Mind Set Go

Knowing that something is good for you does not necessarily set up the right conditions for it to happen.  Let’s say for a moment that you know what is good for you, and you even know what steps you should take to get there, but then, it doesn’t happen.  Often, we believe, what gets in the way are memories.  But is it the memory or something else that is getting in the way of feeling good?  Really good?  Of living fully today and moving on in the journey this life provides?

While some might recommend letting go of bad memories, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. suggests that memories, especially bad, should be held on to.  On p. 148 in his book entitled Connect: 12 vital ties that open your heart, lengthen your life, and deepen your soul, he wrote of the topic of painful memories: “I think it is best to hold on to them if you can, just change how they make you feel.  Bad memories have something to teach.”  One of the things he suggests is a “sense of continuity” that these memories may create.

If for a moment, a sense of continuity is a goal, why not allow your “being” to flow rather than getting bogged down in a mire?  Could it be that we are allowing our memories to rule how and what we think, possibly missing opportunities along the way?  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, p 129, stated, “Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.  It is within each person’s power to decide whether its order will be restored from the outside, in ways in which we have no control, or whether the order will be the result of an internal pattern that grows organically from our skills and knowledge.”  Later, on p. 203 he reveals that “those who know how to transform a hopeless situation into a new flow activity that can be controlled will be able to enjoy themselves, and emerge stronger from the ordeal.”  There you have it.  Provide your mind “its own information.”

To transform, these are the three basic steps he puts forth: “Unselfconscious self-assurance,” “focusing attention on the world,” and “the discovery of new solutions.”  (pp 203-207)  He believes steps 1 and 2 usually generate step 3.  In developing a sense of unselfconscious self-assurance “one must trust one’s self, one’s environment, and one’s place in it.” 

I do believe that often we relish our bad experiences in a way when we relive them in our minds; searching for the need of feelings of worth the injustices created or seeking some repeated validation that we were not deserving of the outcome, we may generate an entirely different negative outcome as we perseverate.  This can go on to the point in which one might no longer engage in the now and, rather, rehash the then.  But if you trust yourself and your environment and your place within, why, oh why, waste precious time not moving on?  It’s as if, instead, that the continuity of life has now been broken by a desire or need for an injustice to be validated.  We create a new world filled with the need for vindication and no hope of internal reconciliation, healing and growth.

Validate “it” in your own mind.  Shout it from your own mountain for you to hear loud and strong.  Put it out there within your whole being.  Don’t change for an instant how unjust you know it was and how it made you feel.  However, do change how it makes you feel today, this moment; allow that to propel you like a catapult to higher ground still on this earth but very much different than where your feet trod yesterday.  If you allow yourself to begin to be yourself now, you won’t and can’t be the victim of circumstances.  Allowing yourself to remember, not forget, is powerful as long as you also allow yourself to change how memories make you feel.  Change how you feel, and start relishing how you feel today, not how something bad made you feel then.

You are strong, not in spite of your circumstances, but very much a part of them.  Love yourself with all the bruises and bumps and scars and muscles and smiles and curves.  Track your course with confidence. 

There is much we cannot control, but something deep inside lives that cannot and will not be taken away by friend or foe. Allow that something to come out of dormancy, and what better time than spring to do it? Not everyone has to appreciate you, understand you and nurture you—not when you are appreciating, understanding and nurturing yourself. 

Let others in to help you.  Seek guidance from many sources.  Smile, and love this new self that was there all the time.