Last week a client was lamenting his constant focus on reprocessing past mistakes. He had spent several months with his attention drawn to this energy draining mind game. We have this malady in common, and there are likely more of us history focused folks out there.
Thoughts create energy – positive or negative. In Clarity we talk about three energy fields that can impact our thoughts: the remote energy field (politics, natural disasters, war) that we have no control over; the near energy field (our family, home, office) that we have influence over; and our personal energy field (our thoughts) that we have total control over.
Maybe we need to become aware of another energy field that we have no control over – the Personal History Energy Field. This would include all thoughts of historical actions that didn’t work out as we desired – or, as I label them, stupid mistakes. Remembering our history is helpful for the lessons we learned. However, if remembering drains our energy in the present moment, we are letting something we have no control over impact our ability to live fully alive in the now.
One of my spiritual teachers said that we spend a lifetime working on the same personal issues. We just work on them at a higher understanding level as we age. However, according to her, if we haven’t learned the life lesson in this lifetime, we may have to return in another body and time to repeat the learning.
While I’m really not sure about that, I am concerned enough to work a little harder. I have no desire to spend several more decades in a different body and space dealing with the crap that continues to live and germinate in my head. Fortunately, the Personal History Energy Field seems to only apply to mistakes in this lifetime. I hate to think of how my brain circuits would be impacted by also remembering the mistakes I made as a monk in 14th century France.
I’m working on more effectively using my cognitive eraser to eliminate some old, negative memories. Since my cognitive eraser may leave a trace of what’s been erased, it is helpful to overwrite it with a new, more effective thought.
The other night, as I was drifting to sleep, I remembered an interview I had with a woman I hired in 1982 (31 YEARS AGO). I replayed in detail the truly stupid things I said to her. Then I switched my focus to the lessons I’ve learned from my long ago pigness. One memory that helped was a female COO once said to me “you manage like a woman”. That was a big compliment coming from her. I finally fell a sleep lip-syncing Bob Dylan “you manage just like a woman”.
Whenever you find yourself being impacted by your Personal History Energy Field, make good use of your cognitive eraser and replace the thought with the positive lessons you’ve acquired.
Erasing and replacing,
Gary
