Don’t Look Back You’re Not Going That Way
Learn from the past, let it go and move on. Don’t wallow in the unhappiness of the past, embrace it, it’s part of the experiences that shape us. Now its time to move on to brighter, happier things.
Perhaps one of the biggest stumbling blocks in becoming happier is past regrets. Too many times we become so obsessed with all of the times in the past when we were unable to achieve true and continued happiness that we believe we are doomed to fail and that happiness will always just be out of our reach.
What actually happens is that we “program” ourselves to be unhappy. We are still living in the past, unable to break away from the “failure chain” that links us to our past selves. So, we doom ourselves to repeating the same old mistakes over and over again and we’re left feeling that happiness is just unachievable for us.
In order to do things differently, we must learn to be different. Our thoughts, actions and attitudes must all be different than they were in the past. And one big way to be different is in the way we perceive our past circumstances.
There is no room in the life of a happy person for regret. Regret is a waste. It does nothing to enhance who you are, and, in reality, all it does is feed on you. Regret will bleed you dry emotionally, physically and spiritually and keep you chained to the unhappiness of a situation rather than being able to look and find the happiness within ourselves.
If you want to be free to achieve your dreams and goals and live your life to its fullest potential, you must not allow regret to keep you chained to the past in a prison of “should of’s” and “could of’s”.
One of the best ways to loosen the power that regret has on you is to accept your past circumstances, accept that past circumstances made you unhappy. Allow yourself to be human and realize that, as a human, you will make mistakes, we’ve all made wrong choices and that’s okay, because that is how you learn.
But now, let’s take it one step further. Not only should you accept your past circumstances and choices – but you should also embrace them. That’s right, be grateful that you are aware of your past choices and then we can see them as experiences we’ve had and release the emotional hold they have on us and let them go, we can be happy again, we deserve to be happy again but we must give ourselves permission to let go and move into a state of happiness.
Why in the world should you embrace your unhappy memories? Because if you are aware that you have made choices not congruent to your happiness, then you are also aware that you need to do something different next time around to avoid those things that lead to any unhappiness.
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, you can look at what you did in the past to bring about the unhappy results – and use that as your blueprint for what you need to do to achieve a happier outcome for yourself.
So, when those past choices come to mind don’t get stuck in regret and allow yourself to follow the same path that caused the unhappiness in the first place. Instead, embrace those choices knowing that you can use them as a valuable learning tool – the roadmap to Happiness that they actually are.
Happiness is a choice – go out and decide to be Happy!
Julie Jenkins – The Happiness Institute
