The Present Moment as a Portal to the Past and Potential Future

Last week I had the honour of being invited to speak at Wellness Through Mindfulness here in Calgary. My talk was called “The Present Moment as a Portal to the Past and Potential Future.”

Mindfulness,  or present-moment awareness, is truly a gateway into the depth of our inner world. It is the starting point for becoming aware of our thoughts, the sensations in our bodies, and our emotional experiences. Through this awareness, we begin to understand how we are actually doing and what we might need as we move through the day-to-day journey of life.

But taking time to go within (or present moment awareness) can also be much more than this.

We are often taught that humans are primarily logical beings. While we certainly have the capacity for logic, the reality is that much of our experience is shaped by something deeper. Our nervous systems and brains evolved not just for reasoning, but for survival. As a result, we are also deeply instinctual and strongly influenced by emotional memory.

Our subconscious processes are designed to keep us safe and alive.

This means that all of us, even the most self-aware, carry layers of old emotional memory that can surface in our present-moment experience.

For those with significant trauma histories, this may show up as PTSD flashbacks. For others, it may be subtler. You may be like so many people who believe they had a “good” or even “great” childhood until they begin unpacking their conditioning. With deeper reflection, we can often discover both truths at once: there was love and good intentions, and there were also needs that were not fully met. Those unmet needs can continue to shape how we experience ourselves and our relationships today.

Early in my career, I became frustrated with approaches in psychology that focused almost exclusively on the conscious mind, changing thoughts, planning behaviours, and developing insight. These tools can be helpful, but I found they often had limits. You come to a point where you hit a wall in your work. 

I now see this same frustration reflected in many of the people I work with.

You may have already done a lot of personal work. You’ve been to therapy. You read, reflect, and invest in your growth. You understand your patterns and can even analyze them from multiple perspectives, your family history, your childhood roles, and the conditioning you received.

And yet, at a certain point, if you are like so many people, you come to hit a plateau.

You  feel like you’ve reached a wall, as if something deeper is still there but just out of reach. Like you haven’t quite reached the root of the pattern.

Most of the time, that intuition is right.

A deeper part of you senses that there is more to explore.

I had this same sense of curiosity and questioning in my own journey, which eventually led me to explore approaches beyond traditional cognitive methods alone.

This included studies in depth therapy, transpersonal psychology (which incorporates soul and spiritual dimensions into psychological healing), family constellation work (which explores ancestral and inherited patterns), and nervous system-based approaches that help release stored emotional memory and more.

Many of the patterns and protective responses we carry were originally intelligent adaptations. They helped us survive and navigate difficult moments with the resources we had at the time.

But over time, what once protected us can begin to limit us.

The armour that helped us survive in the past may no longer serve the person we have become.

If you have reached your own “what now?” moment in personal growth, it may simply be an invitation to go deeper. You may need a different set of tools at this next phase in your healing and growth. 

There are many powerful approaches that work directly with the nervous system and with stored emotional memory, helping us process and release what is no longer serving us.

Your intuition often already knows this.

Sometimes we simply need the right tools , and the right guide,  for the next stage of the journey.

I hope the following session can be a helpful support in your journey.

The Present Moment as a Portal: Healing the Past, Sensing the Future

Watch the Replay Here

Hit reply to let me know how it lands and if you have any questions you would like me to address in a future session.

You can also explore past presentations on my YouTube channel. I’ll be keeping these public for now, though I’m not sure for how long , you are welcome to watch and share them with anyone who may benefit.