If any of you have had an old gramophone, you would remember that the same music kept playing on if the disc had a scratch. This would carry on, till the needle was physically moved to the next groove. Does this metaphor find any meaning in your life? Do you fail to move on in life,even after an incident has happened hours or even years ago?
Even though it is natural to look inwards, I come across far too many people who ruminate on past memories and in the process derail themselves in working towards the future. Well if you are one of them, then there is definitely something you can work on both at the conscious & at the sub conscious level.
The more you stay in the past, the more you will live there and before you realise it, you will be sabotaging your future. I will try and touch upon a few things that you can work on yourself to move on –
Break the thought process: If you keep thinking about the incident you will be living it. Therefore do the best possible thing, which is to break the thought process. You can begin by standing up and engrossing yourself in reading a book or listening to music. Talk about something or with someone, which will help you move away from the groove.
When you come back to your place, you will be in a different state of mind for sure. This may sound simple, but it is extremely effective in breaking the thought process. I use this particular technique while I am on coaching calls with my clients, to help them move away from any particular thought process which might be dis-empowering them.
Put it in words & destroy: When you write down the incident which you are dwelling upon, again and again on a piece of paper you are actually helping yourself move away from it on the inside. Once you write down your own thoughts, tear it up and flush it down the bowl.
Once you visually see that the thoughts you had written being flushed away from you, the shifts begin to sprout up. It might not happen immediately, but over a period of time you will begin to condition the mind from the inside.
Practice mindfulness: The key here is to control your thought process & according to me there is no better way than mindfulness. Remember that even a 5 minute session of mindfulness can do wonders in aligning your thought process. You can do this at any time during the day.
The easiest way to work on mindfulness is to focus on your breathing and feel it move around your own body. For those of you who are new to this, do refer to my previous Blog on Meditation.
Visualize yourself overcoming this: Everything happens twice in this world and it is no different when it comes to our life’s incidents. The least you can do is to vividly visualize the incident and have a good laugh about it. Make it realistic as possible.
The mind cannot make out what is real and what is visualized. Therefore by visualizing, you are creating the neural pathways for your brain to follow and evolve. This may sound a little over your head, but it is doable by each one of you and in no time you will be an expert.
Move on in Life: Staying in one place for a long time will cripple most of us. Somehow we give up on our will to fight for what is rightfully ours. In this case, our glorious future which is within our grasp. Be compassionate and forgive yourself.
Tell yourself that is ok to make mistakes and take it as a learning opportunity. This will over a period of time enable a switch in your mind which you can switch it on to move forward.
At the end of the day it all depends upon how much you really want to move on in life. Based on this, you will begin to do these things and see the results. As always I would love to hear from you on my thoughts above. Do feel free to reach out to me at my mail Id coach@satishrao.in or on my Facebook Fan page. I will be glad to hear from you.