Doesn’t it feel like you are watching your life pass you by?
So much has happened, over so many years, but you feel like your life is at a stand still and everyone and everything is passing you by.
You may even feel envious of others or what they have that you don’t.
Are you defining your life based on your past or on your future?
Are you living on purpose with meaning or just status quo?
Remember when you were young…. You couldn’t wait for things, right?
Couldn’t wait to be old enough to go in the pool without your parents or old enough to ride your bike to the library by yourself.
To start dating, wear make-up or drive. Always looking to the future. I can’t wait until I can…
Future Focused, right?
Now, about defining your life based on your past, as survivors I am sure you can really speak to the pain your past has caused more than just having a status quo life right now.
You came out of the hard situation and yes, you are living, but what is your quality of life?
Are you haunted by the past? Most people don’t even know what they are haunted by. They just feel unhappy or unmotivated. That is because it is easier to “not do anything” yet at the same time that you are NOT DOING ANYTHING, your life is passing you by. You feel sad and mad sometimes at how things unfolded for you or the cards you were dealt.
You need to turn those thoughts around.
With all the energy you have put into hanging on to your past and being a victim and how you are just “surviving” your life, you can take that same energy and put it toward future focused thoughts, ideas, dreams and goals.
All the dreams and goals that you thought were stripped away by your past. They were not.
Your focus was just on other things.
For some people, your focus was on staying alive or staying safe.
For others is was on making it thru each day.
And for some it was just accepting your life as it is and dealing with the people in it.
It is hard to see beyond that, right?
When you lose hope you lose sight of possibility.
That is how you end up stuck.
Not being able to see past your current circumstances.
We need that excitement back in our lives.
Looking forward to things, not backward.
If we can only harness that youthful desire and keep it going in our lives.
We get on a hamster wheel of past energy but if we could take that energy and direct it on constant future focused ideas and thoughts, imagine how different your life would be.
What do people tend to do?
Base their identity on the past and what they have done up until now.
The job they have, the car they drive, the house they live in, the person they married. And it seems to stop there.
For survivors, they base their life on what happened to them, what happened after the "original incident" and how it was held. Or how people have been treating them since.
It is not so much WHAT happened to them, but what happened after, that drives all of their future experiences.
They create an identity around being a victim or a survivor which sometimes keeps them stuck in that space. The space of unhappiness, of loneliness, and of gloom and doom.
But let’s go back. Let’s think about that youthful drive for more.
What happened to us? How did we lose that feeling?
The “what’s next” feeling or “I can’t wait until I can….”
Our lives are what happened…… there were emotional wounds, stress, loss, pain, confusion and with that a sprinkle of joy and happiness.
Remember, life is 50/50……
You can’t have one without the other. So understanding that will help put things into perspective for you.
You don’t want the negative 50 to rule your world. Embracing the bad allows the good to be so much better. But controlling how you accept and take in the bad and good are key.
Let’s put that into the mix NOW, in your current life. Yes, this is who you married and that is the car you chose and this is the job you have, but what is next?
That can’t be it.
There must be more.
When we were young we were always looking for the next thing, we couldn’t wait for it.
Life doesn’t just stop when you turn 30, 40, 50…….
We become conditioned, based on our current situation and our surroundings to accept that life slows down at a certain time or that we are too old to keep dreaming or wanting, or that the people in our life now are supposed to make us happy somehow by understanding our pain and fix it for us.
That will never work.
What do you want? What are your dreams and goals?
Even if you have accomplished one goal, start a new one, create a new dream, keep moving, keep walking.
Start saying these words “oh my gosh, I can’t wait until ……..” Get that excitement bubbling up inside you, which will drive you forward and get you motivated to move forward, rather than stay stagnant in your current space.
What about survivors?
It is so scary to even think about stepping outside of the safe spaces they live in…..
It is scary
being vulnerable enough to share your feelings.
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being strong enough to expose your past.
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letting down your guard.
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Of course you don't want to share your story.
What will people think?
You are a professional after all, you couldn't let anyone know, right?
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That is not helping you.
Reaching out for help is noble
Asking to be supported is necessary
Taking control is empowering
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Every minute that you waste, wishing and wanting and thinking about getting help is like watching your life pass you by.
Your opportunities are going to someone else.
Your dreams are floating away from you rather than toward you.
You have to grab them when you see them.
When you were in the toxic or abusive or unhealthy relationship, all those childhood dreams and your youthful excitement about life and possibility felt gone forever.
But they were not gone, only suppressed.
Now is the time to revive and thrive
Bust out of the chains that have been holding you back
Stop letting the past hold you captive by giving up your emotional power to the very person or experiences that hurt you.
They don’t deserve that.
Stop defining your life based on your past
The past is over…..don’t keep it alive by thinking about it and talking about it.
What you want to talk about and think about is “what is next for you”
What is to come and what you can create.
Sound good?
If you are ready to start living
If you are ready to stop hurting
If you are ready to take your life back
Reach out to me so we can start your new, empowered life.
karen@karenmessina.com