If we are to understand enough about our selves to become the person we want to be, then we must discover within our self a leverage factor, a turn point that allows us to be our own master.

There is no doubt that we are complex beings. Each characteristic, be it rational, emotional, physical and chemical or spiritual, has its own complexities and barriers to understanding.

So much of our understanding is limited by our language, by the words we use to tell ourselves and others what we are thinking and what our thoughts really mean. Our entire being of the moment, what we are experiencing right now is surrounded by our past experiences and the meaning and attention that we give to those past experiences.

You would think that a baby would be an exact copy of its parents. But, the fact is that the baby's DNA, which determines everything about it, is different. So each of us is think, feel, and behave differently than our parents.

This means that you are unique.

The moment that you realize this, you must also realize the power you have over your own mind. Only you know what the key is to your mind. Only you can be responsible for the choices you make within your own head.

We, each of us, assign meaning to our experiences based on our learning and experiences. Your experience is different from anyone else's not because you have had different experiences, which you may have, but because your give it different meaning than I do, or anyone else for that matter.

No one else knows what is happening on in your mind. Even if you give me a description of what is happening, I can not experience exactly what you are experiencing. In our minds, we each have a unique model of ourselves and of the world around us.

The language and images, what hear and see and touch, is interpreted in our minds. As the signal from the retina of our eye passes through the optic nerve to our brain other signals from our emotional and rational centers mix with it to form our unique understanding of the world.

These are complex electrical, chemical and physical interactions that result in a memory and an interpretation. These become a set of instructions, as words and images and sounds, that are meaningful to you as a unique individual.

These instructions are your experiences, the memories you have absorbed since your birth from every day living.

It is through this jelly of experience, this mass of past interpretation, that you must drag your day to day experiences.

If you are consciously curious and aware, if you live in the moment, then you will realize that what you are experiencing now is a totally new experience. If you are not consciously curious and aware, you will not realize that your life is an exciting journey of discovery.

And that is the real secret to overcoming any emotional problem rooted in your past. Our emotional well being depends on where we spend our time in our heads.

If you are focusing on your past, you are allowing the weight of your past experiences to overpower the importance of any new experience. If you focus your mind on what happened to you in the past, your past experience will crush the significance of your living moment now.

We are all traveling on a time line between birth and death. Where we are on that time line is our present moment, here and now, the only place that we have any power to choose what we do.

We can gain control of our lives,now, by living in the moment with an almost child-like curiosity and wonder.

If you are focused on the trauma and abuse of the past, you are allowing that memory and the horror of those events, to crush your wonder and curiosity of living in this moment. You are giving up living now to live in the past where you are powerless to change anything.

The further along the line we are, the greater the weight and significance of our past experiences. If we have not made choices that have given us control over our lives it will become more difficult to get control.

Only in the present do you have the power to choose what to think and do, and to plan what you want for yourself tomorrow.