Using the past as a benchmark for your creation of today’s situations and the future is using a flawed yardstick! If your memories of your yesterdays are glowing and positive that is fine but all too often negative memories of the past can cause somewhat irrational reactions in the now.
If your memories of past situations are causing you to react in ways that are uncomfortable or even harmful to you, to those around you and to your current life experiences, it is time to take action.
I am not suggesting that you forget the past or bury it. What I am offering you may seem a bit unusual at first glance but it does work. I am suggesting that you make some subtle but important changes in the way you remember certain troubling aspects from the past.
It is not at all unusual for us to take a past trauma and rehearse it over and over again. We make the memory strong, harsher and more energized until it is vastly different than the original happening. Hashing and rehashing an unhappy past will not create anything positive.
The method I am going to detail for you will not affect anyone in those memories but it can be a world of help to you. For instance, if you have endured emotional or physical abuse in any relationship begin right now to see yourself responding in a different way.
If someone has lowered or crushed your self esteem with heavy words, see yourself saying something mild and just walking away head held high. “I understand your feelings. I am sorry you feel that way.” Then in your imagination you leave the room and let the words roll off. This takes some memory practice but you can do it. Every time the memory comes to your mind practice it in its new form.
If the suffered abuse was a physical one, construct with your imagination a scenario where a concerned and loving person arrives to intercede on your behalf, someone who takes you out of harm’s way. This memory adjustment will not take hold immediately but eventually with your repetition it will replace the original version. Your harsh emotions will soften and subside. The change will free you to trust life more fully.
The tremendous benefit of restructuring memories of the hurtful past is that you can stop the patterns! You do not need to project that “hurt me” energy over and over again. You can stop manifesting similar situations today and tomorrow.
Once you have pulled the plug on the negative aspects of memories you are back in control. You can create the kind of future you truly want. Remember that the past only exists for you as a series of memories. Because this is so, it only makes sense to put as much peace and joyous living into those memories as your imagination will allow.
On a slightly different aspect of the same principle, anytime today you encounter a happening that is not to your liking, a seeming negative, you have a wonderful choice. Why do you have a choice? Because you are the one in charge of labeling and categorizing any situation you find confronting you.
I remember my first time of taking shorthand notes some years ago. I was working for the director of an Illinois research facility. It was a meeting of the 12 department heads and I was writing as fast as I could to keep up with all the input.
After the meeting, when I was busy typing my notes, the director called me to his office. He said, “Now we will decide what happened at the meeting.” In other words he was using the opportunity to label and categorize the results according to his point of view.
Decide to put some sincere thought into how you label things. In other words if nothing comes together the way you had planned, decide to think that this is an opportunity to find a better plan. Label it, “Opportunity Calling” or just tell yourself that this presents an excellent chance to practice that patience skill you have been wanting.
There is no occurrence that can resist your positive identifying spin no matter how dark it may seem on first look. Deciding that every negative is hiding a good opportunity is the best thing you can do for yourself. It opens your mind to unconsidered or previously ignored chances to learn and grow.
Every one of us have had tragedy touch our lives at some time Let me describe to you how I dealt with one of my own most difficult times.
It was ten years ago this past January. My husband Jim and I had been married for 19 years. We taught classes together. He had his own hypnosis clients. My Jim was recovering nicely from an extensive heart surgery two or three months previously. By all appearances he was as well as I had ever seen him. Then with no warning one sunny Arkansas day he shot and killed himself.
I was presented with a huge choice. Of course I mourned. The choice was whether I should also blame myself. Should I feel guilty that somehow I should have seen his mental/emotional state? Should I have known he needed help? Should I have anticipated the tragedy? Was I obliged to shoulder a heavy load of guilt?
This was my decision and no one else could make it for me. I deliberately elected to tell myself that he had my best interests at heart. I felt that because of his age he was most likely concerned that his health would continue to decline and that decline would make him a burden to me. He loved me enough to not allow that to happen.
Was my view of the situation and its cause pure rationalization on my part? Perhaps, but that attitude allowed me to move forward in a life affirming way. That concept freed me from what could have been years of self recrimination and stagnation.
Whatever “the truth” may have been at the time, I believe that he made a loving sacrifice which has allowed me to give myself fully to the work I am meant to do.
I have no doubt that many of you have moved through equally difficult situations. From my clients, I hear all sorts of problems and traumas that they encountered as children and later as adults in relationships.
The truth is that as long as we continue to rehearse the fears, doubts and worries from the past, we will continue to meet similar troubling situations in the present and the future.
A little time invested in giving those troublesome memories a more positive spin is worth the effort involved. There is no reason to let a heavily charged negative memory ruin your life today.
You want to act within each new situation in a positively appropriate new way. What you do not need or want is to react from the past, from a negative memory trigger which spoils the now moment.
The highest good you can extract from the past is the wisdom you have gained—the knowledge and understanding that has brought you to this moment.
Why improve your hurtful memories? Because general we do exactly the opposite. We amplify the hurts beyond all reason and certainly beyond the truth of the past. This amplification through the continual focus of our energy brings most unwelcome results.
You deserve the very best, happiest, most productive life. You can have exactly that. You are strong, powerful, capable and talented. I believe in your right and ability to choose.