I awoke this morning with a curious thought that perhaps it’s time, well past time, that I stop trying to “fix” me. Funnily, I am finding that so much of self-help work is not all that helpful. Particularly unhelpful to me are the programs or systems that have you continually and continually peeling back layers and layers and layers and more layers of "hidden issues" or "blocks to your good"—trauma, pain, suffering, hurts from childhood, early adulthood or even past lives; negative beliefs; limiting beliefs; agendas, and on and on—before you can even begin to hope to reach the point of actually focusing on living the life you desire and dream about. I mean, the more I peel away the layers, the more I find that needs healing or clearing or purging. Aargh!!! Enough already!
I have decided to take to heart the Apostle Paul’s suggestion and forget all that and simply accept my new creationhood. Forget all the stuff that is behind me and focus on what’s ahead—that which I desire and am choosing to experience in this present moment of now.
Olympic athletes provide the perfect example of this, most specifically those who run track or swim.. After all, has there ever at any time in the history of the Olympics been a gold medal swimmer or runner who’s won a race looking backwards? And I don't just mean looking behind to see how far in front of the other runners or swimmers or what distance they've already run or swam, but looking back to previous losses or even wins.Typically, when interviewed these athletes will share how no matter what they kept their focus fixed on that race and the finish line ahead of them. Why is it then, I suppose, that we expect to be successful in any area of life looking at, in sometimes great detail, what is behind us rather than ahead?
I had to ask myself this morning: Is digging up every past trauma, failure, shortcoming and the associated emotions really healing? And is sharing every trauma, failure, shortcoming, fear, or anxiety from my past with anyone and everyone who will listen beneficial to them? Is this how truly successful people succeed? Or, could it be that the truly successful are those who do as Paul suggests, shake off the past like it never happened and set their eyes like a flint on their goal?
Will former pains, hurts, traumas, failures, childhood programming, etc., still come up for me from time to time? Perhaps, yes. But I have already prepared the appropriate response: That was then; this is now.
"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead," Phil 3:13 (New Living Translation)
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17
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