You can remember a hard thing while standing firmly in the present — aware of the chair beneath you, the light in the room, the fact that it is over. And you can be pulled back into it so completely that the body forgets any time has passed at all. These feel similar from the inside. They are not the same act.
Reliving offers no new information. It only deepens the groove. Remembering, from a steady present, is where something can actually change — because now there is a witness who was not there before: you, now, with more resource than you had then.
The whole craft of the practice lives in this distinction. We learn to keep one foot on the ground of now while turning toward then. Anchored, we can feel what we could not feel before, at a pace the body can bear.
Staying present is not avoidance. It is the exact condition that makes it safe to feel.