we are. What has been done to us is hard to forget. I forgave everyone but the memories haunt me, I am working on forgiving myself.
I read your biography Mr.Coelho and I am very emotional about it because you have endured a lot (and I can associate with things you went through, not all but some), yet you still menage to come on top, but I feel like there is still part of you looking for many answers. Am I right or wrong? I am not here to judge or anything of that nature it is just my feeling. Who am I but just a plain simple (? ha ha) person. I admire you, and that will not change, you among many authors have given me so much motivation, now I am not trying to kiss up to you as they say here, because what reason would I have behind it, what would I gain, I am just one of the millons. I love you, and if you read this-I ALWAYS WILL!
Some answers take a long time to be revealed to us, some never will and we just have to let them go yes?
With love
Barbara
maybe ultimately the past is imprisoned in us the more we keep living in the past….
just a thought..
Love and Gratitude
Annie
yes….we are the prisoners, of the past.the few things upon which we rely to move ahead in life are the expereince`s which we have gained as a result of our actions towards certain cicumstances in past.this past stangles us,denies us the liberty to live without prejudice.stops us from cherishing the moment that we live through,it either misleads us to prepare for the upcoming with the fear to fall behind or compels us to drown down the memory lane to relish the past.past is the prison that makes a man human………
Much appreciation for asking simple questions that have only subjective ideas for answers. Such illusory subjects are not commonplace in a mostly (hopefully) socially equitable (online) world.
To leave my answer… As beings with limited cognizance, we continuously seek stimulation & understanding to fill in the void of a finite existence. No matter the logic, we live our lives in this way.
In this small life, extremes tend to appear automatically. For instance, one day brings celebration or ecstasy, while another brings unwelcome controversy. Energy vs empty space. The appearance of the Sun & Moon. Left & Right. Of all the contrasts discovered in a complex universe, time makes its presence to the mind absolute! …as it is necessary for language & communication, congregation & group activity, or simply thinking.
Despite its attachment to anything, it’s presence may actually be nothing. Nothing but a representation of the mind’s limitation. An effect of being only a part of God & not GOD… Having only one perspective – our own – time is conceived of &, hence, made real (to us).
Whenever we think or act something, we are forced to divide time. We treat Past as a painting, Present as paint, & Future as paper.
I’d imagine most individuals base:
(1) their actions on past experiences,
(2) their thoughts on future consequences,
(3) and relatively little attention on present reality.
…Though I recognize these relationships are not concrete. But from a third person perspective, I have a feeling these frames of perspective could characterize all sorts of people we’ve met, seen, heard, tasted?, etc.
The few remaining are a special type of mind, not engulfed by the body of the world.
…Whose path in life & subsequent divine reflection liberated their addictions & sorrows from the past. Freed from prison while still inside another larger prison. Continued until no longer in prison.
They also allow the future to become the future. Not resisting the limitation of our fragile existence, future is given the freedom it deserves (within the context of our lives; “lives” that are dynamically shared).
And the present… (all that can be said is that words can’t define the present better than the Present itself) … PRESENT!! :)
Thank you for the gift.
With love
I am a Chinese reader.Early this year I had been working very hard on my postgraduate entrance exam, for which I had abandoned all the school activities and cut as many classes as I can.But because of the choice to study a very different subject in a top university in China, I’ve suffered much pressure through that time.Every day I counted the minutes I waste in trifles, I was ashamed for not doing well as I carefully planned and someone’s expectation. I felt depressed every day and I owed all the unhappiness to the failures of my past:not studying hard enough in high school which results in the pity of studying a subject I don’t like that much and being too late to pursue my interests in the last year in college.No one ever understood me, they were always telling me they belived I can.At last I broke down.
Months later, I have realized that I should have known I have many possibilities and what I relly want to do. I am not a prisoner of the past.After reading Alchemist and the story of Veronika,I began to think what on earth my dream is and who I am. There is still no answer yet,but some changes need to be made.
I think in this case our lives can somewhat be related to driving a car. There is a reason the windshield is larger than the rear view mirro. It is because we are to look toward to where we are headed, with a goal, a destination or even just sightseeing. But, the rear view mirror is also there for a reason, to glance occasionally to make sure something we have passed is not coming back to damage or hurt us and to see that we need to speed up if it is, to move forward faster….it is smaller because that is not suppose to be our focus and if we spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror, we will miss the beautiful sites ahead and maybe an exit we are suppose to take….
being prisoners from your past all depends on you if you choose to be. dwelling in the past does not help one to move forward. it pulls someone down which causes one to grow more in hatred and anger rather then to forgive and to let go.
El pasado nos acecha en nuestro presente… y somos consientes de ello. Lo importante es tratar que no nos afecte nuestro día a día, tomar lo mejor de nuestro ayer, para ser mejores en nuestro hoy, y no lamentarnos de lo que hicimos o dejamos de hacer, tenemos una oportunidad en nuestro presente, en nuestro hoy.. mañana? no sé si estaré mañana para lamentarme de mi hoy…..
минуле є минулим, на яке не варто витрачати зусилля. Але варто пам’ятати про теорію лінійності, у якій йдеться про повторення того що вже було. тому треба не забувати про це
we are not prisoners of the past …. but they are past mistakes that keep us in prison …
i agree with u michael
yo se mucha gente es prisionera de pasado, no avanza en la vida vive sufriendo dia tras dìa por lo que le toco vivir en una epoca de su vida pero una gran oportunidad tiene si viaja, lee, tiene amistades que le muestren un punto de vista diferente de lo que le ha tocado sufrir o le expone tambièn las dificultades de ella o de otras personas talvez de esa forma logre superar pero los que se encierran en si mismo no tienen salida tus libros paulo son una bendicion para superar complejos traumas cosas que talvez no son tan fuertes como creemos o nos pones una formula para curar la herida y seguir nuestro camino con mayor seguridad
¿Somos prisioneros del Pasado?
No si queremos avanzar no podemos cargar situaciones no solucionadas generalmente nuestro pasado es lo que no solucionamos nuestras equivocacione, nuestras relaciones sin solucionar, aquello de lo que huimos por temor, nuestros aciertos nos acompañan siempre como nuestros afectos positivos son parte de lo que viste nuestra alma cada dia, solo nuestros errores son la ropa sin usar que dejamos en algun rincon del armario.
mis saludos y admiracion a un gran autor
We don’t wanna lose the lessons that the past teaches us but
remember:
…as Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by Yahweh with fire and brimstone, Lot’s wife looks back at the city in defiance of the angels’ specific command, and she becomes a pillar of salt.
and I am have think about who is make a past to us. that allso important and the past of anyone maybe same or difference…
and I think the past make we lost something and forever.
I believe that a person and his personality are made of many things. One of these things is the past and what this person has done, thought and experienced in the past. Many say that it’s better to live only in the present, looking forward to the future. I, however, think it’s wrong not to think about your own past. I think it’s wrong to try to forget or leave your past totally. This is because I think that your past is a part of you and that’s why it makes a part of what you are. Yes, it is good to look to the future and focus on the present, but without the past you’ll never learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Understand your past and talk with it in your mind, and you’ll feel better about tomorrow.
Hello! We know people. And we know that that is our past. Yet we live in today, which in itself does not exist after the break between today yesterday and tomorrow. The ions are emotions today than yesterday and called our experience. And yesterday was our experience of that at least a day earlier. And tomorrow is a dream. It is the most beautiful. But, yesterday or tomorrow ions are in the eyes of others is not true of the truth. The truth lives within us grows death without time. But there is more !!!!!!!
Dear Paulo,
I have read throughly read 4 of your books which taught me to move past the obvious and live the present as if future is not a distant dream but well equipped new journey without taxing the soul.Your “Mongolian Creation Myth” from The Zahir has opened a closed door somewhere from the past deep inside my soul. I won’t call it “doors of perception” but it is obviously a movement free from a begining, middle or an end.
The past and the present are relative movements that prepares one to follow the direction set by our heart to the future.They are my doors to the future which rejuvenates me through every bend and curve of life showing me a new road to the future.There is a thin line of divide between past and the present. What I am writing now is my present but once I stop it becomes a moment in my past. Maybe this moment will take me to another time and place in the future and I will have little room for it to lament.
I don’t think there’s a past, there’s only now.
Life is like when you blink your eyes..
what i don’t get is why do humans think that everything done before the sleeping cycle is a past thing?! Sleeping is like working, meeting someone.. and about if we’re prisonners of our past (now) i say : not really, because each one of us is free but what people don’t get is that in their inner unconsciousness they want to be prisonners. maybe it’s a good thing?!
Cheers Mr.PC
there are some who bear grudges from long ago but some are wise enough to bury their past in the brightness of their present and hope of the future.
Our past defines our present, which in turn defines our future.
I find it easier to answer the opposite question:
“Can we NOT be prisoners of the past”
Yes – if you are a new-born mind with a clean slate.
No – if you have live long enough and have experience enough. You will tend to make decisions and square expectations based on prior experiences. This is in a sense having your mind locked in a particular box, and like Kant would have said, you can’t go around without understanding this world without “rose-tinted spectacles”. (Example>> http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/100/100kant.htm)
Ok. So I have shared my opinion about how we perceive our present. If what he means by prisoner is being locked in your own particular “box”, then I have kinda answered the question…
If being locked in one’s sins is what he is asking … then we need a different perspective, one that includes whether we can really “forgive” ourselves or not.
Sometimes but not always.
the world have one history and that history is the past that the world had to go through. crazy like this someday u will become the past of someone or somthing.
the past is where u are rememberd by the ones who live’d with you a momment of ur life. to me the past is good friend he always remind me where i come from, who am i, and lovely about the past is that it helps to figure out somthing that u didn’t do in the past, and i brake it down like this. past become history,ur past ur history, your story, your past.
the future comes, u live the present….but the past last as long as u want to remember.
There are two thieves in our daily lives. Yesterday and Tomorrow. Yesterday because we dwell on the past, and tomorrow because we view happiness as something to achieve in the future. I think it´s important not to let Yesterday and Tomorrow steal from the present. After all, the present is a gift. Enjoy the precious moments of daily life. Especially the little things. They are what count.
yes. i think so.. it’s easy to say that we can forget the past..that we can move on.. in reality, our past is like an allergy that bugs us whenever it’s triggered. it becomes a part of our system, and most of the time, it cannot be cured. only prevented–a matter of choice.
Dreams, living now, taking risk, opening up to new frontiers of thought, of action; being a Warrior of the light. Paulo and his writings certainly encourage that curing, evolution, creative growth, can in fact happen, if we acknowledge patterned thinking, accpet that change can or must happen to get different results, and act to produce the altered outcomes which may initially prove either right or wrong. But move forward regardless accepting all outcomes as experience, and have faith that there is much to be gained by the searching.
Obviously,we are learning,reffering and practising from past, thats why Sir.God has sent to us those 4 holly books to learn from the past. Consequently, no life without past.
Obviously,we are learning,reffering and practising from past, thats why Sir.God sent to us those 4 holly books. Consequently, no life without past.
every one has a parole from the prison of past ,
most of the time ,yes!Because we act in the present by our past accumulated thoughts.But some strong people free themselves from the past through different techniques.
may be not prisoners !!but our past affect us in one way or another !! and i always believe that those who has no past will have no future !!
acredito,que fato; se nos deixarmos por ocasiões nos predermos ao passado este nos aprionara realmente então é preciso que cada minuto de nossas vidas sejam cuidadosamente analizados com plena conciencia da real consequencia de onde nos levarão nossas escolhas, sabemos que é facil a vida sempre nos indica para onde seguirmos ,são sinas preste atenção neles e o passado e mera consequencia de nossos atos tomados,intitivamente ou analizado essa e a diferença de não ficarmos presos ao que não volta mais….
Sim, acredito profundamente que o somos mas, como qualquer prisioneiro depois da pena cumprida, temos sempre a escolha: Tornar-nos uma pessoa melhor ou pior. Ficarmos eternamente entre barra de ferro, (imaginarias) ou substitui-las por poderosas asas e voar… na conquista do que realmente ambicionamos e pensamos ser o melhor para nos e do que nos rodeam. E assim se completa uma experiencia sem perdermos a consciencia do que se passou.
Yes. Simply put. If humanity is to achieve its potential, it is through understanding this statement. Our ‘choices’ that we seem to make are mostly clouded by by our experiences, by our learned behaviour and reaction to arbitrary systems. We are creatures of experience, of past. We create (we CHOOSE) the insanity that the world lives with through unconciously choosing things while being heavily influenced by past experience. Our minds are the tool for the assignment, and it drives resultant action based on its close control by the ego sense alive in most of us. Mind over matter, or heart over mind ? Our choice is to allow our intelligence to shine from beyond the mind, from before the mind, from a place of universal understanding that is not coloured by learned behaviours. From the innocence of the child will the kingdom of heaven be entered, from the condition of an unconditioned mind. From truth not learned, but granted or bestowed as the inherent truth of the human condition. From the truth of our birthright, the truth that burns up the conditioned past and leads to the presence that we can all share. I hope to get there, and hope to meet all others there in the collective universal conciousness. We are all love that shines unconditionally. Once we recognise that the past is irrevelant, as it never actually existed at all but rather was always just the present in disguise, we can get past the Prison to the truth.
well said. I agree. :) and i learned a lot. thanks!
Well said Shiv, We sure are influenced by our past. If the past had been so enjoyable and good enough ,we tend to keep that as a bench mark and work towards maintaining the same standards and people in future too.
Even if it was bad, we decide what is good for us based on what we lacked then in the past and move towards that in future, whatever it is, we still are prisoners of the past!
Hi everyone,
The past passed, tomorrow we don’t know it will come or not, just there is now, present time.
Get lessons from past but don’t hang it, live at the present time as much as full, don’t forget tomorrow,too.
Forexapmle: You lived such a rainy days in the past, you didn’t have any food. Now, you have many sort of foods. You can eat all of them in present time but remember old days, save a bit for tomorrow :) Or you may think old days because of that you don’t want to eat enough in present time and want to keep most of them for future, but future will come or they will keep fresh.
Be happy and healthy
It’s more like we were once inmates but we are now free. we have to go on but we will not forget once we were in prison and so do others. and our days in prison do shape us and make us what we are now.
A great question Paulo, thankyou.
Reminds me of your great book, Veronika Decides To Die (all of your books), and a quote by Jung:
‘I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.’
This quote seems to reach the inner spirit as your books do too. Where the heart is.
As well, reminded of forgiveness along the path.
With Gratitude, Love,
Jane
Hi Jane,
May be, what I choose to become is shaped by what happened to me, or what I had wished but did not happen to me in the past!. We do not get influenced by things from out of no where isnt it?
Have you ever read the work of that GREAT thinker, Pierre Bourdieu? His concept of Habitus engulfs the past into our present and perpetuates our perceptions, attitudes, thoughts, actions, etc. into the future where the past echoes but always with the possibility of dynamic change. I am studying him as part of my dissertation so have a plethora of books / articles I can recommend…
We are caught up with the thoughts of the past.. which detoriates our speed of march towards our divinely goal. when we were kids we were happy, excited and filled with energy to seek our future but as time goes all the memories and experience we gather through our life slowly fills our thought and at one point we stop thinking about the future rather we engross ourself with the thought of the past wasting our presious future..
the past was our future once
We are like an empty canvas.. As it is our past( experience) that makes us who we are and how we react…
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