Do y’all remember the movie where Michael J. Fox (Marty McFly) was propelled into 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean made by his friend Doc Brown🤔Sometimes we become our own inventors of propelling and keeping ourselves in the past by halting our time traveling brains to live too often, too much, in the past.

This weekend, the one year anniversary of when the COVID19 pandemic stopped the world in it’s tracks, I reflected how I could not believe it has been one year. There were many moments that it did not seem that time was moving at all and here we are one year later. How could that be? Today we literally sprang forward in time, if you live in many parts of the United States, with no action on our part beyond sleeping and waking to a new time.

Time can fly. How we spend our time, what we want of our time, and what we desire for our future holds space in our brains. Sometimes in our here and now we focus more on the past than the now. We limit what we want for ourselves perhaps out of fear, perhaps feeling we are not deserving, perhaps because it seems so beyond anything we could imagine. Have you ever had a moment where you sharing an idea for something you wanted to achieve or go after and another person shot it down? Then you went with their words and not what you wanted to do, what you knew you were capable of?

Other times we spend so much time talking about the past that it interferes with us moving into the future with what we want. Talking about our experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly, has a place. Talking through experiences, especially traumatic ones, and the impact on you, has great value in healing. There are some experiences that need a lot of emotional support to help the brain heal from then. These experiences can require ongoing attention as part of the healing process. While you are healing find ways to continue to move forward in your life. Write, paint, garden, clean, workout, get a fish or a puppy, learn a new skill. Do something that continues to move you forward while you heal from your past.

“It’s forget that you’re human. It’s okay to have a melt down. Just don’t unpack and live there. Cry it out and then focus on where you are headed.” Unknown

Remember this, whatever you are saying or thinking, your brain is listening to you. Your brain is soaking in all of those words and thoughts. Language matters. How you say what you say matters. The amount of thinking and talking space you give to anything will impact the amount of space it holds in you.

Henry Ford said “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”

What do you want for your future? How do you want to be living your life? In Stacey Abrams Ted Talk “3 Questions to ask yourself about everything you do” said she asks herself these three questions every time.

“What do I want? Why do I want it? How do I get it?”

The beauty of putting out intentions for your future is that it is not at all attached to time. It is attached to you. Are you happy, content, fulfilled with who you are and what you are doing? If yes woohoo for you😊

If not perhaps use the Stacey Abrams guidelines for your future. Use sticky notes or a vision board to see what you want your life to be. Do some soul digging to see why do you want it. Finish up with all of variety of ways you begin to go after what you want. A mountain can be moved stone by stone. You can teach an old dog new tricks. The person you are, and the life you are living, can be changed, if you want to change it and you are willing to put in the work. Pay attention to how you describe yourself, your life, others, the world, the weather. Minimize and erase the negative statements you think in your head. Put in statements of strength and positivity about yourself. Fake it until you believe it. One of my friends just turned 40 and he talks a LOT of being old, getting old, lots of old talk. He is shaping his future by the words he uses. His age does not make him old or young. His words will.

So on this one year anniversary of a lot of difficulty and challenges for us along with a snazzy new time on our clocks take a moment to reflect. Stacey Abrams also said “I’m going to move forward, because going backwards isn’t and option and standing still is not enough.”

I believe in you and all you are capable of. Who you are matters and what you bring to the world matters. If you want change for yourself go for it. You don’t know what can change in you and your life unless you do.

May your future be with you💜

Photo by naomi tamar on Unsplash

Here is Stacey Abrams TED talk in case you want to check it out!