Month: October 2017

Getting Past the Past

It’s easy to find motivational posters and speakers who advocate living in the moment. To stop living in the past and worrying about the future and just focus on the now.

While I definitely agree that this is important, I also know that it isn’t as easy as just deciding that you are going to live in the moment. It does change your thinking to a certain extent, of course, but sometimes things from the past are so deeply seated that they affect your present.

That doesn’t mean that we should all dwell in the past, though. More that we need to honor our emotions and actually feel these things so we can say goodbye to them for good. So they don’t continue to follow us in the shadows as we try to move forward. So our present is no longer negatively affected by the past.

I’m not saying this because I’ve seen the light and I’ve completely shed the weight of past incidents. As recently as last week I had an emotional breakdown because of past emotions. Those feelings of despair stayed with me for almost two weeks. Then yesterday it seemed like the universe closed a couple of loose ends for me; one with a past relationship and another with a past job.

If I hadn’t had the breakdown last week and let myself feel those negative emotions, this ending might only be temporary in the story of my life. These incidents that hurt me in the past might surface again when I start to feel bad about myself in regards to relationships or unsure of myself when it comes to my career.

Now that I allowed myself to feel those emotions, though, I am confident that they will not surface unexpectedly from a random catalyst in the future. It was hard to feel them in the moment—crying on the floor of my house for a few hours hard—but I feel freer now that they’re gone.

You don’t want your past to define you, but it does shape you. You don’t want to completely ignore your feelings, but you also don’t want to feel them forever. Find a way to feel your emotions about the past, to honor them, and to let them go with love. Once you do that, you will be much more open to bigger and better things in the present and a more exciting future.

The present moment will eventually become the past so you want to make it count.

On Positivity

I wish I could say I’ve been a forward-thinking, positive person throughout my entire life, but it’s not true. There have been far too many times in which I’ve let doubt drive me—even though I truly believe that things tend to work themselves out in the end. It usually happens right before a major transition when I think too much about all of the “what if’s” and don’t let myself just have faith that everything will be okay.

On the other hand, I have always been positive for the people in my life. I tend to seek out relationships with other people who do look on the bright side. I think these relationships help me return to a place of positivity if I am starting to let fear and doubt color my thinking.

Lately I have really started to pay attention to intention. Why do people do the things they do? What is their motivation for their actions? Paying more attention to this has shown me that positivity is not always reciprocated as much as I think it is.

There are some people in your life who you think are positive, bright, shining forces, but then you realize that you are actually the one providing them with positivity. When the time comes to take the positivity torch, they do not always complete the pass.

If negativity does creep into my thoughts, I usually need a day or two of feeling sorry for myself and then I can typically pull out of it and return to my regularly scheduled (fairly) positive thinking. There are occasions, though, when I need a little bit of help from the people in my life.

Most of those people always go above and beyond and I am extremely lucky and grateful to have them. Even if they say things I’m not necessarily ready to hear, their words stay with me and I digest them when I’m in a better headspace. Lately, though, I’ve noticed that certain people have a tendency to disappear in situations like that. We might talk multiple times a week if things are normal—more if they are going through any kind of crisis. But the second I need the reciprocation, it goes radio silent.

And you know what? That’s okay. Because it made me realize something—we all need to be our own positive.

There will be plenty of times when it is easier to be negative, but positivity really does help to improve the way we handle things and it provides the spark to keep moving towards the best versions of ourselves.

Be your own positive and it will attract even more positivity to you.