The ABC’s of Your Past and Future

When you look backwards into your past…what do you see?  What or who has been the focus of your life?  Your annoying boss?  The daughter-in-law who worries you?  Food, Netflix, or shopping?  Other people’s lives on social media?  Your health? Your weight?  What is it…that has been the focus of your past?

When you look forward into your future…what do you see there?  Do you want to have the same focus as there as you have had? It is probably a mix.  Some you want to bring into your future and some you don’t.  Either way, the ABC’s will help you decide what parts to bring with you and what parts to leave behind.

As you look at your past, and that can be the past of last week or the past year or a much longer view into the past there is a lot there.  Some of it you want to keep and bring with you and some of it you wish wasn’t even part of your past.  The truth is, the past is over.  It has already happened and just like the other circumstances in your life, you are not in control.  You no longer have control over your past. 

While it is true, you can’t change the past, I am happy to let you know that you do get to choose the story you tell yourself about it.  You get to choose what your past means about you, what it doesn’t mean about you.  You get to choose how much influence you give or don’t give to your past. 

The ABC’s will help you do just that.  So, let’s dive into the ABCs of your past and future.

A = AWARENESS

The A is awareness.  You will want to bring awareness with you.

Awareness is a beautiful thing to come into.  The opportunity to become aware arrives in a variety of ways.  It is those ah-ha moments.  One way it has arrived for me is in journaling.  I journal and therefore have a written record of the story of my life.  I can look back easily because I have a record to look back on.

Another way to become aware is by looking back at the pictures you have on your phone.  What do you see in those pictures?  What thoughts and emotions do you become aware of as you look at them.  That also is awareness.

Sometimes, awareness arrives when you are faced with a potential loss or an actual loss.  A near miss accident when driving.  The death of a loved one.  The end of a relationship…when you finally tell him “I want a divorce”.  Hearing for the first time “you have cancer”.  Being told, “I don’t want to date you.”  It may also come in the form of constructive criticism from a boss about why you didn’t get the promotion or raise.  Maybe it comes when you finally sit down and balance your check book and you realize how much money you actually have versus what you thought you had.  It may even come when you step on the scale…and you say to yourself “I had no idea I weighed that much.”

It can also come when you look at your life and realize you are not living the life you want to live.  The result in your life is not the result you want.

Awareness.  Sometimes, well truth be told, it is always uncomfortable.  So why do you want to bring awareness with you when it doesn’t feel good?

Only when you become aware can you exercise your agency and choose what you will do next.  When you allow awareness, no matter how uncomfortable, you get to choose…do I want to be just as I am OR do I want to become a different version of me. 

I know…it can seem easier and more comfortable to live blissfully unaware.  But, if you are ready to let go of the past, it is on the other side of the uncomfortableness of awareness that you step closer to letting go.

And the B of the ABC’s is going to help you with the uncomfortableness.

B = NOT BEATING YOURSELF UP

Why is it that sometimes you think the best way to change something about yourself is to berate yourself, punish yourself, be mean to yourself and basically focus on what you think is wrong with you rather than what is good and beautiful about you? 

Part of it is simply habit.  You are used to doing it and so you do it.

Another part of it is the constant judgement and comparison your brain goes to.  Your brain is doing one of its jobs…scanning around to determine if you are fitting in with the rest of the humans….so it finds what it has been used to looking for and offers up all the faults, defects and missteps that may jeopardize your standing in the group.

Whichever one is at work in your life…probably both…you still have power and choice.  Power and choice to break the habit and retrain your brain to quiet your negative self-talk.  To stop beating yourself up.

Another reason you so easily drop into beating yourself up is that on some level you believe that if you are kind and loving you won’t change.  The only way to change is to be mean and demanding with yourself and to punish yourself when you don’t make it or don’t make it fast enough.

That is not true.  It is ineffective.  And it doesn’t feel very good.

You can retrain your brain to refuse to beat yourself up any longer.  You can refuse to talk to yourself in anyway that you would not talk to your dearest friend.  You can choose to remember that you are God’s daughter and you won’t talk to His daughter that way anymore.  Not out loud and not silently.

You do this by first making the decision – intentionally – that you won’t beat your self up anymore.  And when you catch yourself doing it – STOP!  Keep practicing.  It will become easier. 

That leads us in to the C of the ABC’s.

C = Compassion

Like awareness, compassion is one part you want to take with you.  Leave behind the B of beating yourself up and instead take compassion with you.

What exactly is compassion?  I love the definition our friends at Websters offers up…”sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it”!

That is so good.  Think about it.  The “sympathetic consciousness” is perfectly aligned with the allowing the A of the ABC’s - awareness - as well as the desire to alleviate it…to alleviate the uncomfortableness that comes with the awareness. 

Alleviating the uncomfortableness does not come from beating yourself up!!!  It comes from compassion.

One of the synonyms of compassion is Charity.  As Christian women we know that Charity is more than a financial donation to a charity.  It is the way God loves us, the way we are to love others AND the way we are to love ourselves. 

We want to take compassion – charity – with us into our future as we let go of the past.  Again, you will remember that charity is how God loves you.  And since we are to love ourselves…we can learn how to do that by looking at how He loves us.

Let’s use God’s example of how to love and we make a list of how you can love yourself, have compassion for yourself.  (See 1 Cor. 13)

Going forward you will…

Not give up on yourself.

You will, take care of yourself.

Rather than being forceful and punishing yourself, you will be gentle.

You be understanding rather than angry with yourself.

You will not wallow in your shortcomings or allow them to keep you stuck in the past.

You will believe in yourself.

You will choose to see the best in yourself.

You will release the part of your past that is holding you back…by using the ABC’s stop beating yourself up and instead you will move into your future with awareness and compassion.

That is what you are going to do.