Transforming Past Experience into Future Opportunity
First presented at the ISPS Conference on Saturday, November 5, 2022
We each experience the past, present, and future, but the recovery process can affect these experiences, making the need to continually orient to the future more essential.
We all lived in the world of yesterday, but none of us knows yet exactly how to live in the world of tomorrow, because it remains to be seen. It is not just that the world is complex or that our lives are complex or that we ourselves are complex; there is evidence that mental health itself is a complex system. We will never be able to know all of the variables which contribute to our future success, or predict all of the scenarios, or run all of the experiments that could give us the best data in advance. Yet it remains true in some ways that all people’s lives may involve a kind of perpetual experience that unfolds over time, with changing conditions and gathering new data, periodically stopping the experiment to try something else, and then restarting the experiment with new resources or optimism. Because it is our lives we study and hope to improve, we are both researchers and subjects, students who need to know how to live better and teachers who need to be able to discover and teach ourselves about the best ways to live.
This is no simple challenge, and yet we are asked to consider pursuing it while being compromised, whether medically or socially, emotionally or vocationally. We are asked not simply to begin or try, but to not give up. While we may be supported by others, it remains up to us in many ways to determine what is or is not working in our own lives, and ideally perhaps even why. It is this journey from birth to death, surrounded by others in similar circumstances or predicaments, and yet needing to find ways to improve and move forward. We need to do so not simply occasionally or ambivalently, but with courage and persistence, an attitude cultivated from years of experience that likely includes recovering from so-called “failures” or perceived setbacks, even though all forms of experience can and do inform our journeys over time. It is a lifetime labor in which it could be claimed or argued that all experience or learning is cumulative, if only we are able to discern the lessons contained in each experience. There is no substitute for experience.
Though we may be inclined to view our pasts with regret, we must first decide that our pasts occurred in the ways that they did because they or we needed to be a certain way at a certain period of time. But the past cannot be allowed to overly foreshadow the future. Health can change, as can labels. Even related or ancillary experiences like stigma are subject to change as social environments change and whole societies evolve. We cannot place our bets on our own prospects and futures simply by looking back at all that has transpired and wondering how to shift it in a new direction. We need a new intention. We need to believe in the future not just because it will inevitably arrive, or because we are expected to, or because it might represent a reprieve from previous conditions. Take a step rather than no step. If it’s in the wrong direction, you will automatically adjust for the next step.
We need to believe in the future far more boldly, because the ability to create attitudes towards the future which allow for new experiences that can take the place of or at least overshadow our prior experiences, is the process by which we move along not just a continuum of time, but a continuum of growth. It is the process by which we become that which we choose or hope to be, not simply that which we had to be. It is the process by which we activate our potential and engage with our challenges directly, not reluctantly. It is the process of freeing ourselves to experience our lives more completely and authentically, and in the process becoming more internally free of our labels and even perhaps our symptoms. We need to orient towards the unlikely and even what some might call the impossible, because only by extending our vision beyond our limitations can we hope to imagine the processes by which we could attain the futures we deserve, not negatively but positively deserve, our destinies. We did not choose to be here or to have this mental health experience. Therefore, we must try to get better at choosing ways to move beyond it. Never miss an opportunity to prepare for the rest of your life.
It is a life of bets and regrets for many people, and it may or perhaps must be the same for us as well. But we need to learn how to make these bets on ourselves, even and perhaps especially when no one else seems willing to do so. There is no point in trying if we do not intend to win, not to defeat others, but to attain our own personal victories. We may wish to show the world what we as people in recovery can accomplish, or how we can prevail even when the treatment, whether professional or social, is unfair. We may rightly believe that to deny us our initiative is to judge us, to deny us our experience is to stigmatize us, and to deny us our opportunity is to limit us. When we are limited by ourselves or by others, much is lost. Lifetimes are not to be wasted on “what if’s” but tested by “why not’s.”
If the opportunities do not already exist in a ready-made way, then we must be the visionaries, the architects of our own opportunities. In an arguably unknown world, we must find out and learn what we need to know, about our conditions, first, but then also about our motivations; about our environments, sure, but then also about finding opportunities within those environments; about ourselves, of course, but then also about how our decisions and preparation, persistence and dedication can find their fulfillment through locating the most purposeful and promising activities. Believe that your life was meant for you to live in the best possible way.
We may have been limited in many ways, and for each way we need to find our own approach, method, and practice for cultivating our potential, for removing false and imposed limits. We are each here for unknown periods of time, living in ways that we may not have been able to define for ourselves, so we must see the present moment as an opportunity to reorient towards the future we still seek and aspire towards. We cannot waste our time and consciousness in looking back to pasts that can neither be completely relived, unlived, or fully forgotten. We must look back only to the extent that it enables and empowers us to ultimately move forward, because it is always in the process of anticipating and moving forward that the past becomes a possible ally to our cause rather than a persistent enemy. In the future there is an opportunity to be more like yourself, whatever or whoever you may have been before.
We must learn how to see ourselves as people more than patients, as having perspectives that may have limited us and even received labels, but which can also be cultivated towards our future potential, emphasizing that we are more than our roles and predicaments. We must adapt not simply to what we are, were, or had to be, but prospectively to who we possibly are and to who we hope to become. We lead our own lives, which is to say, we need to lead ourselves in ways which we will want to follow. We must work to get better not just medically or psychologically, but to work on our potential futures, to pursue purposeful paths, to find meaning in our successful experiences that may empower the possibility of moving beyond our less successful ones.
We may ask for and even receive help, but we must still have the vision, inspiration, and skill to discern as much as possible what has and has not worked in our own life, and what could. Then we must be bold enough to act like the people we hope to become and let the future arrive to meet our evolving selves. We will be ready because we will have chosen paths, practices, and principles that express our capacities rather than our incapacities, enabling us to be ever more effective in the next moment or opportunity. We recover in the present, from the past, for the future.
The past exists to inform, not limit our futures. We may have been compromised by circumstances, but in the realm of memory, we get to decide how to use our experience going forward. It is our work in the present to make this possible. Part of what may limit us is the stories we have been told about ourselves. So we must learn to disregard some, in order to choose versions of who we are that will support visions of who we will become. What we may become is influenced by the environment, but it is also up to us to become more influential in our own lives. Success may be in some ways beyond our control, but it must always be within our ability to try again, or try differently. Trying more times and in different ways creates a blend of experiences which can be more informative and usefully applied over time. We must set an intention to develop an attitude in which to have made the attempt is itself considered a success, because every attempt is informative. The greater our ability to accept past experience, the greater our ability to create future experience will be.
We have had to see ourselves as others see us in order to survive and navigate systems and societies. We must first learn to see ourselves in our own ways, and then help others to see us for who we truly are by showing them what we may become. We need to look ahead as much as possible, perhaps almost constantly. We need to look ahead not simply to mitigate the harmful effects of looking back, but to create possibilities from impossibilities. If looking back is a habit, then looking ahead could be made a substitute habit. If we are fearful or uncomfortable looking ahead into unknown futures, then we can practice looking ahead, facing the unknown and accepting uncertainty.
We all used to be whoever we had or happened to be at the time, but we all may try to choose who we will be in the future. We can arrive at the future actively, not passively, as who we intend to be and not by default. We can make our futures so significant, whether the path or the process, that our pasts will recede into obscurity. We can do this by re-orienting ourselves to what matters now, not what may have mattered before, and planning for what may matter next. We may not have perfect or complete information about the world, but we can always learn more and use what we already know, not just about the world but about ourselves, more advantageously. We can discern new directions courageously, anticipating and intuiting that we will be able to change in the future, and to then acquire the necessary competence and sufficient skill to transform the ability to survive into the ability to succeed.
We may have our illness-informed perspectives and our recovery perspectives. But to move forward effectively, we need to seek and cultivate different kinds of perspectives, as well as what may be considered “perspectives” on these perspectives. It is not enough simply to see our world, our experiences, or ourselves. We must consider and possibly investigate how these perspectives do or do not work for us, or apply to our situation, or eventually lead to better perspectives and improved opportunities. This dimension of awareness can promote our viability and independence by enabling us to adjust our perspectives over time in ways that sustain and empower us.
If we are able to reflect and notice flaws in our perspectives, then we have an opportunity to think differently, which may lead to acting differently. This is not simply about critical thinking, but also about being honest with ourselves, facing our challenges, and being both adaptable and humble enough to change when needed. This is not about yielding to the views or priorities of others or relegating ourselves to apparent limitations. This is about ultimately moving forward dramatically by having the mental and emotional awareness that in our lives, we must always be willing to make change that will possibly improve our experience or conditions. If we do not see those around us speaking to or representing the possibility of change, then determining when or how to change becomes our mission so that our tomorrow will not simply repeat today. Always do the work of determining what is and isn’t working.
It is up to us, and yet we may need help. Recovery help, like any other process, situation, or interaction, may not be as straightforward, predictable, or entirely within our control as we would like it to be. So we must consider whether the help works in some ways but not in others, or works periodically, or works more in unexpected than in expected ways, or even works in some ways while causing us to suffer in others. If we need help, and it is available, we should try to accept it while it is available, for better or worse, and save the experience as a form of learning. Perhaps simply learning about the helping process, or even learning about ourselves and our needs for help, and others and their abilities to help, can prepare us for the future. We should try to remind ourselves that our helpers may have their own lives, needs, and limitations, but that it will always be within our power to discover new ways to transform the help that has been provided into enabling and preparing for future opportunities. This is not about the acceptance of professional roles or authority but about our own potential viability.
I emphasize the helping process not to encourage states of neediness or dependency, nor to proclaim all help as virtuous, nor to legitimize dynamics inherent to helping that may create power imbalances. I emphasize help because to give and receive help is often an essential part of life for many people, no matter how healthy. So help is not just for us, yet it can sustain and empower us towards the pursuit of our goals when it is offered and provided constructively. The help that is here today may be gone tomorrow, and it will usually be better for us to have experienced it, however imperfectly, than to arrive at tomorrow wishing we had accepted the help from yesterday. Doing the work of recovering is doing the work that may enable you to do any other work at all. It’s never too late to get better at living.
It is up to us, and yet it’s not simply up to us alone. We live in a world of others. So we must learn to co-exist, if we are meanwhile to transform experience into opportunity. If we cannot simply co-exist, our opportunities may diminish. Co-existence may be intuitive for some and a learned skill for others, as well as frightening or joyful, meaningful, or fulfilling. We may have to be able to find ways to co-exist in difficult circumstances, at difficult times, and while experiencing difficult emotions or beliefs. So we need to try to be able to challenge ourselves to be our best selves, which includes avoiding all forms of harm, because it is those actions which may bring unwanted consequences that could impede our prospects for our tomorrows. We cannot succeed tomorrow if we are still trying to deal with the consequences of having lived a certain way yesterday.
So today we must practice not a false kindness, but a true compassion for ourselves and others, so that we may keep the peace now to be able to have some peace of mind later. When we do not or cannot know what to do, how to act, what to say, or even whom to trust, we will simply endeavor to cause as little harm or as few consequences as possible. We may need to practice the virtue of inconspicuousness so that we will know how to depart a scene quickly and quietly. If we hope to be able to try again and perhaps try differently another time, we will have the advantage of knowing what did not work the previous time. Life is an experiment; go gather data, then prove them wrong.
The future will arrive inevitably, but will we be ready to meet it in the best possible way? Only if we prepare. We can use today to prepare for tomorrow as well as to recover from yesterday, or perhaps all our yesterdays. But we can do more than simply use today to prepare for tomorrow routinely; we can use today to try to anticipate and prepare for all of our tomorrows, though they may be unknown and undefined. I believe not only can we, but we should and in fact must. Too much depends on the principle of applying past experience in present time to improve future prospects and possibilities. Without intending to sound religious or political, I would claim that this is our duty, and we could resolve to make it our practice, our way of life.
It does not matter how many tomorrows remain for each of us or what they will offer. It matters far more that today, and each day, every “today” holds a possibility and provides an opportunity to look forward, as far forward as might be necessary or helpful. That is our right and ability as conscious creatures, and we should exercise it, whether for ourselves or to influence, benefit, or assist others. Looking ahead may not reveal all of the unknowns in the future precisely, but choosing not to look ahead is to passively reinforce the conditions and beliefs of yesterday excessively. We were not born to repeat our days, but to reinvent ourselves, reassert our viability, and reclaim our destinies.