© Kathy Szabo photo
I belong to some news feeds on LinkedIn and the title of one caught my eye and I wanted to share it with you. I've added my own notes into it.
Does the Past Form Our Future?
© EKTherapies
Just because we are used to acting a certain way or something happened to us in the past, does that mean that that is how we are going to be for the rest of our lives? I never like being defined as being "just like him" or "just like her." Each moment I am myself and although I may exhibit behavior similar to someone else I'd rather not be like, it is only in that moment that I am like that. Give people a break - let them be who they are in that moment - it's a journey.
The past does form who we are, it helps us to learn and to get a better understanding of what we do or don’t want out of life, but it doesn’t have to control our future. A dear friend once told me, after I admitted feeling extremely remorseful and guilty of my past, that I am who I am today because of the actions of my past...I'm better because of them. Sound and gentle advice greatly needed at the time.
We can expect that the past is always part of us but we can choose whether or not to allow it to rule our future. It sounds so simple but we can choose whether to give a thought energy and momentum, be it a positive or negative one. We are the ones in control of our own minds - this in itself can be one of the most powerful thoughts. Look how powerful it can be if we start on a negative spiral for example. We can imagine things so vividly even though the chance of them happening is less than .001%, but we still feel the physiological responses as if it had already happened. Or there are the psychosomatic cases when you tell your brain you are ill and it starts to give you the symptoms as if you really were.
It is also important to accept that even when you work with the positive, it doesn’t mean that you won’t have the odd "down" day - life is after all a wonderful roller coaster - and we need the “down” days to appreciate the good ones, but the “down” days should be few and far between.
There is no doubt that there are some things that may have happened in the past that form you and are hard to let go of, but if we accept that they are there, then we can either let them rule us or we can learn from them and allow ourselves the space to continue to grow.
Does the Past Form Our Future?
© EKTherapies
Just because we are used to acting a certain way or something happened to us in the past, does that mean that that is how we are going to be for the rest of our lives? I never like being defined as being "just like him" or "just like her." Each moment I am myself and although I may exhibit behavior similar to someone else I'd rather not be like, it is only in that moment that I am like that. Give people a break - let them be who they are in that moment - it's a journey.
The past does form who we are, it helps us to learn and to get a better understanding of what we do or don’t want out of life, but it doesn’t have to control our future. A dear friend once told me, after I admitted feeling extremely remorseful and guilty of my past, that I am who I am today because of the actions of my past...I'm better because of them. Sound and gentle advice greatly needed at the time.
We can expect that the past is always part of us but we can choose whether or not to allow it to rule our future. It sounds so simple but we can choose whether to give a thought energy and momentum, be it a positive or negative one. We are the ones in control of our own minds - this in itself can be one of the most powerful thoughts. Look how powerful it can be if we start on a negative spiral for example. We can imagine things so vividly even though the chance of them happening is less than .001%, but we still feel the physiological responses as if it had already happened. Or there are the psychosomatic cases when you tell your brain you are ill and it starts to give you the symptoms as if you really were.
It is also important to accept that even when you work with the positive, it doesn’t mean that you won’t have the odd "down" day - life is after all a wonderful roller coaster - and we need the “down” days to appreciate the good ones, but the “down” days should be few and far between.
There is no doubt that there are some things that may have happened in the past that form you and are hard to let go of, but if we accept that they are there, then we can either let them rule us or we can learn from them and allow ourselves the space to continue to grow.
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