What if, for just one day, you challenged yourself to choose not to allow the past to affect your future choices? I mean, not for every future day of the rest of your life. Maybe choose one day to be Future You. A woman with no past. No hurt. Never cheated on. Live as if you’ve never known a heartbreak. None of it.
Imagine what we could all create if we were not dragging around the heavy stuffed bags of resentments around with us? Traveling light because we left the baggage at the border. Our future days would turn out quite differently, I believe. What would A Year From Now’s Diane (or You) be doing? What could I have already accomplished if I didn’t for a single second of an entire day allow what I’ve been through to affect me?
Merely the thought of doing this is exciting. Isn’t it?
In even contemplating doing this for myself, I already felt a lightness coming over me. How is that possible? But the fact that I felt that lightness proves to me that it is possible to let it all go for a day or a week, or longer. That it would serve me well to try this exercise. To challenge myself to be unrecognizable to my trauma. What about all of you out there?
All I’m asking you to do is roll this notion around in your heads. We all wake up tomorrow and we’ve been through none of our past travails. Zero. Zippo. The only notions in our noggins is where we are headed. For that day or the next or next summer. You wake up tomorrow as Future You. Walk into the room like it’s your first day on Earth. Do you know who that woman is? Have you fashioned her for yourself at all?
On some level you may be surprised to realize that you have.
I feel an exercise such as this would be very very helpful as far as making future choices goes. I mean, I love living in the moment. Don’t get me wrong. But am I actively moving towards a future goal if I’m staying in the moment? Nope. I am definitely not. I’m good at planning trivial future stuff, like what I’m going to eat the next few days. Or when I’m getting my next haircut or pedicure. But the big life goals have kind of fallen by the wayside.
Part of this is the uncertainty of so many things in this world that I have no control of. That can get in the way of future goals like a giant boulder of Doubt. But that way of thinking is my doing. Therefore, I can choose to think another way. Not a lick of future plans need to have anything to do with any past event. Your potential has no memory. Any old, lingering, emotional hurt. Poof! It’s gone if I want it to be. I don’t see why myself or any of us cannot give this a try.
I think it will be an enlightening reset.
For the “Just One Day Challenge,” I have no past. Only a future. One of my own making. I’m not “getting over it”—I’m living beyond it. I plan to seriously visualize what that is specifically. Not a vague notion. How can a goal, a truly life changing one, be achieved through some ambiguous, ill-defined, inkling? Clearly it cannot. I don’t know if any of this sounds like a fun exercise to you. But I think it definitely could help me come up with specific next steps toward a targeted intention.
Some examples may be helpful guides. Instead of thinking you will plan a trip to London, decide on a specific part of London. Like Covent Garden, for instance. Then the specific week and what amenities you would require in a hotel. Choose a specific hotel. Of course, this is future thinking more than merely one day. Perhaps you see a commercial for an art fair in the next county over that is taking place tomorrow. You’ve never been to that town and you don’t know a single soul who lives there.
Time to gas up the car and program WAZE.
You wake up a woman without a care in the world. No past bad relationship to get maudlin over. You’re no longer the woman those things happened to. Be who you are right in the moment. Are you feeling artistic? Get to painting! Or drawing or whatever art means to you. Maybe there’s a poem that’s been rambling around in the static, longing to be written out at last. Perhaps you see there’s a Spanish Cooking Class at the Sur La Table in your nearby mall tonight. In The Moment Diane cannot wait! Sign me up for that, pronto! Gazpacho Class, here I come. I plan to work my way up to Paella and really impress myself. That will naturally lead to inviting friends over to dinner and impressing the heck out of their palates with my Food Yum. I will be the talk of my social circle. Perhaps I will invite New Friends I met in Paella class. See how this works out? And fast?
Get where I am going with this? We are no longer planning and planning. Waiting for some vague vacation some year in the future. Heck with that. That is not exciting and uplifting. It feels like a big chore with lots of little chores attached to it. It should be something immediate. Or at least a very near future activity you can begin as soon as possible. Empty your hands of the past to grab your future. One requirement must be that it involves leaving your home to do part of it. We need to interact with humans we do not yet know. Humans that may be part of our very near future. You know, our new Paella Gang!
Yes, I know I have tricked you.
I named it a “Just For One Day Challenge” and now it’s an entirely new interest that has silently backed its way into your life. All because I had you be your Future Self for one day. What is that psychological trick I am playing with you? Who cares? It will work for you. They say nothing in life is guaranteed. That’s total B.S. I guarantee if you wake up in the moment and do something, anything new, that exposes you to real, live, humans in some way you will have a better day than the one you had yesterday.
Now, this is not because I think you have no friends. Or you need to replace the ones you have. Unless you want to. This is really because opening up my world by trying new things has led to so many unexpected and pleasant chapters of my story that I want that for all of you as well. Don’t let an old story write your new chapter. This is not a command. It’s more like a really cool notion I came up with years ago in the midst of a heartache that I needed to recover from. I refused to stay down in the muck of that kind of hurt while the ex was off living what he thought was his best life. It was time to find my own. I needed a clean past to begin again. Somehow, this immediacy took away the fear. I can’t explain why, but it did.
No more fearing that the next chapter would be lonely and silent and…grey.
I deserved a kaleidoscope life. Actually I longed for one. Did it happen all at once? Nope, it didn’t. But as long as I kept that goal in mind each and every day, I knew I could build it. It was kind of a psychological “Cootie Catcher” where I could lift a flap and look at a very near future goal that was easily attained.
But what truly emerged after the pain of being left at the age of 50 for a woman half my age by the man I’d trusted the most for 24 years was…I decided to become my own Bestie. To encourage myself the way I encouraged my girlfriends who were facing a new challenge they did not expect. “Of course you should stop mulling it over and finally move to Paris. What do you have to lose?” That’s the kind of Girlfriend Encouragement very few men ever give their life partners. I mean how many times was he all onboard about your new life goal? Or new experience you wanted to have with him? Was he ever once “all in?” Or were there weeks or months of convincing? Trying new angles. Seriously, it shouldn’t be that difficult if your partner is on your side, wanting you to succeed and be happy and fulfilled.
You know, the same way we did that for the men in our lives for decades.
I already know the answer. Therefore, I congratulate you. For not having to live with an unenthusiastic partner anymore. For jumping in to next steps in an immediate way. Healed is the new “it” girl. No more thinking about it. Weighing every option. Too much noodling always ruins the noodles. We all know that. Boil the water of your idea. Throw the notion into the pot. Stir for a very short time. Drain what is extemporaneous. DIG IN.
We all go through major life transitions when relationships end… Through the Leftat50.com website, I will share my thoughts as I walk the path of “New-Self” discovery. It doesn’t matter which side of 50 you are on. The real question is, ‘Are you ready to live life? To forge a Path of Your Own Making (For a change!)?’ Then stop dwelling over the What-Might-Have-Beens and join me. Share your thoughts here, comment on mine, and let’s do this together! And check out my book, “Restarting Your Life When You Are. No Longer A Wife,” I wrote it just for you!