To be quite honest one of the roughest things I have ever put myself through is when I decided to stop looking over my shoulder and applying the past to everything that was in the present. We like to think of ourselves as someone that knows what's the best for us. We believe we listen to our hearts and our intuition. We believe there is a path for us to follow and wherever that path leads us, it's just how things are supposed to be. So what if I were to tell you, that you were maybe misguided into thinking this way?
We as a whole have a hard time setting the blame on ourselves for our short comings. It's always so easy to throw the blame on someone or something else that's debilitating. This gives us comfort to move forward, instead of taking the second to pause and self reflect and get down to the painful realization. Ever wonder why you seem to be playing the same movie on repeat? Why you seem to attract the same types of people and you realize you're not getting anywhere you thought you'd be going by now.
Well the answer for me was quite plain...I was on auto pilot and because of this I was trapped in the past. Everything familiar was comfortable for me, and I even felt comfort in playing the victim card for a long time. I seemed to have an excuse for everything, and it was every time I asked myself the big question we all ask ourselves. What am I doing with my life? The most uncomfortable yet habituate feeling for me in my life was the routine of being stagnant. Unfortunately for me, I didn't come across any inspirational forums that made me realize that I was the only one holding me back. The recipe for living in the present looked a little like this for me,
5 teaspoons of getting rid of nostalgia
1 cup of weeding out the bad eggs ("friends")
3 cups of knowing who you are and how you feel without the help of substances
4 table spoons of time management (where is all your time going)
6 cups of reassessing your financial decisions
Nostalgia - Let's talk a little bit about what living in the past can really look like. We all have memories, and some are connected to good things and some are connected to bad memories. Keeping things that are connected to the past may not seem like such a big deal, but believe me if you always take the time to sit there and think about the past then you just wasted a lot of time preventing yourself from moving forward and making new memories. If your re-evaluating your life and you're wanting to break up with the past version of yourself then you have to sometimes break up with the memories too. You will be surprised how much you really won't miss them once they are gone. Besides one of my biggest mottos is this.. you are your environment and the last thing you want in your environment is a bunch of memorabilia.
The Bad Eggs- This was so problematic for me! The hardest thing I ever had to do was figure out who I had in my life that wasn't part of the mission! To make things more obvious for me, I ended up telling a couple of the people in my life what I wanted to do to start bettering myself, and you would be surprised how many people will try to drown you with them! This was such a painful part of the process, some of these people I really thought I knew, and I swore they couldn't hurt me. The truth is when you're talking about things that would be better for you, sometimes it can come off as an insult towards someone else that still lives in that world. I guess that makes sense, but after awhile all of my friends dropped like flys and I was alone with myself and my starvations for whatever comes next.
Substances- This is something that will be different for everyone. In my personal experience, as an introvert it was such a relief when I started socially drinking and going out to bars and night clubs. I would talk to people all night and dance the night away! I met so many people that I thought were my friends, and I felt like for the first time in my life that I was someone I could be proud of. However if I could go back and talk to the younger version of myself I don't think I could do it in one night. After a couple of years of spending weekend after weekend in the same places with the same people I came to the realization that time has slipped from me and it had slipped away fast! I didn't know who I was without the glitter and the booze and that was absolutely terrifying to me! After a long time of trying to find myself again completely sober, I now know what it truly feels like to be happy, and what it really feels like to be upset and scared. That's a pretty ground breaking feeling to me.
Time Management- So maybe you have some ambitions or some dreams that you've put on the back burner? Ask yourself what are the excuses you have made for yourself. My big one was simply not having the time. Sit down and evaluate how you spend your time. How often do you go and visit your friends? How often do you go out to fun parties or how much time do you spend on your phone? How do you spend your time?! There was a point in my life when I was working 3 jobs, and still finding the time to go out to nightclubs and hangout with my friends. I couldn't stand working so much and I remember feeling like I never had any time or money. The point is, once you realize where you can trim the fat you can start writing out all of your goals and set small personal goals every day or every week to get you one step closer to where you want to be. I spent to much time researching and going down Youtube rabbit holes the very first year of my journey.
Financial Decisions - I added this one because of the obvious excuse! I don't have enough money...Money is a very tricky thing. We never realize how much money has us by the handle. Sadly we live in a consumer driven world. A job is a Job, no matter how big or how small. The way we choose to spend our paychecks is the thing to really zone in on! For me, I was funneling a lot of money into consumables and retail clothing! At that time I never wanted to be caught dead wearing the same outfit. What I should have been doing is saving a big portion of my checks into a safety fund or funneling it into the big mission!
I get that some of this might seem completely like you'd be dragging yourself through broken glass. It might seem boring and even lonely. I won't lie to you and sugar coat things. It was for awhile, but only at first. I started finding joy in endless amounts of research and I got excited watching myself move on to the next bullet points in my journey. As far as lonely goes, this is the very best part! I learned how co-dependent I was on other people making me happy and for the very first time I was having fun by myself, and low and behold.. I started to meet the most wonderful people. These people were like minded and very self motivated and that's exactly what kind of energy I needed to propel myself forward! As time went by I started waking up everyday enjoying the mission for what it was in the present. The key to being successful in living in the present is it's much more enjoyable if you don't read too much into it. Let go of the past and cling on to the mission and in return you will worry less about the future.
Your friend,
Carrot Cake Sweetie
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