Your past doesn’t define you, your thoughts do. Learn how to change the meaning of your past and shape a better future.
How Your Past Affects Your Present and Future
Welcome to this week’s You Are Destined For Greatness. I’m so glad that you’re here, and I think you’re gonna be glad you’re here too because today we got a big topic. And that is “How to Change Your Past.” Okay.
We’ve been taught that you can’t change your past. It’s over. It’s gone. The only thing you can do is look forward and think about tomorrow.
Not so. Not so.
But if you could change your past, why would you? Well, here’s why.
All that stuff that happened back there in the past, it's affecting your present and your future. So that's why.
All of us have done something, okay? We've either had something done to us, or we've done things that we're ashamed of that we wish we wouldn’t have. We just want to go back, and if we could, we would, right? But we've been taught that it's just the way it is, and now we just have to, you know, leave it alone and move forward.
But here's the thing. What the past is, the totality of what the past is is your current thoughts about what happened. That's what the past is. The past doesn't make you feel a certain way. It doesn't make you do a certain thing. It's nothing other than what you're thinking about right now about it.
The past is your current thinking about the past. Okay?
Your Thoughts Create Your Present Reality
And here's the thing. What you're thinking about in those tough times, in those uglinesses, okay, the thoughts that you're currently having are currently making you feel a certain way. And when you feel a certain way, you're doing a certain thing, and that's affecting your present and your future, if you're with me.
It's a lot, but you've got to check out this week's podcast to get the whole deal.
An Example of Changing the Meaning of the Past
But here's the bottom line, okay? Here's an example.
What if my past, okay, was that I was in jail, I was divorced three times, I was way overweight, and that all those things that happened to me have, you know, made me to where there's only going to be so much I'm going to be able to accomplish? Because I've been locked up, I mean, there's only, when you're that way there's only so much you can do in life. There's only so successful you can be, you can only, can't be, you can't, there are certain things you can't do when you've done that, okay?
And that's just my past. It's the way it is, okay?
Or, or, because I've been through those experiences, because I've been in jail, because I've been addicted, because I've been overweight and overcame those things, it strengthens me.
Because I've been in jail and been treated as a second-class citizen, it makes me, it makes me, it drives me to love my neighbor more. It compels me to respect other people more than I normally would because I know what it feels like to not be respected, to be disrespected. Okay?
And so my past, in all the struggle that it was, has made me and given me the ability and the qualities to be who I am today. And I like who I am today, okay?
Choosing a New Story About Your Past
Now, what if that was my past? I mean, you pick one. Because I'll tell you what, I've had the one past, okay? The woe-is-me, I'm-ashamed-of-my-past, I'm going to just hide and duck and live. I'd lived with so much shame for so long that I had to say goodbye to it and create a new past.
And here's the thing. You might not have that, you might not have been locked up or any of that. It doesn't have to be that. But here's what it is.
All of us, if we look at our past, there’s things in there that are making us feel a certain way when we think about it that aren't helping our future, that are not helping our present or our future. Okay?
A Simple Step to Redefine Your Past
So there's a little simple step that you can go through. It takes a little bit of effort and a little bit of time. But I'm here to tell you, it's so worth it. Okay?
And it begins with, number one, is just thinking about that time in your life, okay, that person in your life that’s done all those things. Or the thing that you did. You know that you’re just like, that thing. You know that thing, that you don’t really want to talk about… Right? That thing. When you think about that thing, something that somebody did to you. That person. That time in your life, whatever it is. Notice what your thoughts are.
Remember what thoughts are. Thoughts are phrases or sentences in your mind. You can say them, but they're thoughts or sentences that are in your mind. Think about what you think about when you think about that time, that person, that part of your past, okay?
And notice how it makes you feel, okay? Because it's affecting you right now.
The Good News: You Can Change It
And here's the good news. Here's the good news, my friends.
The good news is you can have it be what you want. You can change that past. You can create new thoughts, and they can become as real as what you feel about that troubled past that you have. Okay?
I encourage you to check out stablelivingcoaching.com. Get the whole podcast because there's way too much more to go into here. But I'm here to tell you, if there's anything, if you're a human being there's something in your past that you'd probably like to change.
And the good news is you can. And the good news is your life's going to be better as a result of it.
Stay with me, my friends, because You Are Destined For Greatness.
