Everybody is different Squiggle, I can only tell you how it looks like for me.
SAWE of today is shaped by her past, to some extent, and some of those effects are worth holding onto, & some are not.

I tell T something I've just heard or read, and ask about it, and we try to tie it into what I have learned so far; but much better is when i tell her something that happened since I saw her last, and how i reacted at that moment (and how I feel about the incident now, say a week later). We take a close look at this, why I reacted that way, other ways to see the situation, other ways to respond. It is very much into the now, but the past is always there. It always will be there; but I am working on not being the marionette, moved by the strings of the past, i am working on being able to move on my own.

like I say, for me it is so hard, and I get discouraged, but I can see that things are different from when i started, and that's good.