Some therapists focus on the past; others focus on the present. In group therapy, it can be especially healing to focus on the present — how the authentic interactions among the group members can help transcend and heal old patterns of relating to others that we have learned in the past.
I am thinking about the past in the present for many reasons, including a Facebook post I saw yesterday from a second cousin:
That my maternal grandmother, Etta, was from the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, which is being bombed and besieged by Russian forces in the present, brings this pain even closer to me.
In the present, my heart breaks for the people of Ukraine and for all who love them.
Do you see the past and/or the present in my other images for today?
On National I Want You to be Happy Day, I want you to know that I want you to have all your feelings, no matter what they are. In the past, many of us have squelched, disowned, and judged some of our feelings, which is unhealthy for the present. In the present, I try to notice and acknowledge all my feelings, letting them naturally run through me (like joy does), leaving room for what’s happening in the present.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “The Past.”
I’ve loved Pat Metheny in the past and I love him in the present.
I’m grateful for the past and grateful for you, here and now.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 
Many of us with Slavic pasts feel that pain right now, Ann. The borders of those countries have blurred often in the centuries of our people there and our people here. I have a faint memory of hearing older people arguing with my grands that no, their grands did not come from Poland, they came from Ukraine.
My maternal grandmother was from a small town in what is now Ukraine. Not very near to Kyiv, but it still has a personal element.
Your grandmother was a beautiful woman. As I look at your second picture of the ocean, I think of all it’s witnessed of war and peace since creation. .. so many stories to recount…
It is the Christian Lenten season. Lent is a preparation for the Easter celebration, and lots of times, people give up television, chocolate or another trivial thing, seriously missing the point of the time, which is to spiritually cleanse yourself through prayer, fasting, looking inward.
A few years ago, I chose a Lenten challenge for myself to deal with a grudge that lasted 40 years.
Prayerfully, I spent the 40 days leading till Easter working through the emotions of that old hurt. By the time I arrived at Good Friday, I had made peace with the person against whom I held that grudge (she wasn’t even aware of it!) and with myself.
The relief I felt, the clarity it brought to my faith’s most important holiday that year was a (pardon the choice of word) revelation! I resolved to apply the Lenton grudge solution to all future grudges. Only…I found I no longer held grudges because I recognized them before they corrupted my response to people and situations that would have become grudges in the past.
More than breaking the cigarette habit in 1998, breaking the grudge habit proved to be a major health enhancement!
I now allow myself a moment or two to rant, then set the grudge seed apart and away. It becomes easier and easier because fewer things get me now. (I note that the criminal invasion of Ukraine happening near and during this year’s Lent has helped remind me that I can’t let it become hate for Russia, that some things need be left to God. It won’t be easy, but I know I can focus on prayer for comfort of those left homeless and turned into refugees, the dead on both sides, the misguided behavior of Putin, the continued inspiration of Zelensky and his cabinet, and the end of this war. I add the pets of the Ukrainians, too, that might become left behind for reasons unimaginable to us in our comfortable homes.
as I look at my children, now with children of their own I see past, present and future, all.
We are the sum of our memories, and also the product of our past. But I also try to find joy in the present, as does Joan, obviously.