Can We Really Start Over?
I can remember a time when the answer to that question was plain and simple: Yes!
Yes, like when we were young and it was acceptable to be in the middle of a game that wasn’t making everyone happy, and someone would yell “let’s just start over!” And then we all went along with it. It was simple back then. It didn’t matter how bad things got, or what people had said, you just started over as if this were the only game that mattered.
Ready, set, go…!
Can we really ever start over though? We can begin again and believe we are starting over, pretending to wipe the slate clean, but is it? Is it clean? Free from the past? Have we magically removed the emotions, arguments and things that have happened from our brain? No.
There are techniques that can help though, like learning to simply ‘let go’ as many self help programs suggest. Easier said than done, but enormously impactful! That is, if you are able to fulfill the requirements involved in truly letting go. The most important being that you free yourself from any attachments you were previously holding onto from the past. This is not as easy as yelling, ‘let’s just start over!’
Starting over. It’s a daunting task because we are overly attached to everything in our life. If only, I could forget what he said, what she did, how it made me feel, what others will think...I mean, if we can’t forget all of that, then in order to truly start over then, we would need to somehow erase everything that has occurred in our life so far. The people, places, things, feelings...all of it.
I can feel you nodding your head at the mere thought of it, imagining all the choices you would have. Without having to rely on past experiences to make decisions, the choices would be endless!
But how?
The game changes when you can shift your thoughts surrounding any one topic. It isn’t about changing the events around you, but the thoughts and feelings tied into the events around you. It is about looking at your past experiences and instead of finding all the faults, upsets, and blame, looking at them as necessary moments in time. Experiences that ultimately created this very moment you are in. Even if the only good thing about where you are now is that you are contemplating change.
Change is Coming!
The work now is to turn that negative energy around and create a new positive perspective. Yes, positive! But don’t stop reading yet...here is the truth: Your life until this moment has needed every single thing that has occurred in it. It is your life. It is the makeup of who you are in this second. The beauty is that the acceptance surrounding that bad divorce, abuse, lack of money, healthy issues, etc, will give you the freedom to move forward. The freedom to create something new, something better.
The new line.
And now you can begin again as you stand in the acceptance of a new starting position. Rather than wasting energy on cleaning your life-slate written in permanent ink, you can focus on the freedom to start again from here. Differently this time.
Maybe we shouldn’t start over at all.
Maybe instead, we should just start from here.