#19 - Not Looking Back

I want to share with all of you about Not Looking Back:

Unfortunately It’s something that we all do...a lot!  I, myself
have caught myself looking back at all the things that I’ve
done in my life that was either - wrong, crazy, hurtful and
way to much more that I don’t even really want to think
about.  A number of years ago I realized that I had a tendency
to always look back at the negative things instead of the
positive things that I did.  Why do we do that?  We tend to
always look back at the negative and not the positive.

We’re all growing and learning were here on earth to learn and
grow, we’re not perfect.  So, that’s why sometimes we do those
crazy things like looking back at the negative instead of trying
to find out what was really good to and think about all those
good things we did.

Now, looking back on the negative is only a good thing when
you going to try and learn from it, when you’re going to try and
make better choices and maybe change direction in your life
and really be on a good path and maybe even trying to change
your behavior or anything like that.

But, it’s really not a good idea to look back at the negative and
then torture yourself about the bad things that you’ve done, and
it’s just a natural human tendency that we have.  We’re not taught
as little kids to look back the things that didn’t go right or the
things that we’ve done wrong and try to learn from it.

I think they need to teach all these things in school,  even as
early as elementary.  What do you think?  Let me know.

What impact it’s having on our lives when we think about all
the negative things, or just the whole idea of looking back at
the negative is kind of scary.

So, what impact is it having on your life, let me ask you that.
So think back at the last time you looked back at your past
and depending on how old you are, you can have many, many
years on things that you’ve done that maybe you wish you
could change.

Of course we can’t wish and we can’t change the past, but
think about things that you’ve thought about recently that
you’ve done in the past and it was really negative, and then
it just got you down thinking about it because, that’s one of
the things that looking at your negative past does to you - if
you’re not using it to help correct your life now and you’re just
trying to beat yourself up about all the bad things that you’ve
done.   

When was the last time you thought about that and what did
it do to you?

Did it put you in a state of depression?

Did it just want to make you eat sugar?

Did it just want to make you scream?

Think back to when the last time it was, it could have been
today, it could have been last month, who know!  We have so
many thoughts that go through our head every day that it’s
just amazing.        

Each podcast I always say “write everything down, get it out
of your head”, by now I hope that you actually have written
things down.  Maybe you bought a notebook or created your
own.  Write it down, it has such an amazing effect when you
physically write it on paper verses on your computer or smart
phone.

I’ve talked about this many times in my different episodes.
But think about it, write it down - what was the last thing that
you thought about that was negative and when was it.  Think
about how you could actually turn that around and make it so
that it could actually help you in your life verses just using it
to torture yourself, because that really doesn’t help you or
anyone around you.

Because when you start to get depressed or frustrated, we
tend to take it out on the people that are the closest to us -
our family and even sometimes friends or if you work.  If you
have a job around a lot of other people and somebody’s irritating
you, you might just want to take out your irritation on them.

Think about that, what is that thing that you keep thinking about?
A lot of times it’s just a couple of things, sometimes we don’t
think about the many, many things we did, but somethings
there’s a couple things that we tend to torture ourselves with.

I know because I’ve actually done that, I’ve realized that it was
usually just a couple of things that I used to torture myself with -
thinking about how stupid it was, why did I do that it made no sense.

Who knows what else, I don’t even want to remember the
thoughts that I was thinking at the time.

What you have to remember is that we’re human and we have
to learn all these things, nobody teaches us these things when
we were little.

So, if you’ve never been taught how to do certain things, now’s
a good time to start taking notes.

I always encourage people to listen to these episodes more
than once because you can always learn something new when
you listen to each episode more then one time, because there’s
so much content involved and so many things that I’m talking
about.

So, start by writing things out and just go back in your mind.
If it’s to hard, then maybe you have to work yourself up to
thinking about it instead of just trying to go back there in your
mind.

Sometimes if you think about it, when you actually can get it
out of your head - get it out of your thoughts, it’s easier to let
it go.  We like to hold on to every good and bad.

It’s not really healthy for us to hold on everything that’s not
working for us.  It’s a good start, it’s a good practice to have -
to write everything out.

It starts the process of you recognizing it and then eventually
you’ll have the ability to let it go.  Well, you actually have to
want to let it go first before you can let it go.

I would say, after you get it out on paper think about why you
were even thinking about that because sometimes when you’re
doing something, there’s always a trigger somewhere.  When
you’re doing something or you’re in a location or you’re around
certain people, there’s those triggers that pop into your head
and reminds you of the past of those negative things that you’ve
done.  Sometimes it’s a place or a person that is the cause of
this, we have to take responsibility ourselves for inappropriate
actions.

Sometimes if there’s another person involved, it could be the
other person just making you crazy and who knows you could
have said something really horrible or if that person was irritating
you, you could have just snapped and said something that really
you shouldn’t have that really hurt that other person.

Who knows, there’s endless possibilities of things that could
have happened.  Catch yourself too, as you go about your daily
life, really catch yourself in everything that you do.  Think about
the things that you say and the places that you go, think about
what  you’re doing and if you’re starting to say something that
you know you’re going to regret!  Then try to catch yourself and
stop yourself from saying something that could be really harmful
to somebody else and the more you practice that, the easier it
becomes to start catching yourself.

Of course it is a little bit of work, but once you get that habit
going of - always thinking about what you’re going to say first.
It really will make a big difference.

I’m on of those, that I like to speak my mind so sometimes I
don’t think about what I’m saying, I just open my mouth and I
realize that I shouldn’t have said that.  Now I really try to work
on thinking about what I’m going to say first.  I’ve been to places
where I’ve said things and then I thought “oh” and if my husband
was with me, he would tell me later “why did you say that!”  I
would just be in a state of shock like “oh, yah I don’t know why
I said that” and of course he’s either embarrassed or he’s just
confused as to why I say the things I say.

Sometimes we do that to our spouses, (but not on purpose)
It’s a give and take right! ;)

I just want to encourage you to try and catch yourself whenever
you’re going throughout your day and sometimes it doesn’t
even involve anybody else when you do things that really are
negative and sometimes it’s just you.  It’s O.K., just know t
hat you’re human and you’re just like everybody else who’s
trying to work through this life and learn and grow to become
a better person.

If you can just start with these few things, it will really make you
feel good.  I didn’t realize how good it made me feel when I
realized a while back that I was doing this crazy thing on just
torturing myself about all the negative things that I’ve ever done
in the past and it really was eye-opening and now I’m so glad
that I recognized it and I’m trying to work on  not torturing myself.
I’ve come a long way, it’s taken  awhile.  I don’t want to feel yucky
like that anymore and sometimes there’s no better word to use
then yucky, because yucky is just kind of a mishmash of a whole
bunch of feelings.  You just get tired after a while of feeling yucky
and you just don’t want it anymore.  You got to figure out why
you’re feeling yucky and one of the things that makes you feel
like that is just looking back on all this negativity.

Try and make it an effort, you might even want to make it a
practice everyday to start looking at all the positive things that
you’ve ever done, the people’s lives that you’ve impacted the
things that you’ve accomplished or anything that’s good.

Start cheering for yourself, start celebrating the wonderful things
that you’ve done.  Celebrating yourself, it doesn’t have to be
this big celebration that’s not what I’m talking about, but of
course you can do that if you want.

Just celebrate with yourself or with a friend or your family or
anybody.  Go out and get a snack or go get a bite to eat and
just celebrate and talk about the positive and you’ll be really
amazed at what a difference it will make and how you’ll feel.

I really encourage you to take this step forward because this
kind of looking back stuff really prevents you from moving
forward in your life.  It’s really hard to overcome things and
accomplish great things and great things are different to
everybody, but it’s really difficult when you’re constantly
looking back at the negative.

Try and NOT look back and try to work towards focusing on
the positive.

I promise you, you’ll be really happy and might even feel some
excitement that “hey, I can do this”.

Again I would ask you to please share this podcast with anybody
who you think would get great value out of it, maybe you know
somebody struggling with something that maybe listening to
any of these episodes will help them. 

I thank you again for listening I really appreciate you being here
and I hope you have a fantastic day.

a hui hou malama pono - until next time, take care

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Mahalo for listening. Aloha, Janin 

 

 

Music by: Dennis Pavao
Song: Ipo Lei Manu
Album: Wale No
Produced by: Pilialoha Production