Therapy Isn’t “Dwelling in the Past” - It Helps Us Stay in the Present

I often hear people who are hesitant about therapy share that they don’t want to “dwell on the past”. I know this is usually born out of fear of staying stuck there if they visit portions of their past that bring up strong feelings, but there is a reason we explore one’s past in therapy: to see what is still keeping us there, rather than engaging more fully in the present. Marianne Williamson shares this thought, “We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living in the present,” and while there is some important insight about where healing comes from, it can come across as negating how difficult it is to move on from the past. Most of those people I meet who “don’t want to dwell on the past” are actually terrified of going there! They never actually acknowledged the pain and feelings from their past, and it starts seeping into their everyday lives. We need to actually feel the feelings from times when we’ve fallen, in order to trust that the past won’t repeat itself, to see how we’ve grown stronger, or our life circumstances have changed, to see that we don’t need to be emotionally prepared in-case something similar happens again.

“We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living in the present.”

~ Miriam Williamson