Change and Be Changed

I had some very interesting conversations recently with a couple of different people who had different perspectives on resolving past issues. We talked about what might hold us back from making positive changes. Do we allow baggage from the past or negative feelings to stop us from moving forward? I've written previously about how we might fail to do something that we claim we fervently want. I know I'm using new age-y-speak here but it can't be helped! Anyway!

Basically, I have applied my experiences of many years to come to a place where I believe that we can take lessons from the past but ultimately we should leave it behind. We can devote so much energy and time to analyzing our feelings and how we feel about past experiences that we lose sight of what we should be DOING NOW. The past is the past. You can't change it. You can't fix it. You know what you can change? TODAY! THIS MINUTE. NOW. YOUR FUTURE. You can't change your past. But you can start RIGHT NOW having a positive impact on your future.

I have seen how, for myself, taking control of my food issues, expanding my physical abilities, and developing a sense of connectedness to my physical self has changed how I approach and think about pretty much EVERYTHING ELSE in my life. I always had a high level of confidence in certain abilities. Now I am SUPER CONFIDENT in a broader range of things and feel far better equipped to deal with anything I might face throughout my life. My perspective on life and its ups and downs is different. How I relate to people and the whole world really is changed.

I believe that I have accomplished this by addressing what is MY FOUNDATION. I brought the most basic components of my existence under control: My physical self and abilities. My health and nutrition. I don't believe in analyzing and "fixing feelings". I think that's tantamount to believing you can change the past.

I did a lot of reading and research in the year following my weight loss surgery. I read an article about the traits of people who had maintained long-term weight loss. The basic concept really made a lot of sense to me. Essentially, it was this:

The more you change, the more you will be changed.

What this means is, if you want to create permanent positive changes in your life, then the more you change about yourself, the more distance you put between your "old" ways and what you want to do differently, the more those changes will succeed and become permanent. It makes a lot of sense that the fewer connections you retain to any behavior you want to depart from, the less likely it will be that you will slip back into it. It's really a pretty simple idea when you think about it.

So what needs to be done now? I say, live in the present and don't worry about the past. Empowering yourself in the present will change how you view the issues you need to deal with. You may find yourself armed with a whole new set of artillery and tools (i.e., perspective and attitude) to deal with what needs doing. Don't ask chicken or the egg. Get going on what needs to be done now and let the past be the past.

I happen to believe that a lot of "recovery" strategies actually make it harder to permanently change. I will write about that later this week.