Are You Holding the Past & Missing the Future?

I was at a networking event recently in Bath’s glorious Holbourne Museum (if you get a chance go visit). There is something about that building that I just like. Is it the pleasing Georgian proportions? The modern glass structure at the rear? I don’t know exactly why but I really like it.  It feels right.

And one thing I particularly like is the way it has fused old and new. It’s had a brand new modern extension (tastefully not affecting the front elevation – from the front it looks as it ever was) which has enhanced it greatly. Of course, lots of people were anti the change but it’s been well done; it adds to the grandeur of the building, bringing it alive in the 21st century and of relevance to today. And of course, it’s useful! That’s a result in my book. Beauty and usefulness.

What’s Beautiful and Useful in Your Life?

Holding onto the past is not all bad. In fact, it can be positively life enhancing. If we hold onto the good and beautiful. Sometimes though we can get a bit stuck into holding onto all that is not so great about our pasts and allow it to define us.  For example, if you had a difficult schooling you may well allow that to influence all your attitudes towards learning and reject new ideas; new ideas which might add to the beauty and usefulness of your life.

Or a relationship which didn’t work may colour all future relationships you have because of  suspicion and cynicism. Or past mistakes in your current relationships may be an ever present malign influence if you can’t let them go.

Review Your Past

Take time out to think about the aspects of your past which enhance you, which ‘feel‘ right. That’s what you want to keep.  It makes you beautiful. However, some aspects may need to go into cold storage, and some will need to be jettisoned to make room for something new, to allow you to add something modern and beautiful and useful to you!

Here’s a quick personal development exercise to try! It’ll help you shape a beautiful and useful future!

Thanksgiving Time!

Today is thanksgiving in US. I am not an American, (although my husband’s mother hailed from Boston so we have lots of family there and I’m an Americanophile) I love the idea of having a day to give thanks. I think we should grab every opportunity in life to celebrate the good stuff, because the bad stuff comes of its own accord.

I Am Thankful For…

So try out this short exercise. Just what are you thankful for, today, right now? My list could be very long but right at this moment I am thankful for:

• The fact that my family is healthy and well
• That my immediate family is loving, close and great fun
• That my brother’s widow has found a new man (Yeay to her!)
• That my husband just brought me a coffee and warms up my cold car before I go out in the morning (I know, I’m terribly  spoilt!)
• That I have some of the best most supportive friends in the world
• That I have a job I love and am happy to wake up to
• That I have two very daft cats who think they are humans…

Of course, my life is not all wonderful all of the time (and how dull would that be? Everyone needs some light & shade), but today I am not going to focus on what isn’t working but on what is. Today is a good day to be thankful!

And to all my American friends and family, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Please do share all the reasons you have to be thankful and let’s generate a real page of positive thoughts!

Do You Believe People Can Change?

Do you believe people can change? My whole career has been built on the principle that, yes, they can! It’s not easy but it happens all the time.

It is important to believe that it’s possible though or you will be stuck with the same patterns of behaviour for ever. Which is fine, if it’s working for you but not so fine if you are feeling fed up and disgruntled with the hand life has dealt you.

Life Story

When I worked with youngsters who had experienced trauma and loss in their short lives, we frequently made a life story book, looking at the significant events of their lives. Usually these kids had had no control over what happened to them and many of them had had experiences you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. The life story work had many purposes, but one was to help them understand that they could take back some control of their lives in the future and not see themselves as helpless victims of their past.

Don’t Get Stuck

I often work with people who have had a difficult life by any standards. Some are stuck, feeling that they can’t throw this off; their early experiences of life are continuing to haunt and inform everything they do. Conversely, I have been privileged to work with some amazing people who have had equally devastating experiences but have made a decision not to let this ruin the rest of their lives, and to use it in a positive fashion. They have let the negative experiences make them stronger.

Survivors

I am struck by this survivor mentality most forcibly when I read accounts of holocaust survivors. People who endured unimaginable tragedy yet went on to have amazing lives, made films, made music, wrote great literature. One such inspirational woman was Alice Herz-Sommer whose story I read in The Guardian newspaper in 2006. She was 103 at the time!

Alice had endured the ghettos in Prague, lost her husband in Auschwitz along with many members of her family yet when interviewed she showed no trace of bitterness. She had gone on to become a gifted concert pianist and at 103 was still playing for several hours a day.

She said:

” I never spoke a word about it….I didn’t want my son to grow up with hatred in his heart…….my son had very good friends in Germany.

I had a twin sister – same mother, same father, same upbringing. She was extremely gifted but a terrible pessimist, but I was the contrary. This is the reason I am so old, even now, I am sure. I am looking for the nice things in life. I know about the bad things, but I only look for the good things.

Life is beautiful, extremely beautiful. And when you are old you appreciate it more. When you are older you think, you remember, you care and you appreciate. You are thankful for everything. For everything.”

She was the absolute embodiment of my favourite quote of all time, from a first century BC Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. In essence he said:

WE ARE NOT TOUCHED SO MUCH BY LIFE’S EVENTS, BUT BY THE VIEW WE CHOOSE TO TAKE OF THEM.

Therein lies the underlying message of every self help book ever written!

You can read an  article on Alice in full by clicking here