Be Thankful for Your Past

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Context

First, a little context …

Life coaches are not qualified, in the way that counsellors and therapists are, to help their clients overcome mental disorders that result from traumatic events in the past.

That’s why life coaches seek out mentally well, fully functioning clients who want to be grounded in the present with a view to building a better, more fulfilling future.

But, although life coaching is primarily present and future focused, many mentally healthy clients still harbour emotions relating to events in their past that can have a serious ‘drag’ effect on their ability to move forward and explore the amazing world beyond their comfort zones.

New Insights offers its coaches a few exercises to help their clients overcome the inertia caused by low frequency emotions of frustration, anger, resentment and even fear.

The Letter of Thanks

One of these is what we call the Letter of Thanks.

Clients are encouraged to write a letter of thanks, in which they express their sincere gratitude to someone who, up to that point, they deemed responsible for an event that had caused them substantial hurt or pain and that has subsequently resurfaced in the form of low frequency, ‘draggy’ emotions.

The logic is based on our belief that every significant event in life, no matter how painful it may seem at the time, provides an important contribution to our overall growth and development.

Thanking someone who previously caused you hurt may seem rather perverse at first but please believe me when I say that looking back at what was a supposedly ‘negative’ event, to find the positive, can be thoroughly liberating.

Sacha Xarrian

One of my favourite examples involves a lady called Sacha Xarrian who suffered terrible abuse at the hands of her husband. Alone, afraid, with no possessions and excommunicated by the Mormon church and community, she walked out on him to face what was, to her, a very scary, big, wide world.

To cut a long story short, it was some years later when Sacha emerged as a thoroughly independent, healthy, wealthy woman with a huge zest for life.

Realising that the gift of a new lease on life had been bestowed upon her, she set about writing a letter of thanks to her ex, for the role he had played in bringing about that sea change in her life.

If you want to know more, do a browser search on Sacha Xarrian and look for her eBook called Outrageous Mastery.

Okay, enough of the context. Look back and be thankful for your past!

Look Back

Thanks to Mark Brownfield, I’d now like to introduce you to Mar Healy and her stirring poem ‘Look Back’. If you enjoy it why not check out Mar’s website by clicking here.

Look Back – with thanks to Mar Healy

Look back, my dear one, and take notice, of the journey that’s brought you this far
.
Look back at the beauty, the darkness, the growth, feel deep pride for all that you are.

Look back at the pathways you’ve travelled in life, some planned and some journeys off track
,
Realising no matter how lost that you felt, each time you would find your way back.

Reflect on the courage it took to keep going, when the burdens of life felt too great
.
Acknowledge your strength and your heart my dear love, to walk on bearing such heavy weight.

Remember that each time the darkness would come and cast shadows across your pure light
,
That the spark deep within you would rise up again, beaming love, beaming truth, beaming life.

Look back with the wisdom that all you have been though, has led you to where you are now
,
Understanding we’re not always granted our wish, but that life knows what’s needed somehow.

These hardships, this darkness, this pain you’ve endured, you might never have chosen to know,
But within them you learned and you thrived and became, it’s in mud that the lotus can grow.

So look back, my brave love, look back and look back, then surrender and let it all go.
Come to here, come to now, come to being my darling, release and allow life to flow.

Be alive in this one precious moment, dear one, be awake to whatever’s unfolding.
Breathe in life, breathe in love, breathe in hope, breathe in now and release all pain you’ve been holding.

Remember the truth of your essence, dear love, an exquisite and rare work of art,
An infinite, beautiful being of love, made of stardust and spirit and heart.