😵💫➡️🙏WHY NOW
Chewing On The Past Can Be Bitter: Choose Gratitude Instead
Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and appreciating NOW!
Why? Because without Now we have No-thing. In fact, Now is all we have ever had.
To Revive & Thrive in ‘25, we will have a consistent theme on Now, using repetition to build our “muscle memory.”
When we pay a lot of attention to the past, which has come to pass, especially that which we wish had not happened, we can experience depression.
Why?
Because we are powerless to change what has already happened. However, we do have the power to change how we think about what happened- and to work it to good by thinking about how the past is affecting the present.
Is what hurt you then hurting you NOW?
Isn’t it more the THOUGHTS of the past that are hurting you NOW?
My stepfather, who married my mother when I was 13, was a very significant teacher in my life. He taught me my work ethic and inspired me to think in uniquely powerful ways. By his own actions, he taught me both what to do and not to do - he led by example. At one point he was the #1 Remax agent in the State of Florida, at the height of the Real Estate boom. His best year he sold nearly 600 residential homes. Just the paperwork alone is hard to imagine. I’ll never forget a simple, yet powerful, insight he gave me while talking about his past real estate deals. We were discussing some of his biggest wins and some of his biggest losses. He had a deal go sideways that cost him $200,000.00
I said to him: “That must have hurt!” His response was basic and said with great peace: “It only hurts when I think about it”
I am not suggesting we ignore the tough stuff in our past. In fact, I see those moments as valuable feedback, rather than failure. However, there are many who dwell on the pain rather than work it to growth. They GO through, over and over, rather than GROW through what happened. Instead of Living & Learning, and growing, they get Fixed, stuck in the past and thus lose the glorious present.
Dr. Roger Hall, a good friend and coach now for nearly 20 years, once said to me, “some people just like to chew on what tastes bad.”
This very moment is all we have - and I choose to chew on what tastes good
Not only can too much focus on the past cause depression, too much focus on the future can cause anxiety.
Why? Well, deep down, we know that we all die in the future.
Consider how all fears are related to the core fear of death. Any activity you feel is particularly important, imagine not doing it ever again. How much would not doing it impact your life? Would it not possibly bring an earlier death?
Past and Future thinking keeps us from living our life to the fullest in the present moment, the NOW!
The past can be very helpful, bringing perspective and understanding to why we think the way we think. Past experiences have certainly implanted patterns of thought. Understanding our habits of thought and how they originated is extremely helpful. I shared this with you last week and it’s worth mentioning it here, again:
“Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our life, and we will call it fate.”
- Carl Jung
However, the optimal life is lived in the NOW, because NOW is the only place we have ever lived.
The future can be helpful as well, planning is a responsibility. Optimally, planning for the best and preparing for the worse. However, unfortunately, many plan for the worse rather than the best. They plan for the worse and just hope for the best. It’s as if planning for the worse will reduce the likelihood of disappointment if it happens. Yet, it might as well be happening now if our thoughts are oriented to it - not to mention we often get what we plan for.
If I plan to get in a car accident, the likelihood I will increases but I suppose I’ll be empowered when it happens and I say triumphantly, “see, I told you so”.
We do want to be people of integrity; we want our life to align with our thoughts - and this is why what we think is particularly important - it’s our core response-ability.
Right NOW, in this very moment, you are thinking, you are paying attention.
What are you buying right now with your precious attention, your life currency?
And is what you’re buying what you want?
Is what you’re thinking lifting or limiting?
Is your past and future thinking empowering or hurting? Are you living and learning or are you stuck?
Ask these questions often to shift your thinking and your life to more fulfillment.
It only hurts when you think about it!
So, stop thinking about it.
The negative experience already happened, remember the lesson so you can avoid it in the future and get on with your life right NOW!!
Pay your precious attention to that which you want for yourself and those you love.
5 minutes ago, might as well be 500 years ago and as my grandmother often said,
“If it won’t matter in 50 years, it doesn’t matter now.” Focus on what does matter NOW!
You are alive! You have breath in your lungs which is evidence it could be worse. There are people literally struggling to breathe at this very moment. Can you be grateful for the very oxygen you’re breathing NOW? Pause and take a deep breath with gratitude. If all oxygen was removed from you in this very moment, you would trade absolutely every possession you have to breathe again.
Think about that NOW!
We are all rich beyond belief, beyond our current beliefs. We need only change and realign our beliefs to experience how rich we are right NOW!
NOW is all we have - it is all we have ever had - let’s enjoy more than ever our life time, which is the time we are alive. Our life time is NOW!
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important-- Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.“ - Leo Tolstoy
To Revive & Thrive in ‘25 Count your blessings! Write down how rich you are in this very moment. A gratitude list is absolute rocket fuel for an amazing life; it’s food for the soul. You lack only what your past and your future mind believes you lack.
You have everything you need right now in this moment. If you truly needed it, you would have it. Notice it’s a ‘want’.
Want more what you have and have more of what you want.
Focus again on a deep inhale.
Be Here Now
The only place you have ever been.
Make NOW Great
And you’ll make it a great week!… Your BEST WEEK EVER!!
Steve Luckenbach