Don’t borrow time from the present moment to create suffering for yourself.
 
We dwell in the past, regret our ‘bad’ choices, replay painful events, or escape into the future.
 
Each time we think about past we are taking the time from the present moment and we are forcing ourselves re-live it and feel the pain of it.

A big part of healing is being able to live more fully in the moment, rather than from the memories of the past. 
 
Reflection questions:
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• Would it be like to not live from a memory?
  
• To take each moment as is and not taint it with past suffering?

In moments of clarity, presence, and empowerment, we remember that we want more for ourselves. We don’t force this, it arises naturally. In those moments, we feel connected to a deep self-determination and desire to move forward. We become free from the limitations of our past, even if just for a moment.

In those moments, we feel free from shame and self-criticism. We stop defining ourselves by our limitations and instead allow ourselves to see a possibility of all we could be, do, and experience. We are in our true self. 

When we’re in this place, we support ourselves to dream big, create, be inspired, curious, compassionate, energized, and connected. We may decide that the way we currently live our life doesn’t fit us anymore. Maybe we set big goals and make promises to ourselves.

Also naturally, we disconnect from those moments, and go back to our usual ways of living that feel familiar and comfortable, yet constricting. Our conditioned self returns.

Maybe it doesn’t yet feel safe to be in the moments of presence and connection for too long. In these moments our conditioned self may tell us that those desires we felt so connected to in one moment, aren’t possible, or that they don’t happen to people like us, or that we are broken, or that we will fail because we failed in the past.

Our conditioned self is fearful of change and growth.

It wants to bring us back to the state of fear and complacency. That voice may sound like a voice of reason and it may be too loud to ignore. That voice will fight for our limitations and will want us to rebel against the promises we made to ourselves when we felt empowered.

In these moments, we have to remind that voice:

I’m doing this for me.
I’m choosing what supports me.
My true desires are coming from self-love. 
​It is safe and healthy to want more. 

If you’re forcing and pressuring, instead of being in the flow and ease, maybe it’s not meant to happen at this time or in the way you imagined it happening.

When things are not falling in place or happening “fast enough,” our first inclination is to pressure, conquer, or push through.

But maybe resistance is there for a reason. We are not meant to skip lessons and jump to the final phase immediately. What would be the point of that?

There are so many little steps and phases between our current lives and the bigger vision we have for ourselves. In each of these steps, there is something to learn, overcome, master, embrace, or let go. We are meant to fully embrace each step and listen to what is asked from us in each season of our life.
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Trust that what’s meant for you can’t miss you.

​Trust that the obstacle is there for a reason.

Questions to reflect on:

• What am I called to learn from this? 
• What is this moment teaching me? 
• How am I asked to show up for myself?

Negative thoughts are not a problem unless we believe them.
 
On their own, they are powerless, unsubstantiated negative opinions and imaginations.
 
They gain their power when we give them power. When we hold onto them, collect evidence for them, entertain them, and identify with them.
 
Letting go of negative thoughts is difficult because we internalized them so early that they feel like facts, and giving them up feels like giving up the truth of who we are.
 
On the contrary, we often feel as if we need a permission to believe positive, empowering thoughts about ourselves.
 
They feel like a lie. We think we need a proof that great things about ourselves are true before we believe them.
 
But we don’t. What we allow in our mind is our responsibility. We get to decide.
 
And then when we decide, we need to keep clinging onto those intentional thoughts, entertain them, and collect evidence for them. That's how we make your mind a nice place to be.