Episode 23 - Being Past Focused
Episode 23 - Being Past Focused
Have you ever had thoughts like these:
“It is just the way I am.”
“It shouldn’t have happened that way.”
“I used to be thinner.”
“I used to be happier.”
“Things used to be better.”
“I have never done that before.”
“I don't know how.”
“I should have done it differently.”
“I made a huge mistake.”
“She shouldn’t have said that.”
“He never listens to me.”
“This always happens to me.”
“It was better then.”
My guess is that as a human, you have had thoughts similar to these. These are past focused thoughts. As we get older, we tend to define ourselves more and more by our past.
Past focused thoughts are a way our brain tries to protect us. At the primitive level, the human brain was designed for survival. The brain is always trying to find evidence to determine what we can expect in the future. This served our ancestors well and helped keep them alive. It can serve us too. However, most of the time, in this modern world, we don’t need to operate from this lower brain very often.
If your story about your past includes any thoughts like the ones I just mentioned then you are going to feel negative, defeated, and upset and those emotions will determine what you do or don’t do in the future. Remember, our emotions fuel all of our actions.
So often we beat ourselves up over our past like it will in some way move us to where we want to go. Believing that if we just beat ourselves up enough, then things will be better. Believing that if we argue against our past it will make it right somehow. It is so easy to go to the past because it doesn't take much effort. It doesn’t require us to use our creativity and it requires that we believe things we don’t know yet.
But this never works.
Success and happiness do not come from beating yourself up or arguing with the past. If we are always going to the past, this keeps us stuck and prevents us from creating a future that looks different from the past.
I have talked about stories on this podcast. We all have stories about our lives. While there is a place for sharing memories of our past and telling the truth about what happened to us can be very powerful and helpful. However, reiterating and rehashing a story over and over again without changing it is probably not helpful or necessary.
Explaining our current condition based on something that happened to us in the past doesn’t serve us, because it no longer exists anywhere but in our own mind. Our past is only in our own mind. I know this can be hard to wrap your brain around but it is a very important concept to really understand.
I had a coach describe it this way. If you had amnesia and someone talked to you about your past, it would have no influence on you in terms of your current thinking.
When you are feeling pain from something that happened in your past, it is not the past that is painful. It is what you are thinking and believing about the past that is causing you pain. You are having a new thought about something in your past and it’s creating a new feeling. This concept is life changing. You cannot experience pain from your past. What happened to you in your past is over. The only pain you are experiencing now is the pain you are creating now.
Whatever you did or someone did to you cannot affect you now. The only way it can affect you now is if you create a situation where you are currently a victim. If you feel shame it isn’t because of your past. It is because of what you are currently thinking about your past.
This can seem frustrating and you may want to argue with me on this but this is such good news!
I promise!
What if the good news is that you get to look at your life however you would like?
What if everything happened exactly as it was supposed to so you could have the life you were meant to have?
Dan Sullivan teaches that you get to take from your past what you want and you get to leave the rest of it behind. You get to decide what you want to think about it. You get to decide what you are going to make it mean. You get to take with you the lessons and growth you have gained. You get to choose what you are going to focus on.
Notice how you feel when you tell the story of your past. If it doesn’t feel good maybe it is time for a new focus.
In the King James Bible, it states that the Greek word for repentance “denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world.”
A change of focus.
If you desire to create a life you love - a life full of connection with yourself, others and God can begin by changing your focus from the past to the future.
Here are 3 tips to help you refocus.
Be present. Take a deep breath and slow down. So, often we are past focused because we believe we aren’t where we should be yet. Or that things are different than we believe they are supposed to be. This comes from fear. Fear is always in a hurry. Fear always believes there is a problem. What if you could pause and just breathe? Slow down. Be present. Be where you are. And remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong. You are just fine in this moment.
Be human. Remember you are a human being. You are here having a mortal experience which means there is going to be a life full of 50/50. You are going to have things that don’t work out as planned. You aren’t always going to be happy. You are not always going to show up in a way you love. And that is okay. There is nothing wrong with you. That is why you are here on earth. To experience mortally. Not to get it right all the time. But to make mistakes. To experience opposition. To learn. To grow. To become. But this also includes practicing showing yourself grace through all of it.
Be grateful. Appreciate your past self for all she did for you. All she did to bring you where you are today. For the lessons and for the growth that has occurred along the way. Be grateful for the ability to let go and become free from something someone said to you yesterday and free from something that happened to you when you were 12 or 18. Be grateful for the things you can think about your past now that can bring you joy today.
Click on the link below to learn more about Seasons Coaching, Seasons of Joy Community Facebook Group as well as the An Awakening Retreat coming up in October.
