We ninety-percent (or less) wraiths

People believe they are living in the “here-and-now.” Or they are told that their not being in the here-and-now is a factor in their psychological problems and that mindfulness is the technique that will bring them into it. The facts are: We are not in the here-and-now, and mindfulness has no capacity to send us there. The only technique that could remove the past as our first and abiding nature – the legs on which we stand – is the fire of radical feeling-centered depth therapy: Only that could burn away our past and leave us gutted and in the emptier present.

 

The present is our illusion, a good illusion, but nevertheless an illusion. I am in the illusory present when I do therapy with clients and when I am with my wife. “Somehow” (which could be explored), being in their presence brings enough of the right chemistry that doesn’t merely hide the past, but obliterates it seemingly. Casual glance says this is because the past is immanent in these rich present moments and transcended in their richness.

 

But all other moments of my life, I am a ninety-percent wraith floating in my childhood. When I’m petting one of my cats, a different, older cat is in my lap. When I exit my car and walk to the staff entrance of my counseling center, I am a six-year-old acting big. When I take a walk at night, I am really my unfulfilled youth.

 

When I write an article – that’s slightly different, a nontranscendent fusion of past and present. Same when I listen to Chopin or Rachmaninoff or Bach or Percy Grainger. Trying to fall asleep? I’m trying to put the past to sleep.

 

I am absolutely certain that this is the state of most people, but that they don’t think about it, or if they do, they don’t dwell on it.

 

My clients are – with no words spoken about it ever – helped to be more strongly here-and-now than they have ever been, and less bogged down in their past. This is because we aim hot flames at their inner baby and inner child, at their childhood parents. We’re burning away some parts of their past (maybe even more than the ten percent that I've burned away).