Your Past is Simply a Story You Tell Yourself

On June 5, 2014April 8, 2024 By Patti StottsIn change, Entertainment, life, life on life's terms, new beginnings, positive thinking, spiritual growth, starting over, womenLeave a comment

I personally know so many people that have spent years in therapy trying to sort out their past in a valiant attempt to discover how it has molded them into the person they are today. Many look to find some person, place, or situation in which to place blame for their shortcomings as if the discovery will somehow repair their faults or bring peace where it did not previously exist. However, I firmly believe that our past is just a story we tell ourselves, and like the saying above, it has absolutely NO power over you!

Have you ever seen one of those “tests” where they observe a group of people witnessing the same event at the same time? When each observer is asked to describe what he or she saw, their experience or interpretation is quite different from those of the other observers? Have you ever had a disagreement with someone, and then afterward, you twist the details in your mind and make it out to be something so big and disastrous, while the other person feels calm and settled, having put the “simple” disagreement completely behind them? By the way, in this particular scenario, the person who is twisting the situation is typically a woman and the other is typically a man… but I digress!

Looking at our own past is quite the same as the two previous scenarios. We tend to think of events from our past through our own distorted lens. We can make mountains out of molehills, so to speak. Maybe we find that it is easier to place blame on our childhood, or on that one miserably failed relationship. Maybe it is easier to believe that the reason we are not successful, for whatever that term means to each of us, is due to circumstances or the unfair hand we feel we have been dealt.

So maybe it is time we stop creating our own fictional story about what our past means to us. Our past is simply how we choose to view it! The key word in that statement is CHOOSE. Therefore, we can choose to either change the way we think about our past, or choose to accept that our past is simply our past, and move on!

We can waste precious time and energy dwelling on a past that is really only a simple story we have created with our own warped minds, and yes, we are all warped in some small way. So I say, stop looking back… it only serves to leave you with a wicked neck ache!

Be in today, focus on the now, and live!

~ Patti Crowley

The World is No Substitute

On June 2, 2014April 8, 2024 By Patti StottsIn change, life, life on life's terms, new beginnings, poetry, positive thinking, relocating, spiritual growth, starting over, women2 Comments

Take Peace in the Lord-
The world is no substitute
It comes from Spirit.

…………Wisdom……

– Betty S.

This haiku was written by a good friend of mine just this morning. Sometimes I have to stop and marvel at the timing of things that I see, read, and experience. Just yesterday I was having a pretty deep philosophical discussion with a wonderful new friend. I was trying to express what I have been feeling during this week I am here in Arizona as I look out at the mountains, and watch the sunsets each day. Here is what I have discovered.

It isn’t so much the beauty of my surroundings, the fresh air I breathe in each day, or the clear blue skies themselves that bring me a peace I have never known. Instead, this beauty causes me to feel deep within some sense of KNOWING. Now here is where it gets difficult to explain, but I will make the attempt. When I see something beautiful like the McDowell mountain range which I drove alongside yesterday, I was nearly brought to tears at the beauty. But it was the feeling inside when looking outward that made me pause. Maybe it is because I felt like a child again, seeing Mickey Mouse at Disney World. That feeling of wonder and excitement that we rarely experience as adults. Or maybe it was just a recognition of WHO I am deep down.

I know that for me, I have spent a lifetime wondering how people view me from the outside. I never saw myself for who I am. As strange as it may sound, looking outward at all of this beauty somehow made me look at myself in a different light. There is a feeling that the real me is emerging. My heart is open, along with my senses which are so receptive now, for possibly the first time since I was a child.

So in the words of my dear friend, Betty, I see that “the world is no substitute”. God, as I know Him, is not found in the mountains, or in the sunsets, or in the clear blue skies. Instead, He is found in the “Spirit”… my Spirit within. Magnificent!

~ Patti Crowley

A New View of My World

On May 31, 2014April 8, 2024 By Patti StottsIn change, life, life on life's terms, new beginnings, positive thinking, relocating, spiritual growth, starting over, women3 Comments

Inspiration pours in from every conceivable direction. Moments like this validate my decision to look westward as a final destination for living my life. Moments like this make me realize how truly small I am, and the realization sets in that there is no doubt of the presence of a power much greater than myself who created all of this beauty. No human hands could have ever created such magnificence, and for that I am humbled beyond words.

This morning, I sit on my balcony and look at out the majestic mountains, knowing deep within that I am exactly where I was intended to be. My daughter lies asleep in our resort room, exhausted from two days of house hunting & sightseeing. The 18 year old girl who very rarely ever picks up a book, choosing instead to watch hours of mindless tv at home, actually read an inspiring book cover to cover in two days from this very balcony. If that isn’t inspiration, I don’t know what is, and if you knew my daughter as do I, you would understand the significance of that!

Today, as I sit here drinking coffee on this balcony overlooking God’s creation at its finest, I feel inspired to begin anew. All of the dreams I have talked about, written about, and thought incessantly about are slowly becoming a reality. There were times at which I thought this was another one of my grand plans that I would most certainly never make a reality. With still a few hurdles to overcome, I feel confident that another chapter of my life is being written at this very moment. I will not put the pen down, I will not allow myself to be distracted by those little doubts and fears that find their way in, and I will continue to put one foot in front of the other. I am finding that the only way to fulfill your dreams is to simply take one little step in the right direction, do the next right thing, and do everything in your power to not look back over your shoulder. The moment is now!

~ Patti Crowley