You Are A Product Of Your Past, Not A Prisoner Of It

Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.

I'm Zachary Phillips.

So today I want to talk about the concept of you are a product of your past,

But not a prisoner of it.

This concept came from a follower of mine on LinkedIn.

I posted a video about how in the past,

In my dreams,

When I'm asleep,

I would always feel weak.

I would always feel vulnerable,

And I would always have very terrible coordination.

It was like my dream self was very vulnerable,

And pathetic,

And in danger.

I would struggle to lift things or move things.

I would feel that I would get physically attacked and not be able to defend myself.

This was despite years of martial arts training,

Despite years of feeling safe in my life.

I would have these dreams quite regularly,

Where I was physically disabled.

But in this video,

I shared that since I've started daily weight training,

Lifting weights every day consistently,

My body's been stronger.

That has caused my dream self to get stronger and more coordinated.

I talked about how when I strengthen my core,

That's with ab exercises,

And when I stretch my lower back or massage my lower back,

I noticed that there's a bit of a PTSD response.

It's like my body keeps the score.

My body holds issues or trauma in it,

In those areas.

I'm not 100% sure why,

But what I do know is that the more I train them,

The better I feel,

Both in daily life and in my dreams.

The more that I stretch those areas and the more I strengthen those areas,

At the moment,

At the time of doing it,

There's a bit of mental duress,

Sometimes quite significantly.

But over the time,

I'm feeling significantly better because of it.

This person commented saying,

Amongst other things,

That I'm showing that I'm a product of my past,

But I'm not a prisoner of my past.

I thought that was quite lovely,

So I wanted to extrapolate that and tie it back into mindfulness meditation.

On my live mindfulness session today,

Session 16,

I'm not sure when this podcast will come out,

But you can check out session 16 on YouTube or IGTV,

I was talking about this same concept,

But I was applying it to the micro and the macro,

In the sense that I don't choose the thoughts,

Emotions,

Moods,

And memories,

And feelings that pop up in the moment.

Mindfulness meditation,

When you sit in silence,

You see those thoughts popping up.

You see things coming.

You don't control where they come from.

You don't control what pops up.

You can direct them,

Like if you were to think of a carrot,

Right?

I'm forcing that thought into your mind.

But if you were to just sit there and meditate,

You would notice things popping up outside of your control.

Now,

The things that pop up are probably going to be a product of your past,

Either that immediate past,

Your day,

Or your long-term past,

Your childhood,

Etc.

But regardless,

You're not a prisoner of it.

I'm not a prisoner of those thoughts.

With mindfulness,

We learn to step back,

Detach,

And observe them,

But not get invested in them,

Not fall into them,

Not make them feel real,

Despite how tempting they can be.

And that's the game.

Can I watch these thoughts without identifying with them,

Associating with them,

Becoming them?

Because the more we can do that,

The better our life will be.

In that session,

I talked about what popped up for me during the meditation,

And what popped up was a feeling of guilt.

My son goes to kindergarten one day a week,

And the day of the week that he goes is a work day.

I notice that pop up,

And then I notice the guilt feeling pop up,

This feeling of that I'm missing things,

I'm missing out on it,

I'm missing out on dropping him and taking him there,

All of which is true.

And then I notice the instant impulse to make a change.

I've got to change it,

I've got to change my work's time,

I've got to fix this whole anxiety rush to make a change.

And in the past,

I would have made that change to either change work or stop the work on that day,

Or whatever it is,

Very quickly without considering the wider impact.

Yeah,

I'm feeling guilty.

Yeah,

I'm feeling like I miss out.

But that doesn't mean that I need to just jump on and quickly change things.

It doesn't mean I need to do anything.

It means that I'm feeling guilty,

And that's okay,

Because it tells me something.

It tells me that I am invested in my son's life,

That I care for him,

That I want to be there for every moment.

But it also tells me that I can't be there for every moment,

Right?

Because there will be many,

Many things that I'll be there for,

But also many,

Many things that I can't be there for or won't be there for,

And that's life.

So to try and tweak life around on a whim all the time for everything that pops up in my mind is folly,

Because that would disrupt and wreck a lot of the other stuff going on in my life,

Because work is important.

Life's important,

But the other things that I'll be putting aside are also important.

Does that mean that I won't change my work time?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But the point I'm driving at here is that through mindfulness,

I'm able to see this process through a bit more of a detached lens.

I'm not forced to fall into it and act,

And because of that,

I can make a better,

More informed,

More rational choice,

One that takes in the totality of my values and desires and wishes,

And that of my family,

And that of the people I work for,

And all of those sort of things,

Whereas the alternative would be just acting on that impulse.

I feel guilty,

Therefore I'm going to change things.

It's almost akin to putting your hand on a hot stove.

Initially,

And everyone's reaction is to pull your hand back straight away.

We can't stop that.

It's an impulse.

It's a nerve-based thing.

But with mental stuff,

If we notice it,

We're free.

We can choose to take a different course of action.

We might be a product of our past,

But we're not a prisoner by it.

So the product of the past in this case is the conflict between my work and my son's school,

As well as the interplay of the feelings of guilt that I have over childhood,

And wanting to make sure that my son has me in his life as much as possible.

And all of those things interplay,

So I'm a product of that.

But through mindfulness,

Through applied effort,

Through the detachment,

I'm not a prisoner to that.

I'm able to make a different choice.

I'm able to make a choice,

As opposed to just going on impulse.

Now I might end up choosing to arrange things differently,

But in that choosing,

It will be a choice.

It will be a detached,

Rational,

Or more rational choice,

If not the choice of impulse.

And the same thing applies to everything.

Anger pops up,

Jealousy pops up,

Emotionality pops up,

Fear pops up,

Thoughts of the past,

Worrying about the future,

Whatever,

All of that stuff pops up.

That's okay.

They're a product of your past,

A product of you,

Presumably.

But you are not a prisoner to them.

Instead,

You take a slow,

Detached step back,

And simply observe them.

And then you're free.

You're free to make a different choice at any time.

And that's what mindfulness does.

It allows us that choice.

And thus,

With that choice,

We can make better decisions.

So if you're interested in joining me for my mindfulness sessions every morning,

I'm running them live at 6.

40am,

Australian Eastern Standard Time,

On my Instagram,

At ZachPPhillips.

That's ZachPPhillips.

I'm also chucking the replays up on IGTV,

So they're there for later sessions,

And on my YouTube channel as well.

You can just find them via my website,

Zachary-philips.

Com.

I get it.

It's early,

The time is inconvenient,

All of those sort of things.

Some people are joining in,

And I'm getting a decent amount watching after the fact.

And that's lovely,

Because whether or not you join in,

Or you watch it after the fact,

The replays are there.

And that means that if you're so inclined,

You could set that as your daily meditation.

You could set that as,

This is the 10-20 minutes that I'm going to put aside each day to improve my life,

To develop myself,

To simply sit in silence.

Each session starts with a little bit of a recap of the previous session,

Followed by a short talk and a lead-in to a 10-minute mindfulness sit in silence,

And then another little short talk talking about some of the stuff,

For example,

That I've mentioned in this podcast right now.

And that's it.

So it's about,

It's a 10-minute sit in silence,

And a little bit of talking about meditation or mental-related things.

I do it because it keeps me accountable.

It makes me turn up every day at the same time to meditate.

It makes my practice quite formal,

In a good way.

And for the people that are already joining in,

Either live or after the fact,

It does the same things for them.

We're developing a community.

We're meditating together to keep ourselves accountable to each other,

To ourselves,

And to develop that habit.

And also it's an opportunity for people to ask questions,

Either live as a Q&A,

Or after the fact,

If there are other questions after the fact,

I'll address them in the next session.

So I invite you to join me,

Because if everyone was meditating,

If every person in the world was meditating,

There would still be a bunch of problems.

There would still be heaps of problems.

But perhaps we'd be able to address them from a bit of a better perspective,

A little bit of a more empathetic perspective.

We would be able to potentially see things from a more logical perspective,

One that wasn't so invested in the emotionality of our pasts,

Because our societies are products of our pasts,

But they too are free to make different decisions.

There's just a lot of cultural inertia.

There's a lot of vested interests,

All of those things.

But if every person,

If every individual had some detachment,

Perhaps we'd be able to see and solve the world problems a little bit easier,

A little bit better.

We'd be able to address things in a way that was less impulsive,

Less fear-based,

Less greed-based.

I don't know.

That's sort of my mission here.

It's what I want to try and push.

It's why I'm releasing everything I do for free.

My book,

Mindfulness,

A guidebook to the present moment,

Is being released chapter by chapter,

One chapter a week,

Because I don't want to put this sort of information behind a paywall.

It's out and available if you want to grab a copy.

It's a paperback e-book and audiobook,

But it's going to be out there for free,

Because I want to give as much of this knowledge to the world as possible.

And perhaps I can get people started meditating.

I'm no master.

I'm not enlightened.

I've just read a bunch of books on the topic.

I've done a bunch of seminars and courses.

As a previous career,

I was a teacher.

I have abilities to synthesize and communicate information and break it down to a basic level.

That's what I'm doing here.

And then I've included a resource section that points you on to the more advanced masters and teachers that some people find a little bit esoteric or a little bit of a challenge to sort of get into starting out.

So perhaps I can be that step forward that people need.

So I encourage you,

Join in with me with the live meditations in the morning,

6.

40am Australian Eastern Standard Time on Instagram at ZachPPhillips.

The replays are going to be on YouTube and Instagram,

All of those things.

Join in and start meditating daily if you're not already.

Quite honestly,

It is the single best thing you can do for your mental state.

See the therapists,

Do the exercise,

Take the medication,

All of that good stuff.

But meditate as well.

Yeah,

Have a good one.