I love the quote that says, Life must be lived looking forward but can be only understood by looking back. It seems like most people (myself included) can have a difficult time when we find ourselves in the middle or a tremendously hard situation. While we are trying to navigate the shit show or deal with changes, grief, loss etc it’s unlikely that we have the capacity to look at our own situation and either find the good or remind ourselves that this will be a great lesson down the road.

Let’s face it, if you can think of one or two BIG life situations that you have navigated, then you know exactly what I am talking about. Often the best case scenario is moving just getting ourselves through the situation as best as possible. When we do come out the other side, I wonder though how many of us take the time to reflect on what just happened, what we dealt with, how we felt and what we learned. Are there any gifts or blessings that came from that hard time?

We continue to move forward. Which I am completely supportive of looking ahead instead of behind. But sometimes it’s much needed to acknowledge what we have done and how that changed us or created the life or situation we have now. I suppose the most challenging aspect of doing this is taking full accountability for our own actions, choices, decisions and finding acceptance or gratitude where we presently find ourselves.

Take a moment and look at your life. Everything that is present now is a result of past experiences. We can label these as good or bad but the fact of the matter is that they are done. We can look back at them but we can only live going forward. Imagine you are the main character in a movie and you keep reliving the same day or experience over and over and over….until you have learned what you need to know to change the situation.

What if you started doing this now? You can wake up tomorrow and the next tomorrow doing something different each day until you come up with the result you are looking for. Who knows what else we may find by changing or altering our outlook even the tiniest bit.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall ~ Confucius ~