New Year New Thoughts January 2007
May I take this opportunity to wish all readers of this column a peaceful and happy New Year?
As we start the New Year many of us will have hopes and dreams, goals and aspirations. We often look at the New Year with fresh hope, many hoping it will be better than last year in whatever ways we desire.
But all to often we ignore the things from yesteryear that held us back, made life difficult, choosing to pretend they didn’t happen or to bury them somewhere deep inside in the belief they are ‘put away and forgotten’. However life has a way of not allowing things to be forgotten, and we carry past issues and worries through life with us, from one year to the next, with the burdens getting heavier.
Many of us live in the past, clinging on to the ‘safe happy times’. Some fear the future which in their eyes is full of danger and lacks familiarity. Living in the past often stagnates our future. Of course we need to know as individuals where we are from and what we have done, for that is where our experiences come from. Fear of the future is unfounded. We have no basis on which to ground those fears. Fear of the future will restrict our potential, our growth and our future. People with agoraphobia, claustrophobia, social phobia and others issues will often bring fears from the past into the present and then project them into the future. The fear of the past prevents living fully in the now, and prevents us from looking forward to the future. So as we move on into the New Year, we have to remember that the feeling is not the reality.
Just because we feel uncomfortable emotionally does not have to mean we will be uncomfortable in the future. By learning to leave the past in the past, especially the negative feelings and emotions, we can choose to bring only good positive things into the present and project them in to the future and by doing this make the future more attractive and worth working towards.
Depending how you think FEAR can mean ‘Forget Everything and Run’ but perhaps it’s better to think of FEAR as ‘Fiction Envisioned as Real’. The actual fear may never become reality. And it usually doesn’t, but we spend lots of energy imagining that it might! Also we have to remember that each moment is an end and a new beginning, just because we feel one way now, doesn’t mean that we will in the future!.
So as you enter the New Year perhaps one of the best gifts you can give yourself is the opportunity and consideration that life can be better if we give ourselves the chance to make the changes. Every thought we have creates a physical response. So by thinking differently you change the outcome and your outlook of the future. And of course if you need any help doing this you know where I am. But if nothing else, consider your options of choice, and choose to live each day of this New Year in the present, and learn again to look forward to the future with all its dreams and hopes.
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