Episode 16: Past Self

Hello my friends. Welcome to Episode 16. So today's episode is about our past self. The person we were yesterday, last week, a few months ago, or even a few years ago.

How is your relationship with that person?

What do you think of them?

What do you think they did perfectly?

What do you think they should have done differently?

Why do you think that they should have done these things differently?

Take a minute to think about those things and investigate your relationship with that person.

Now for me – I know that I have a strong tendency of being quite judgemental of my past self. Truly believing that if she had been different then I would somehow have an easier, happier, simpler life now.

And I think this is a common misconception about our past selves.

We either have a long list of small situations that we think should have been handled differently or we have one massive experience that we think is the root cause of all that is wrong in our lives today.

We get in the pattern of believing that if a few small things or one big thing from the past had turned out differently then we would have all the good we have now in our lives and we wouldn’t have the bad or the hard experience from the past.

This is the part where I think we get caught in this way of thinking, that the present and the future would be all good if these things had not happened in the past. I am sure this is not how my world works.

I have had good things in the past and I have had hard things in the past.

I have handled things well in the past and I have handled things poorly in the past.

No one experience or decision has created my present reality. It comes from a series of beliefs, decisions, and actions.

This false notion of if the past were different then life would be perfect can go as far as us even believing that if we had done something different in the past then we would have the exact life we have now plus we would have whatever we said no to or we wouldn’t have the regret or guilt of saying yes to something that created a hard or challenging experience for us.

But I want you to challenge this belief!

Often experiences happen and they start us on a trajectory. We have some things in our lives right now because of things that happened in the past. And if that thing hadn’t happened then we would have continued on a completely different trajectory.

Sometimes we don’t know exactly the consequences or the changes that are a result of each experience so it’s hard to work out all the cause and effect that is going on in our lives but when it comes to the past there are many ways of looking at it.

Here are 3 thoughts about the past that help me:

1.  It happened.   – this helps me a bit with acceptance. I can’t change the past. It’s over. So, finding a way to accept that it did happen can in some cases neutralize a bit of the struggle with it. I don’t have to love that it happened, I don’t have to even think it was supposed to happen but just to let it be that it did happen.

2.  I did my best and my best may have been pretty awful. This one helps me with judgment. I know that we all do our best. Our actions make sense when we understand the thoughts that are going on in the background and the emotions driving them. And sometimes those actions are not in line with our best selves or our current selves when we look at past actions. When we give the space for ourselves to have got it so wrong in the past, we can really develop our muscle of compassion for our current selves and the mistakes we make.

3.  “The past is your teacher, not your fortune teller” – quote from Corine Crabtree on a training in self coaching scholars. This I love! Our brains look to the past to figure out what might be coming in the future but that only serves us in a limited number of situations. We look to the past for everything and that keeps us safe and sound and stuck! Let’s take the lessons that we can from the past – you can use Episode 15 on post mortems as a template for how to glean information from the past but don’t let the past dictate your future.

Take any one of these thoughts if you think they will serve you or leave them all if you find they don’t help you.

I love when I can come to peace with my past self.

She did some things right and she did some things wrong.

I can learn and grow from all the things she did and there is nothing that she did that limits my lovability or my potential.

Take a look at your past self and see. Where can you accept, love and learn from that person who really got you where you are today.

It will be fun.

Have a wonderful week.