WWYD?

Or, A Sweet Tool to Heal the Past

The WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) meme is an old one nowadays. However, I saw this recently, thought it was funny, so decided to share it:

It also inspired this blogpost. 

I am easily inspired.

However, the question I want to focus on is WWYD: What Would YOU Do?

When we are trying to heal and shift and grow and expand our souls and our awareness, we often remember things from our past that we regret. There are various ways to heal these past events so they no longer weigh us down and so we no longer keep carrying the regret or guilt or sorrow or shame or whatever emotions we continue to hold onto from these events. We may understand that “when we know better, we do better” but it doesn’t necessarily heal the harm that you might have done to yourself, another person, or the planet. You might say to yourself, “If only I knew then what I know now,” or “If only I could go back and do something different.”

In the 12 spiritual principles for soul growth that are taken from the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), one of the principles is to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. Once you have admitted to the exact nature of where you feel you have fallen short, then make a list of all the persons you have harmed and become WILLING to make amends to them all. Then, make amends to such people if it is possible and appropriate to do so. Sometimes, it’s not possible (e.g., they’re not alive anymore, or they are unwilling), and sometimes it’s not appropriate (e.g., trying to make amends in some cases, might actually cause more harm to them or to others.) But making amends when possible and appropriate does help to heal past harm.

But when it’s not possible or appropriate to make amends to heal past harm, here’s what you can do.

Choose one event from the past you wish you could do differently if you had the chance to do it over. It can also be an event where something was done to you and you felt powerless at the time to respond. Often these are in childhood when we don’t have the awareness, skills, or personal power in a situation to change the circumstances, and so we carry that sense of helplessness with us. (If this event is a traumatic experience and you’re unsure if you will get triggered and whether or not you will be able to handle it, only do this exercise guided by and in the presence of your trusted therapist or healer.)

Once you’ve decided on the event, get into a meditative state and take your awareness that you have now—all the wisdom and compassion and understanding and strength you have gained—and take it back with you into that memory and put it into your mind and body in that event. So you’re taking your older wiser self and putting its awareness into your younger self. Then ask yourself, WWID? What would I do, that I couldn’t or didn’t do then?

Allow yourself to relive what happened but now with your current awareness you make new choices, or say what you want to say, or do something different, or just watch things unfold from the awareness of Love.

In my experience, and in the experiences of clients as I guide them through this process, the painful memory dissolves. Just like that. By bringing your higher awareness into a situation with less awareness, the higher and stronger vibration you carry will dissolve the old memory with its emotional attachments. And I believe it actually does help to heal partially and even completely any harm that happened in the event. Loving awareness dissolves pain.

While it’s great to contemplate what Jesus or Jung or Oprah or a saint or spiritual master would do, the same divinity that’s in them is in you and your own higher self can bring that same Loving awareness into the painful past and heal it. So next time a regretful memory surfaces, see it as an opportunity to ask WWID, the I that is always and infinitely Divine and Whole and Love and Peace and Joy!
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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.