369 The Only Reason I Look Back Is To See How Far I’ve Come | January 2018 Thursday Week 1

Thoughtful Thursdays-#360 January 4th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast The Only Reason I Look Back Is To See How Far I’ve Come Have you ever thought about where the idea for the rearview mirror came from? Most likely you know it’s there to see that s.o.b who’s tailgating you…as you silently cuss them out in your mind. I used to listen to Paul Harvey’s the Rest of The Story on the radio and I remember him talking about the rearview mirror. If you don’t know who Paul Harvey is, he had this iconic voice that would tell …as the show is titled “The Rest Of The Story”… on things or people that are common knowledge…but we didn’t know the interesting facts and stories behind those things. But I’m digressing…back to the rearview mirror history. In 1911 an Indy Car racer by the name of Ray Harroun put a rearview mirror in his race car. He wasn’t the first one to put a rearview mirror in a car, as Ray said he got the idea from seeing a horse carriage having one, but he gets credited for having the first one in a race car. In the earlier days of Indy racing there would be two people in the racecar instead of only one like they do nowadays. The second rider was called the riding mechanic or the ancillary rider. Their job was to monitor gauges, make repairs, and let the driver know of cars approaching from the rear of the vehicle. Rearview mirrors have come a long way from those early days, as Ray said that with all the vibration going on from the race and the vehicle it was almost useless in being able to see anything clearly. And most typical rearview mirrors are actually wedges of glass and mirror, not just a flat mirror…but I’ll talk about how they work later. The idea of a rearview mirror intrigues me as an analogy for our lives because we can have the tendency to be stuck looking in the past.  And I think if we can create an internal rearview mirror for our lives, we can find better ways to glance at what’s behind us without having to get stuck living in what’s behind us. Looking back at the past can be helpful or it can be harmful on how you process the past. If you look back to see all the things that went wrong, or how it was so much better in the past than it is now, and if you are constantly comparing the good or bad with the now—then you are always in a place of trying to prove to yourself why the now is a good place to be. And if you are in constant conflict by having to prove to yourself why the present moment is a good time in your life…then what you are saying to your subconscious is, “I don’t believe my now, my present moment, is good enough because I’m always trying to find ways to prove to myself how good this moment is in my life.” And how can you really live a great life if you don’t believe the present moment is the best time in your life—the only time that you actually have control over? However, if you look back not to prove to yourself why the present is good or bad and use your so called personal rearview mirror to measure how far you’ve come, or what you haven’t learned just yet…then you will find more comfort and ease in the moment. You will know that you are going in the right direction no matter what’s happened because the past isn’t a place you can live…it’s only a place you can learn from. But to learn, we must be diligent in glancing, not getting stuck there. So I want you to think about the rearview mirror in your car right now…and I’m not talking about those fancy schmancy mirrors that use advanced electrochromic technology and have all those fancy buttons on them. Think about the mirror that only has a flip switch on the bottom of it. That flip switch is there to help you see better in nighttime or daytime viewing. And most of us never think about how a rearview mirror really works, besides magic of course, but what it does when you flip that bottom switch  is it changes the angle of the mirror to deflect the light differently from your eyes. For daytime it’s angled to deflect the light towards your eyes, for the nighttime viewing it deflects the light away from your eyes. Here’s a little tidbit: if you ever want to do your own experiment to see how this works on the mirror, at night make sure you have the mirror in nighttime viewing mode, turn on the flashlight on your cellphone and shine the light on the ceiling to see how it looks in the mirror. You’ll see how clearly you can see the light on the roof of your car. But make sure you are parked doing this… I don’t want you being daredevils hurting yourself in a moving car. And that’s what’s so interesting about rearview mirrors, to see better at certain times, it’s not really doing anything crazy…it’s just pivoting or angling to deflect the light differently. So in knowing all of that, what if you visualized yourself as a rearview mirror?  What if instead of focusing so hard on all the negative things that have brought you to this horrible place in your life, you were to flip your internal switch to deflect those negative thoughts and sayings away from yourself. What if you were to bounce more positive and productive energies to yourself…more often? Now some people might say that I’m telling you to trick yourself into feeling good, and how they’re realists and would rather look at how things are…instead of being a dreamer. But I’d say it’s not about looking at how things are, it’s more of looking at how you want things to be. Because the only way things have changed was not in looking at something and saying there’s nothing that can be done, this is how it is, but it was in seeing something more and asking how can I change this? How can I view this differently? And how can I see more from this…to be able to create more from this? Where we put our focus, and how we process things will determine where we direct our lives. So instead of looking so intensely at what’s wrong and why it’s wrong, what if you were to glance in your rearview mirror and figure out the lessons you’ve learned, to see how far you have come, to see how much further along you are than you previously thought you were. What if instead of getting stuck in the negatives of the past, you were to pivot and angle yourself differently? What if you were to only glance back to see how far you’ve come…to then look forward at where you want to be going? Today’s Personal Commitment:The past is a measuring stick. Not to make you feel bad that you haven’t come far enough, but to measure where you are and where you’d like to be. They say self-esteem is determined by two points on a scale. The first point being where you think you are at the moment, and the second point being where you think you should be. And the further those two points are from each other, then the lower your self-esteem. But I think if we are eternal learners and seekers, those points will always be far away. Not because we aren’t good enough to bring them closer together, but because we are always reaching for more and wanting to be more. So instead of comparing how far you points should be from each other, what if you were just to glance back and look at how far you’ve come? What if you were to see your past not as a series of mistakes but a series of lessons guiding you? What if you were to visualize yourself as a rearview mirror in your bad times, and when you feel all that negativity pile upon you…you just flip that internal switch…not to block the negative, but to pivot from it, to deflect it away from you…and to direct more positive towards you. Your problems are big deals to you. I get it. We are emotionally connected to our problems and sometimes it seems like it’s the end of the world. I’m not asking you to ignore your problems, but what I am asking you to do is to step back a little bit. To get more clarity on the magnitude of them…to see that you are bigger than any problem you face, you are more resilient than any problem that comes your way, and to see that all it takes is a little shift to direct them elsewhere…instead of living within them, and being consumed by them. If you’re going to be consumed by something, be consumed with love, with happiness, with calm, with appreciation. In life, how we feel is always a choice that is determined by how we decide to focus on what has happened. It’s all a matter of perspective. One person can see the end of the world, where another can see a beautiful new beginning or great lesson to build off of. Which person will you be? So this week when you are feeling stressed, visualize yourself as a rearview mirror flipping your internal switch to direct better feeling emotions and thoughts during your more stressful times. And at the end of the day write down how that helped you and what you learned by doing that. The Only Reason I Look Back Is To See How Far I’ve Come   Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247     Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide