“I can’t go back to yesterday – because I was a different person then.” Lewis Carol

Upward Turn

So, you may realise, if you have been reading my blogs, that there is no point in dwelling in the past, but the past does dwell in us, in the most peculiar way (read my previous blogs for a wealth of references on the epigenetic phenomenon). This “dwelling” is problematic, because it cannot be recognised, cannot be dealt with, unless we examine the past and even then, its influence may not be clear. It isn’t a fixation on the past that we need, or living in the past, rather we need an understanding of what drove our parents, grandparents, our great grandparents to their behaviours, what afflicted them, what trials they endured, what traumas they held close.

The problem is: How do you isolate, focus, illuminate the deeds or misdeeds of the past, and understand the potential impacts on you, if those people are lost to you before you can talk to them, or, as so often happens, they won’t talk about those dreadful, traumatic times.

My debut novel: The Veiled Thread, delves into such a situation, where the key protagonist realises almost too late that the source of his current malaise is the past, a past that was neither recognised, understood, or discussed properly by anyone, least of all the ones most afflicted, those most damaged by events.

How many of you are in similar circumstances?

Difficult to tell! But you have to try, try to assemble the fragments of those sometime forgotten lives, so you can piece together the puzzle of your own emotions, your own inherited behaviours. Once started, you can follow the upward turn, the journey to understanding yourself and the impact you have on your children, family and friends.

The influence of epigenetics on all our lives cannot be underestimated.

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” Lewis Carol