I am sure you have heard time and time again, live in the present moment. That is amazing advice, but how do you truly apply that concept? Your past is over and your future hasn’t happened yet. Yet, we have pain about our past and we are anxious about the future…
Your past no longer exists. The ONLY way your past exists today is in your CURRENT thoughts about it. I am going to say that again. Your past no longer exists. Your past is over, it’s gone. The only way your past affects you now is in your thoughts about it in the present moment. Wrapping your mind around this concept and applying it will give you power.
If you are wondering why you haven’t been able to accomplish something new, move forward, or change your life… you are most likely recycling thoughts about your past that are creating the same results. You have to think NEW thoughts and deliberately create new thoughts to create a NEW you.
When you think thoughts about your past like “things should have been different” “I feel like a victim” “this should have never happened to me” “I will never get over this” “I can’t do this” “I can’t move on” these thoughts will have your mind in a constant loop of negative emotion and the result is being stuck in the past.
Knowing that your past is only present in your current thinking, you have the ability to write the story of what your past means to you today. And I think that is the most beautiful thing. If you have experienced suffering, horrible life circumstances, trauma and grief, others treating you unfair or unkind…. first of all, congratulations, you are living a human life. But know that you have the control to define your past and take with you the story of how you want to live your life moving forward.
If you are in pain about being in pain about your past. Listen closely. The feeling you had in the moment of adversity is not the same feeling you have now. You have the feeling you had then and you have the feeling NOW in your current thoughts about it. You are experiencing present pain. The things that have happened to you are over and it’s good news to know that you get to decide how to think about it currently.
When I get to choose to define my past and say how things have happened FOR me and not TO me, I feel powerful. When I say things like, everything was meant to happen exactly how it was supposed to happen in order for me to have the life I am meant to have, I feel freedom. Yes, I wish things could have gone differently, but I am grateful for the life I have now because of how I choose to think about it.
“When you argue with your past, you lose 100% of the time.”
I have decided that this is part of my destiny and believing that sets me free. You have the power to change your past and define what it means to you today.
