A few months back, I was sitting with mushroom medicine when I felt myself as a living memory in every part of my being. I looked at my body and could “see” how it was a representation of everything that has come before it. In that way I could really observe its ephemeral and mutable nature.
Which is wildly different from the way our modern culture views this reality. We have been trained from birth to deal with the world in a fixed and separate kind of way. We imagine ourselves to be these static, solid beings who live in the world and are subject to its whims. Things are happening “to” us, we think. We move along a linear track from the past to the future. It can seem that we are helpless to the world around us.
But what we are coming to learn (and of course what the ancient mystics taught) is that reality is more of a multifaceted co-creation between us and the world we encounter.
Recent science is uncovering that the information we have stored in our genes is inherited from the generations before us. Through this discovery of epigenetics, we now know that what happened to our ancestors turns certain genes off or on, which then affects our health and how we interact with the world.
There are many studies outlining the various ways that we inherit our traits from our parents, but one fascinating example regards the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. Apparently, depending on how your ancestors responded to a specific trauma this would alter their genes — the same ones that would be passed down to you. Therefore, in this lifetime your inclination toward one of these protection responses was never decided by you, but instead for you.
In a way this is really beautiful. Inheriting specific trauma responses can actually be helpful, making you better equipped to deal with traumatic situations without having to learn on the fly. We also inherit our ancestral resilience and wisdom through epigenetics. I hosted a podcast last year where we talked a lot about this idea.
However, sometimes these trauma responses may have outlasted their usefulness. The memory of the past doesn’t serve us in this present moment, and may even harm us.
Thankfully we humans are also incredibly adaptive. The version of ourselves that arrives in this world is not our final state. We grow and change and adapt to our environment until the day we depart this earth.
Just as our ancestors before us helped shape our world, we are continuing the legacy with the choices we make. Luckily for us, we have more tools and resources to help us heal and create new realities than ever before.
What I really love to think about, though, is how our mental states and beliefs are also a form of us living out the past — and how this past dictates our future.
Shakyamuni Buddha really nailed it when he said that life includes suffering, but that there is a cause of suffering. Therefore if there is a cause of suffering then that means there is a solution. From there he outlines an elegant system for observing the present moment, which uncovers past conditions and helps us choose differently.
Every time we choose differently we create the epigenetic and mental ripples that radiate out into the future.
I think this is so important for us to focus on, especially as a culture. Often I see people online talking about the society at large as something that must be a mistake, a weird twist of fate. Or that it is merely something that is happening “to” us which we cannot control.
But in reality it has always been co-created by our ancestors and carried on by us.
This is not to say that every one of our ancestors knew exactly how the future would turn out. More likely they had no idea and were unconsciously following the thought patterns of the ones who came before them.
Again, sometimes moving along a beaten path can be really beneficial. It saves energy and time. However it can also be incredibly harmful, as we can see in the case of endlessly consuming the finite resources we have on this planet.
You can also think about this from the perspective of your own life. Maybe there is a way that you habitually respond to stressful situations. When confronted with a conflict do you tend to avoid? Or catastrophize? Do you attack the person or make up reasons why they are wrong? Do you ruminate over what you did and how you could change it in the future?
The reason why we respond to situations in this way is because of what may have worked in the past or as a child. It may be what we observed our parents or community members doing in response to stress. Or it possibly could have been inherited through our genes.
Regardless of the cause, the response likely feels “instinctual” and maybe even “right,” when in reality it is just a reverberation of the past.
The positive aspect of this is that we have the ability to pause, reflect, and influence our responses for the future. Our future is not fated. We are the ones who help to create our reality.
We can look at this most simply from the point of view of changing our habits. All of us have likely at some point in time realized something like we’re drinking too much, not exercising enough, or spending too much money. With this initial observation and an intention to cultivate something different we start to take the steps necessary to make these changes.
Eventually, over time, if you continue for long enough the changes become commonplace. Thinking about them is second nature. There isn’t much effort required to maintain the change. It becomes your new future based on the past.
This is all very important for how we relate to the world and create a new future. What we see happening around us isn’t random at all. It’s actually intricately connected to a series of events and choices.
Even more heartening, is that we don’t have to do anything “big” with our lives to enact changes on a grand scale. History is completely made up of individuals moving in ways that create our societies. Remember last week when I wrote about the body-perception link and how we evolved to learn most easily by observing others? When you change your habits you change the world around you.
We also literally sync our brain waves up with each other so when you change your thoughts you measurably change those around you.
Knowing all this allows us to take our power back. It is disheartening to me to see people give up on themselves, others, and society. I know the feeling of helplessness and like the world is so much bigger and more powerful than me — but it’s just not quite true.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead
The ways that you show up each day and the efforts you make to be softer, kinder, and slower are actually setting the stage for the future world we will live in. Even if you don’t see it today, you will if you just give it time.
It’s like after a big snow storm when the sun re-emerges and shines down on everything, gently warming up the earth. We notice the snow starting to melt, but it may continue to take many days for it to completely disappear.
This is also true in every facet of our lives. Give yourself grace, allow yourself time. Honor the places where you have made the changes to be a more compassionate human. Notice the ways in which your life has already transformed.
Nothing is a mistake and we aren’t being punished by a cosmic creator. We are the cosmic creators. Everything can be traced back. We are all living memories, the habits and thoughts of our past and our ancestors. And the future starts now.