Why Your Past Is Not You And Your Future

In my last email, I talked about why our mind has different aspects and that they all play a role. And when we left them untrained they start to behave like a bad puppy, ruining your thoughts and life.

One of those aspects, I’d like to go deeper into is this ruminating about the past.

You, see, there are so many people stuck in their past that they miss everything in the now. And not only that, they got so fixated on their past, that they believe it determined their whole future forever.

That makes me sad because it is far off the truth.

It prevents change and instead keeps you in your current situation.

Your past thoughts really created your life in the past. Sure, not every bit of it because nobody can choose their parents, country of birth, or anything of that. But all else from that is created by our thoughts.

Intentionally and unintentionally. Most of the time, unintentionally.

And all your past thoughts and actions or non-action you took, brought you to this in point in life where you are right now.

But as it is with thoughts, it is with our past or our memory of it. They are not us. Yes, they are part of us but still not us. And even more important, they don’t determine our future.

There is still the present moment. This situation now, where we can decide to change things and do it. We change our future as we change our past.

The past comes also with a caveat. That’s our memory. It s far from perfect and nothing is stored on a read-only device.

Every time we remember something from our past, our brain adjusts it to fit our current “self-belief”. And stores that as the memory.

So, whenever you remember a story about being bad at math, and you believe you have always been bad at math, you change that memory to strengthen your belief.

You can replace math with anything on your plate now as the effect is the same.

When we look at it from an evolutionary pov it is understandable. Whatever we experienced in the past did help us to survive. And it might help us even better in the future if we adjust it with current experiences.

That’s why we dwell in the past so much. This mechanism is not bad.

The problem is that the notification level is also totally off. Like with your other thoughts. Sometimes your brain brings these up because it believes it is important information for survival. To refresh the memory.

And the more you think about those experiences, the more important it must be for you. Your survival.

And on other times, it’s just pooping on your bed. To tease you, to test you. Or just because it can.

Basically, you are living with an untrained puppy, which can do whatever it likes without having rules or consequences.

Or if you don’t like this reference think about a smartphone with all notifications on max volume.

I know that was the takeaway from last time but it is the red thread connecting all the topics. And it already shows you the solution.

Today’s takeaway is that your past has brought you here but it is also full of errors and holes. It’s not an accurate thing to rely on and what brought you here, will not bring you to dream future. You need to change.

I know everyone has a different situation. That’s the disadvantage of a newsletter. We can’t go deep into your precise challenges on the list. But we can tackle those in the Inner Peace coaching program, where we can talk precisely about your current situation and how to apply the stuff. With the additional support of a community of like-minded people. Tap to learn more.