“Don’t talk to anyone.
Don’t touch anything.
Don’t do anything.
Don’t interact with anyone.
And try not to look at anything.”
-Doc, Back to the Future
Have you heard of the Grandfather Paradox? The theory goes a little something like this… You decide to go back in time and kill your grandfather, because he turns out to be an evil man and he kills innocent puppies and tortures children and eventually destroys the world and everyone in it. So obviously, you have no choice. However, although your motives are pure, in doing this you erase all of his dependents (excluding yourself). So now you return to the present (which is actually the future) and everything and everyone who you ever knew and were familiar with, is different or gone completely. You are now living in a different life, on a different path, within a different timeline. Or worse yet, you go back and are unable to complete your mission, but in the process traumatize yourself with physical, mental and emotional scars that you and your family will have to endure forever. Fascinating right?
For those of you that are as intrigued as I am by this concept, there are five time travel paradoxes: Predestination, Bootstrap, Grandfather, Let’s Kill Hitler (that’s really what it’s called!), and the fifth one is Polchinski’s Paradox. The latter referencing and centering around physics and so is usually taken more seriously. But I digress, that’s another conversation for another day.
So, the Grandfather Paradox… although an intensely interesting theory, it seems pretty out there, right? And depending on your stance on Back To The Future being a historical film (see what I did there? #Past) then you may or may not buy that zooming through the universe in a 1983 DMC DeLorean is even possible. However, we do time travel. In fact, we do it everyday. How so?
Have you ever been in a stressful situation where you can (almost) hear your blood pumping through your veins? You feel your heart rate go up. Your mind races. Your temperature soars. Your energy peaks - so as to ready you for a fight OR ready to help your legs get you the heck out of dodge. Your body and mind make a decision, and you handle the situation. But the tricky part - those emotions and that situation are now tied together in your emotional trauma rolodex, inside your head (and heart). And the stronger you feel about that situation, the more attention you pay to it and the more energy you give to it. Every time we create a thought or an emotion, our body creates a chemical. That chemical dictates our mood and our emotions on the happy/sad scale. So that when we are faced with even a slightly similar situation, it could be fifteen years later. It could be as simple as a similar smell or a similar way the wind blows (anything that is possibly associated with the original experience). Almost immediately our body opens up that emotional trauma rolodex, scrolls back to fifteen years ago and here we go …. TIME TRAVELS all the way back to a stressful situation that has already passed. We have erased ourselves from thriving in our current blessings. We are too caught up in the past and past traumas. And if we never heal from our past, we absolutely cannot live in the present.
How do we prevent this self-sabotage, this emotional time travel, this Grandfather Paradox? How do we avoid the act of going back in time and failing at altering the past? How do we ensure that we stop the pattern of being haunted by an old trauma… and even go one step further, avoiding passing it down through generations? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Easy. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t touch anything. Don’t do anything. Don’t interact with anyone, and try not to look at anything. We must heal our past traumas so that when the chance to time travel back to the original trauma comes up, we can side step that whole mess. If it doesn’t contribute to your PRESENT success, your family’s PRESENT happiness - then acknowledge it, maybe even honor it, but do not engage. Allow the negative from the PAST to roll off and stay in the PRESENT, only looking forward to the FUTURE (with small glances, you don’t need added anxiety about the unknown). Although the jury is still out on time travel, I can tell you everything seems to work out in 2023. This is your year to heal. This is your year to be present.
Take control of your year and your future.
Blessings and Peace
T.Williams
Comments