Leaving the past behind is the "secret sauce" of any successful marriage. Have you noticed how issues from the past creep into your present relationship regardless of your good intentions at the start? Often people take what has happened in the past and they expect that and this is most likely what's going to happen to them in the future. They simply live into the prediction and this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The flow of time
An accepted concept of time from the physical perspective is that it flows fromt the past, to the present and then into the future. For humans, we're fortunate to have the gift of memory. However, along with this comes our ability to create meaning from our past and to form opinions about what happened to us then. We don't let the thought process end there. Though no two situations are identical, we tend to prolong what's happend in the past to current now. This is how we unconciously predict the future will be a repeat of our past.
Is your past in your present?
Does it often occur that whenever you predict the future, the past is just right there with you. When looking closely, our prophecies tend to involve the worst possible scenario and the prophecies also tend to be self-fulfilling.
We promise that this combination of worst-case and self-fulfilling doesn't lead anywhere you want to go. Whenever you think about the future with unhappy experiences from the past, chances are you would end up with an unpleasant future. This can be especially true when you're having a rough time in your relationship in the present.
Keep the past out of your future
It's wise to learn from your past experience to gain insight into how you can influence your future but please don't use the past experience to predict your future.To say is one thing but to do is another. This is true because you can't ever stop doing anything but you can start doing something else.
For example, you can take a step toward getting clear about what you valued that was missing in your encounters of the past. You can do this by identifying what has happened repeatedly that you didn't enjoy at all. The possible reason why you continue doing this because some core value was missing from your experience in the past situations.Once you identify what you value that was missing for you in the past, you can begin to come up with strategies that will help you experience this in your present moment. This way can help you to change your perspective from trying to avoid something in future to trying to create something in the future,which will be a much more powerful position for you to be in.Once you identify your missing values, you shall take responsibility for creating a future you will enjoy by coming up with strategies to put each of these values in place. For exmpale, you can put reading as one of your daily habits if you consider it as an effective use of your time.
In the process of identifying your missing values and put then in the right place, keep in mind not to make them wrong and to understand it's just something that you value that's missing. What's more important is that there is something you can do about making that happen again.
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