How Your Past Influences Your Present – Individual Therapy

You have heard that your past influences your present. In individual therapy, you can find out how your past may be influencing you today and what you can do about it (Related Article: Individual Counseling for PTSD). We all have one, however, we don’t all address them in the same way. 

Your Past Echoes In Your Present

There is a saying that ‘You may be done with your past, but your past is not done with you’. I see this in therapy all of the time. Clients will often not want to talk about what happened to them when they were younger. However, they end up addressing it eventually because it forces itself back into their lives. For example, if you were abused as a child, you most likely developed an attachment style that was anxious, avoidant or disorganized (source). You organize your relational world in a way to keep yourself safe. And this isn’t always a healthy outcome. If someone, like your parent, abused you then you learn not to trust them or open up to them. Unfortunately, you take this same mistrust and unwillingness to open up into future relationships.

Even though you may not currently think about the abuse that happened to you, you are living in relationships according to that attachment style developed then. So, your past is influencing your present. The idea here is that you will find power to do something about it if you are able to recognize it in the first place. Seeing that your past is still influencing you is a healthy move, not a weakness. 

A broken bone from last year still impacts you today. If it isn’t dealt with in a healthy way it will negatively impact you. For that broken bone you need to go to the doctor and set it correctly with proper medicine. If you don’t do this, then the impact of that broken bone may cause you to limp or even lose your leg at some point. It’s the same with relationships or emotional experiences from our past. They need proper care and attention. 

You Can Learn From Your Past

If you can see what you have gone through, you are able to learn from it. Simply seeing that you developed certain attachment styles, for example, because of the abuse you went through helps. It will help you see what you need to do to heal so that you can live differently in your relationships today. 

You Are Not A Prisoner To Your Past

Understanding how what you have gone though still impacts you helps. Here are a few steps to take if you want to learn from your past: 

1. See things clearly – If you can admit what you did or what happened to you, it puts you in a position to learn or change. If you can see it, you can change it. If you don’t see it, you are likely to repeat it. Or at least, stay stuck in it. 
2. Be courageous to act – Act according to what you see as you look back. If you need healing, get it. Go to counseling. Talk with your friend. Do what it takes to address what you have gone through. Pick it up so that you can let it go (Related Article: Emotions 101). 

Many of my clients in the past several decades have tried to ignore what they have gone through. They think that simply not talking about it or recognizing it will make it go away, Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Just like it isn’t the case with a broken bone. If we simply ignore our broken limb, it doesn’t make it go away. 

We all have a past, it’s important to see it clearly so that we can heal and move forward. Sticking our head in the sand, so to say, doesn’t make our past go away, it just makes us ineffective in moving forward (Related Article: PTSD and Trauma Counseling).

Meet with a counselor in Utah today for individual therapy. We have offices in Spanish Fork, Orem, South Jordan and also do telehealth for anyone living in Utah. 

Written by Dr Triston Morgan, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist