Our past teaches us lessons. We are gifted the present. The past and present help us embrace the future.
Does it ever seem like you go through the same hardship or trail time and again? I know I have. Sometimes the lesson is learned the first time. Sometimes it takes making the same mistake or going through the same challenge multiple times to learn the lesson. I recently came across a saying that went something like this: There are no mistakes. There are only lessons.
Mistakes and challenges help us grow. Growth helps us better our future. If you focus on your mistakes and hurt from the past, guess what? You will continue to feel that hurt. Look back at the hurt and ask yourself: Is there something I can learn from this? How can that experience help me become better? Those questions can help you go from being a “victim” to a place of empowerment.
There was a time in the early years of our marriage that we had a difficult time holding onto jobs. A few months after we got married, I lost my job. Later that same day, my husband lost his job. Ironically, we were working at the same place. That was the first of many job losses in the first few years of our marriage. It was an extremely stressful and difficult time for both of us.
My first inclination was to be a victim. Eventually, though, I realized that there must be a lesson I (we) needed to learn. I began asking what I needed to learn from it. It seemed as soon as I felt like I was getting a handle on our finances, we’d get hit again with another job loss. One thing that almost immediately came to mind was that I (we) needed to get a better handle on our finances. We started working together on our finances. It was time consuming, but we tried our best with what we had. I finally discovered an excellent budgeting program that really helped get a handle on our budgeting. We made a small investment in the form of an annual fee and it helped us tremendously.
Am I perfect at budgeting? No. Are we perfect with our finances? No. We empowered ourselves by taking a couple different financial courses together over the years. Between the financial courses we took and the budgeting program, I learned that consistency and awareness is powerful. Being aware of what is available is more powerful than what was available or what is going to be available in the future. The same concept can be applied to many different aspects of life.
The past is a place to learn from, not to live in. Living in the past keeps you stuck. Who would want to relive the hardest parts of your life, over and over again? I know I wouldn’t. You can always learn something from your past. Sometimes it’s painful, but by discovering the lesson you can learn and grow. By acknowledging your past and allowing yourself to grow from it, your future will become brighter and you will become more empowered.
