You Are Moving On

Think of a time when you weren’t in a great place and didn’t take someone’s advice about the situation and you eventually got out of it anyway. A time when you got yourself to a better place mostly by your own free will and decision. Think of the things you learned about yourself during that time. Would you ever trade that in and go back in time to change the circumstance to have taken that person’s advice in the first place? You know you weren’t in a place then to take that advice, for whatever reason, even if it’s eventually what you ended up doing. Your life lessons are yours. They hold unique gifts for you. We don’t always know what’s best for other people, even though we are convinced we do. When you find yourself on the obsessive side of trying to help someone, I can guarantee you’re avoiding something in your life that needs your attention. Is your own marriage a mess while you’re trying to give oodles of relationship advice to your friend? Are you numbing your feelings by overeating while you tell your husband he drinks too much? Are you constantly up your son’s ass for hanging out with losers while you hate your job? In our minds, it seems easier to fix other people’s lives instead of our own. It’s less painful to focus on other people’s problems. And if they get better because of your help, then you pat yourself on the back and feel validated. You feel important, smart, like a hero.

Think About It

Give people a little credit. Remember it’s their life, not yours. What you think about their decisions is all about you and really has nothing to do with them. When you don’t deal with your own issues, you’re doing yourself a disservice and causing more suffering in your life. When you don’t mention those pink elephants in the room and continue to act like things are fine, you’re not doing yourself any good. The pink elephants don’t magically disappear on their own, no matter how much we shove our noses in other people’s business. I see this all the time and have done it in my own life. You know in your heart the things that you’re not dealing with. I’m here to remind you those things are not going to get better if you ignore them. And they’re not going to get better if you put all your energy into helping others. The problems stick around and fester like yesterday’s garbage. The pile will keep getting bigger and bigger and you keep wondering who is going to take the trash out.

Hold On To Your Heart

If this is you, take a break. Every time you feel the need to open your mouth and tell someone else what to do, turn your attention inward instead and think about what needs attention in your life. In case you forgot, you’re important, too. And I’ll bet all of Oprah’s money that you have at least one excuse as to why you haven’t/can’t/won’t do it. And that the reason you haven’t done it is because you let the excuse win. This one is pretty obvious. When you do that big thing you want to do, a spark starts inside of you. You find out that doing it wasn’t as scary as the story you made it out to be. Even if your thing turns out to be not as fun and exciting as you wanted it to be, at least you can look back on it and know that you actually did it. You meet lots of different people. No matter what it is you want to do, there are loads of people just like you itching to do the same thing and loads of people that can help you achieve it. You’ll have fewer regrets on your deathbed.

Ask Yourself Why

I just can’t imagine what it must feel like to be at death’s door and wish you would have opened that business, or started that hobby, or whatever is on your list. Really think about this one and what you want to be glad that you tried. It’s not about accomplishing and fully succeeding at the thing you want to do, it’s just about trying. You’ll inspire others. People will watch your example and see that if you can do it, they can, too. And better yet, if you reveal that you were scared before you did it but took action anyway, you’ll inspire them even more. You’ll have a positive thing to focus on. Everyone needs a distraction from negative crap happening in their lives. There might come a day when you get to choose between drama and dreams. What would you choose? You’ll just generally feel good. That’s just epic. You feeling good is really why you want to do that thing in the first place. You want it because when you think about it, it makes you excited and happy, right? And that feels good. Keeping them in your resentment prison? Because if you really stop and think about it, staying mad at someone and being unforgiving doesn’t mean you’re tough and unbreakable. It just means you’re still pissed, and the only person suffering is you. If you enjoy that, then knock yourself out. Letting go of resentment says absolutely nothing about what they did. It doesn’t mean you think it’s okay. It doesn’t even mean you have to let them in your life anymore. Letting go of resentment only means that you love yourself enough to let it all go. What do you think will happen if you do? You can’t control other people. Just imagine what your life would be like without this resentment. After all, you don’t have a time machine. You can’t go back and force them to make a different choice. You can’t even make them feel sorry for what he or she did. You can’t make him or her ask you for forgiveness. When you do this, you are moving on.