Perhaps you know, perhaps you don’t, but on my Facebook I have Movie Mondays. Every Monday, my status all day long is a quote from a movie. If I update it, I change it to a different movie. The game is played simply by replying with a different quote from the movie.

One of the movies this week was “Lion King,” and I went to IMDB to find a quote to use, I like using one that’s not too obvious. Yet, in reading the quotes I could not help but think about life and the choices made in the past and things that happened in the past. Sometimes we get stuck in the past and demand certain things from it.

We decide our past is the only possible future. We expect to be bound and limited by past limitations. Or even expect because people told you repeatedly you are a failure that when you start moving towards success, you wait patiently for someone to slap your knuckles and say you are still a failure. When no one does, you slow up, waiting… waiting to be told, or somehow make it true. Or not allowing yourself to stretch or grow because of your past limitations, and making them your current limitations.

But here’s a scene for you…

Adult Simba: I know what I have to do. But going back will mean facing my past. I’ve been running from it for so long. [Rafiki hits Simba on the head with his stick] Ow! Jeez, what was that for?

Rafiki: It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past.

Adult Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts.

Rafiki: Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or… learn from it.

So, rather than be stuck in the past, use the past pains, the past limitations to learn from them. If some limit does actually still exist, find a way to work around it. If something in your past does hurt you, look at it again. Perhaps someone hurt you, maybe they were in a painful point in their life, maybe they could not see your point of view, maybe they thought they were being helpful. But whatever happened, happened in the past, you can’t change it, no one else can change it.

What happens in your future is up to you, this is something I am trying to accept now.

A friend’s marriage is ending because of deception. My dating experiences are limited, and unfortunately have included some bad experiences, as mentioned in the “It’s my fault” post. It is easy to look at the past and say so the future will be. That’s not fair or true. It’s not right for me to sabotage prospects, deny possible men, or expect the worst. Yet I have. 🙁

So here and now I make a choice. I choose to allow opportunities even though they may scare me. In my business life I choose to accept success is something I can have. I choose to accept that someone can like me for who I am as a person.

Are you allowing your past to hold you prisoner?

Are you sabotaging your future to make your past correct?

It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past

Rock on!

MJ Schrader

LoveRockstar