Andrea Waltz, co author of the insightful book “Go for No” tweeted a humorous tweet the other day. It was humorous because it was embarrassing but true to my experience, and it struck me as funny. The tweet was a picture of a box of old electronic cords with a message around one’s fear of throwing away old cords in case they’ll need them some day. You know, the box of old cords and other electronics that we all have in our basement or attic. Mine is at least 20 years old but I continue to save the cords in case I’ll need them some day.
The tweet got me thinking about how we do this SAME EXACT THING with our thinking. We hold onto thoughts for a very long time, even though they don’t serve us any longer. But we THINK they do serve us. Thoughts of fear, regret, envy, anger, embarrassment about circumstances or events that happened in the past. We innocently hang on to these thoughts even though they no longer exist. They only exist in our mind. But we continue to make them real by pouring energy into thinking about them. And this thinking often goes down a path that doesn’t serve us well.
The misunderstanding that I used to have, is that in the present moment, the past is real. That my thoughts about things that happened in the past were 100% real. I have come to understand that the truth is that the past happened, and no longer exists today. Unless we think it into existence. Unless we give the past so much energy with our thinking that we continue to make it our experience today. It stays so real to us because we continue think it into existence, and this creates feelings today based on thoughts about the past.
Just like the box of cords in our basement (or attic), we don’t have to hang on to these old thoughts. Acknowledge them? Yes. Recognize that whatever happened, happened? Yes. What we don’t have to keep doing is spinning meaning into our thinking about the past, over and over in our head, and continuing to give energy to the feelings we have surrounding the past. Just like we don’t have to stay attached to the physical cords in our attic.
It just takes one new thought to change our present reality.
