How many times have you looked back and relive a memory? It can be a memory that puts a smile on your face or it can be a recollection of an episode which might bring back negative thoughts. Either way our thinking pattern each day is looking back in the past, what has happened and what you do is to label these thoughts as memories. And in the present moment we go and say “let us create some memories”.
Let us start by saying that memories are not real anymore. They are merely stored programmes, which are gone, they do not exist anymore. We do not create memories. We create moments in the present, in the NOW. So why do we spend a lot of time thinking in the past, what we could have done better, regretting a decision, reliving in our thoughts an episode which has hurt us, disappointed us or made us feel bad? We continually live in the past because it becomes a secure refuge for us, falling into the pit of self pity.
Did you know that during the day thousands of thoughts cross our minds and a great percentage of those thoughts are all negative infused with doubt, fear and indecision? The reason for that is that the mind focuses only on the outward circumstances of life, what happens to us and how we feel about what happens to us.
We centre our peace of mind, serenity and happiness on what is going on in our outside world, our outward circumstance. We cannot control what happens to us in life. What we can control is the way we feel and react about what happens to us.
Do not mistake this with ignoring the hurt and disappointment. The first thing to do is to acknowledge the hurt. We are not talking here about pushing the ‘be positive mental buttons’. Its ok to feel hurt, cry or feel bad about a not so good episode in your life.
What is not ok is to keep reliving that same episode, like a broken record in your mind as if it is happening now. It is a mental process which requires care and effort to live from a powerful space inside because happiness depends entirely on your inner circumstances.
Real peace, balance and well being comes from the inside, serenity is an inner game and it is all a thinking exercise. It is possible and yes you can free yourself from what we call self sabotage because living in the past will tie you down, decrease your mental freedom, distracts you from the great opportunities that come within your path of life and sets you off balance.
There are a number of factors which you need to address to be able to free your mindset, your thinking process, from the haunting past and one of them is to associate yourselves with positive people, people who lift you up, people who encourage you. In your life there are people with whom you can spend:
- A whole day
- A few hours
- Just 5 minutes
- Not one second
Be wise and choose with whom you spend your time with because time is so precious and the people around you would have a great influence on your mindset. Sometimes you have to learn how to say No.
That is a learning process too. So my message here today is only look back at the episodes of your past life as an insight or a learning. You can never change the past yet you can change your PRESENT, your now, this very minute, not tomorrow, not next time or one day. That “one day” is now.
Penned by Paul Chetcut
