Elese Coit

A great way to stay stuck exactly where you are is to keep thinking the same thing
over and over and over.

Processing events via repetitive loops in your head increases tension and stuckness.

How do you get relief?

If you've ever made a mistake in life I'm sure you realized that there comes a point where you just have to face up to it.  No matter how bad it gets, you'll never be able to wake up one day and ask yourself for a divorce. No matter what you do or fail to do, you'll still always be looking at yourself in the mirror.

For some of us, that's a bit of a problem.  I'm sure it's been the reason behind many personal change programs and innumerable self-help books.   

But if you are going to live with you for the rest of your life, for better or for worse, isn't it time to make peace and get on with it?  I'd certainly prefer to. Especially since the alternative is to be stuck on an endless track of regret or anger with no exit ramp. 

So how do we live with our mistakes without letting them consume us with regret and rumination?

How do we let go of our thought ruts?

I've seen and practiced many methods for releasing the past, most all of them very helpful. Then recently something more profound occurred to me as I thought, "What am I actually trying to let go of?"

If you have ever wanted very much to forgive someone for something they did to you, or if you've done something you desperately regret, this is a very important question.

What gets "let go of?"  

What gets "forgiven?"

If you are willing to take a closer look, you may make an amazing discovery.  The only thing that remains once an event is over, is the thinking about it.  There is no more event. There are memories of course. But these are, as Sydney Banks said so well, "thoughts carried through time." And they are nothing more than that. 

This is not to say that events have not happened.  This planet most certainly has a history of wars, arguments, strife and ill-deeds. But in the aftermath of the deed, only one thing remains: the human being with their life stretched out ahead of them. What then?  To continue to be hurt by an event, you must pack it up in your mental suitcase and take it with you. If you didn't the past would be completely gone. Nowhere to be found.

Now that is going to sound extremely difficult if you are trying to move on from something that was big or traumatic. But if you'd like to at least consider the possibility that these bigger events are no different from smaller ones and that the way we move on from our Goliath battles is exactly the same way we let go of our mosquito bites, you may see something new. 

For example, I know that I absolutely cannot recall all the exams I did badly on in school. I know I didn't get straight A's. But I don't have a vivid recollection of each exam and each result. I know I had a great deal of stress and effort and in some cases trauma around exams. I remember vaguely I used to have nightmares during my university days. But after those exams where done I left them in the past. They didn't matter. I didn't take them forward as things to be sorry, sad or angry about. Interestingly, I don't remember trying to let go of them either. In fact, I don't recall doing anything in particular except just getting on with my life.  

I don't think there is anything intrinsic in any event that would force you to take it forward with you in time.  In fact, we are letting go all the time. Because we just don't think about it or if we do, we don't really take the thoughts that seriously. We shrug, "oh well," and order lunch.  We see that we are only having a passing thought. 

Here's another example to consider. When we first are getting to know a romantic partner, they look great to us. Once a few things have happened between us, they seem changed; they've become the clump of grievances we hold against them. How is it that someone we love becomes someone we despise? Let's face it, if you have ever been in a serious relationship, did you or did you not spend time rehearsing what you would say, how you would respond to something, or what someone did or said to you?  Maybe you were driving, or sitting at your desk, or talking to a friend.   

In these moments you were bringing the past into the future through your thinking. They become what you think about.  

Anyone in a successful relationship, whether a romantic partner or a parent, knows that you must let go of the rehearsing the past in your head before you can see the person for who they truly are. We also call this forgiveness.

The past has no power to assert itself into the present. Not all on its own.  It needs your help. It needs your power of thought to do that.

On the radio March 2nd, I cover one of the chief mechanisms by which we keep ourselves from letting go of what's happened and moving forward in life: obsessive thinking.  Mental rumination keeps the past alive in the present and, as I talk about in my book, 101 New Pairs of Glasses "robs you of your now."   

Joining me is Gabriela Maldonado who I work with at the Center for Sustainable Change.

I admit it, I thought that as I got more "developed" life would get easier.  

Yet I notice that despite my good intentions, life as a human is just tough sometimes. It seems no matter how much I learn from my mistakes, life simply continues to have its rough patches and I haven't managed to smooth the way for myself as I thought I'd be able to.  

However, in contrast, I have got easier about the fact that it can be hard.

So many of us go through life feeling ill-equipped to deal with our challenges. Thinking we are inadequate, we decide to remain on guard. With our guard up we actually become more rigid and less responsive, so we don't flow easily with challenges. We tend to do poorly, try even harder (from an even less responsive place) and then get even worst results. We don't always get better and better over time.  Instead we can face similar challenges over and over.

When we think we must have everything figured out -- all the before, during and after -- we are putting ourselves mentally at our worst. We become preoccupied with analyzing and assessing our problems.  Mentally we shrink, not expand, and creativity is replaced by stress.  In essence, we begin using our imagination against us, worrying about things instead of seeing the creative solution that is unique to the situation. We become less and less clear. We choke. We panic. We react. (See last week's post on reactivity!).

So, hands up if you ever have come at your parent, partner, child or boss utterly  promising yourself you won't get riled up and then, in heat of the moment, being unable to stop yourself spiraling downwards.

Is it possible that our best-laid planning and all our ideas about how to handle our problems, actually kept us from responding well in the moment? 

Just Plain Losing It
Let's say I plan and rehearse all those things I want to say to my boss about why I deserve a raise. Do I walk into the boss's office already struggling to remember my well-rehearsed speech? Am I so concerned about flubbing it that I'm tongue tied?  "Well, I went to that confidence class," I remind myself, "so it should be fine. I'll just breathe and do like they said" Wrong. I've slid so far down my own ladder internally and my state of mind is so degraded that that I can't remember anything I've learned. I'm a goner.

We go about trying to solve problems by processing them, even though the evidence shows that the more mental effort we apply the less flexible, responsive and creative we become.

Trying to go at life's issues in the typical ways that we do -- planning, strategizing, making resolutions, withholding, weighing options, practicing behaviors, trying to control ourselves -- just often don't work out the way we envision.  

Is there an easier path? 

You may have noticed that we humans already possess an ability to have a new thought in any given moment.  When we are not all tied up in mental knots we have awareness of what's happening around us and we have the ability to tune in. What's more

• Everyone has intelligence to use and with which to reflect. 
• Everyone has a "heart" to feel emotional life as it happens. 
• Everyone has an ability recognize and express love. 
• Everyone has a sense that allows them to recognize what is good for them (gut, intuition or wisdom, whatever you want to call that). 
  

All these and more are examples of the kinds of capacities we are all are built with and can use to navigate our day-to-day lives.  We all have them. No exceptions.

And yet how little we understand that this is true.    

It's funny to me that everything I did to try to avoid difficulty or pave the way for myself in my best-laid plans never carved out the life I expected, never made people behave the way I'd hoped, and never controlled a single life event no matter how hard I applied the hammer and tongs.   

Very often I found creative ways out of situations that I would have described at the time as impossible to resolve.  Yet here I am. This has happened to all of us. How is that?

The moment someone says to me "I can't handle this!"  I often see that, in fact, they are handling it perfectly well.  Even if you have a mindset that is paralyzing you right now, it won't last. It's going to change.  Something different is going to occur.

But we don't seem to trust that will happen. Instead we go petal to the metal on our mental accelerator.  Our brains are full and then we send them into overdrive.

Many people find that this whole scenario shifts when they take a moment to write things down, or they let their internal world settle, before opening their mouth.  What actually happens in this moment is not that the writing does the trick, but that they begin to access the fact that they have possibility.  A brand new idea can pop up. And it often does.

It just like finding your purse when you stop looking for it.  Or coming over the top of the hill and finally seeing the view.

I am constantly witness to the incredible resources we all have available in any moment.  I wish I had a dollar for every person who has said to me "I don't know what to do!" who after a short few moments in conversation actually then revealed that, in fact, they know exactly what to do.   

No one need do anything to create this capacity for fresh thoughts. No books can teach you. No other person can give you directions.  You already have this. We are all essentially "Plug-and-Go" -- born equipped to deal with life and solve our problems when they arise through absolute reliance on this beautiful fact of life:

Random, unpredictable and completely unlimited numbers of ideas are circulating in you, right now, waiting to take shape. 

You will never rid life of problems. You will never shed all your personal problems. But really, is that a problem?