By Gonny 
The word nostalgia comes from Greek.
It is formed from nostos, meaning “return home,” and algos, meaning “pain” or “ache.”
Originally, nostalgia was not connected to a “warm memory.”
It meant feeling pain because you could no longer return to a place that once felt like home.
Over time, the word softened. It came to mean longing for something from the past, for familiar people, places, or moments that are no longer present.
At its core, nostalgia is not really about memories.
It is about the feeling that something essential has suddenly moved elsewhere, to another time, another place, another version of life.
And the subtle belief underneath it is this:
“I was happier then than I am now.”
That belief is far more powerful than it seems.
As human beings, we almost always experience happiness in connection with something,
a relationship, a home, a role, a familiar rhythm, a memory that still feels warm.
That is okay. This is simply how happiness works within our separated thought system, happiness is always linked to form.
“If this is present, I am happy.”
“If this disappears, happiness disappears with it.”
Nostalgia appears the moment the mind starts comparing:
now versus then. And in that comparison, discomfort is born.
Some people experience this very strongly.
Others hardly experience nostalgia at all.
This difference is often misunderstood:
Feeling nostalgia is sometimes seen as emotional depth.
Not feeling it is sometimes interpreted as emotional distance.
But nostalgia rarely means what we think it means.
It is usually not about the past at all.
More often, it is a quiet movement away from the present moment. It appears when the ‘now’ asks for something the mind is not entirely ready
to give: openness, uncertainty, or the soft surrender of familiar reference points.
A simple example, hopefully, makes this very clear: You are on holiday, in a beautiful place. The light is good, the days are slow, and objectively nothing is missing. And yet, suddenly, a familiar thought appears: I miss home.
Strange. And interesting.
Because home is not better, but it seems safer. It is known. It comes with routines, roles, and a clear sense of who you are when you are there. On holiday, those certainties loosen. The present moment becomes wider, less defined. And that can feel uncomfortable.
From the perspective of A Course in Miracles, this reaction makes perfect sense. The ego depends on continuity. It needs a story that runs smoothly from past to future in order to feel real. The present interrupts that story. In the now, identities blur, plans pause, and control weakens.
So the mind looks for shelter.
The past offers exactly that. It is finished. Nothing new can happen there. No surprises. No demands.
This is why nostalgia can arise even when life is going well. It is not a signal that something is wrong, but a sign that the mind is hesitating to remain fully present. The past feels comfortable because it does not ask anything of us.
The Course is very clear about the past. It tells us that it is gone, over, and without power, unless we carry it into the present ourselves. Nostalgia is precisely that movement: bringing the past into now, not as a memory, but as protection.
There is a quiet humor in this. Sitting on a sunny terrace, longing for your couch at home. Sitting on that same couch, dreaming about being somewhere else. The mind is almost never where the body is, and happiness is endlessly projected to another place, another time.
ACIM would say the problem is never the situation. It is the belief that peace lives somewhere else. Home feels safer not because it holds more truth, but because it is familiar. Familiarity, however, is not peace. It is habit.
The Course does not ask us to judge nostalgia or get rid of it. It simply invites us to notice what is happening. Nostalgia is revealing that something in the present feels too open, too uncertain, too undefined.
And that is exactly where the learning is.
When this is seen, nostalgia loses its grip. It no longer needs to be explained or analyzed. It can be noticed with kindness, perhaps even with a small smile. Ah, there you are again. I’m stepping back from now.
The present moment does not demand enthusiasm. It does not require understanding. It only asks that we stay. And as the Course reminds us, nothing real is threatened here. What feels unsafe is not the now itself, but the absence of the old story.
Seen this way, nostalgia becomes useful rather than painful. A signal, not a verdict. It points to a place where trust is still unfolding.
And when the past is no longer used as a hiding place, the present quietly opens. Not dramatically. Not perfectly. But enough.
Enough to remain.
Enough to breathe.
Enough to discover that nothing essential is missing.
With love and light,
G.