My Past Was Practice For Today

All of your experiences have led you to this moment. To read this description right now. All of these experiences have prepared you for these few minutes together. In this exercise, we'll use simple, gentle breathing to learn how the experiences of our past can be leaned upon and drawn from to help us through those moments and circumstances we don't think we are strong enough to face.

Let's sit, breathe together, and explore.

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Peter.

Thanks for joining me for this quick reset and exploration today.

So often in life,

The simplest principles are the hardest ones for me to understand.

It doesn't stop me from trying to understand it,

And I'd like to invite you to join me on the exploration of something that can simultaneously seem really complex and frustratingly simple.

In our past,

There are many things we encounter individually and collectively as humans that we take for granted.

And it's wonderful to pause and take a couple of minutes to notice some of these things and recognize,

Maybe in a bit of a different way,

How much impact they actually have on how we navigate today.

Particularly when we're struggling,

We're feeling disempowered,

Marginalized,

Or like we just don't have what it takes to move forward and live the life that we want.

In today's quick reset,

I want to introduce a mantra or concept that might allow us to shed some light a little bit differently on seeing what today looks like through the lens of the past.

The idea that my past,

No matter what I experienced,

Was practice for today.

The past as a teacher,

Our experiences,

The sum total of everything we've encountered,

Can be leaned upon as tools that will help us in periods of uncertainty.

And for you,

For me,

That might be today.

That might be what drew you to this recording.

So what are some examples of this,

Of my past was practice for today?

Today when I got up,

I got out of bed and I walked to the bathroom,

I walked to the kitchen to make some tea,

I walked down to my office to record this meditation.

I started practicing walking in a fumbling attempt,

Falling all the time when I was very young.

But I kept doing it,

And I kept doing it,

And I kept doing it,

Having no idea that decades later that practice would pay off in allowing me to effortlessly get out of bed,

Walk to the bathroom,

Walk to the kitchen,

Walk down the stairs.

And how beautiful a moment to take a pause and sit and recognize and be grateful for how much practice I've put in and using my body to move me from place to place within my home,

And to empower me to do the things that I do so frequently,

I don't even think about them anymore.

Now that's an easy obvious example.

So let's sit down and breathe and lean in a little bit.

What is something you're experiencing today,

For which your experience has prepared you,

But it might not feel that way?

Something you might be struggling with,

Or feeling challenged by,

Or not good enough to move through?

Let that flow into your mind as we breathe.

Deep breath in,

Hold,

And out through the mouth.

Deep breath in through the nose,

Hold,

And out through the mouth.

And one more.

Deep breath in,

Hold,

And out through the mouth with a gentle sigh.

My past was practice for today.

My past was practice for today.

What comes up as something in your past that might have seemed innocuous,

Unimportant,

But actually has prepared you in some even small way to deal with this situation that you're struggling with today?

It could be something as simple as being able to connect the dots between this thing that I'm going through right now,

Actually is pretty similar to this other thing that I haven't thought of in years.

I wonder if there's something I can draw from that experience to today,

Even if it's only to know I got through that experience and I remember feeling like there was no way I'd be able to get through that,

That this was it.

This was the end of me,

Or the end of who I thought I might be.

But you did.

You're here.

You're listening to this today.

You can do it.

You can show up and continue forward,

Leaning on that past experience to help you and propel you through this present difficulty.

Take a deep breath.

My past was practice for today.

My past was practice for today.

Consider the possibility,

Even for a minute with a gentle smile,

That every single experience that you've had in your life,

The ones that you can easily recall,

The ones that you don't even remember,

Have led you to this moment right now.

You are so prepared.

You are prepared to face the future.

You are prepared to breathe,

To be present.

And when you're ready to move forward with your day,

Take that one next step that might seem impossible,

But you've got something from your past that will help propel you forward and through it,

Even if you don't think you can.

My past was practice for today.

Let's take one more deep breath together.

Thank you for taking this time with me.

I look forward to sitting with you again.

Reviews

Peter’s meditation helped me ground myself in my own real lived experience. It was empowering to think of my past self putting in so much work to prepare me for challenges I’m facing today. I appreciated Peter’s voice, and I was grateful to focus on my experiences for once, as opposed to some innateness I was meant to be born with. I’m not saying we aren’t born valuable and worthy—we are! But I’m saying that we’re born as a largely blank slate, and it’s our experiences, even our neonatal experiences, that make us who we are. And I appreciated Peter helping me to focus on those experiences and feel gratitude for the hard work my past self lovingly did in service of my present self.