How to Stop Living in the Past

0:28Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. past. And we're going to be talking about why you should stop living in your past and start living in the energy of the future that you want to create. We're going to talk about how to stop paying attention to all of those things that have happened to you, the good things and the bad things. And so actually start focusing more on the future that you want to create and drawing that future into your present moment. And I get it because we as humans, we want to stay safe. Like when you look at our brain, our brain is so ridiculously incredible and it is so ridiculously complex.

1:02But what it wants to do more than anything else is keep you safe. It wants to keep you alive. And so our brain does this amazing thing where it will remember our past, especially the pain in our past. And it'll remember that pain in our past in order to try to avoid future pain. Makes sense, right? And it doesn't have to be just physical pain. It can be emotional pain. It can be mental pain as well. And now when you're a tribal human living on the plains 100 ,000 years ago, hunting for your food, this is an incredible future of the human brain where it can predict what could possibly happen so that you can keep your friends, your tribe, and yourself alive.

1:43But when you're a normal person right now listening to this podcast episode, in modern times, this is actually something that hurts you more than helps you. It does. Like really think about it for a second. This hurts you more than actually helps you by taking the pain of the past and putting it into the future and saying, well, I want to avoid that pain again. She broke my heart in the past. I never want to get in another relationship. I had a failed business in the past. I don't want to start another business. This person screwed me over in the past. I need to be very aware of when people are going to screw me over as well.

2:15Because all too many of us live in the past. I did this for a very, very long time. We make our past and we take our past and we look at our past and remember specifically the pain of our past and we mentally broadcast it into our futures, thinking that it's going to help us. And it gives us a real false sense of control, you could say. And in some ways it does help us. But in most ways, if we're trying to be different, if we're trying to create something different, focusing on the past and predicting it into the future is really going to hold us back more than anything else. For instance, you know, like I have had three failed businesses before I had my business that I have now that is a successful business.

2:59And many people listening, you've either had a failed business or you know someone who has had a failed business and you know how painful that was for yourself or you know how painful it was for that person. And so we want to avoid that pain. And many of us that have had failed businesses in the past or know someone who has had a failed business. Maybe your father had a really bad situation with his business. And we hold ourselves back from taking the action that we need to in our new business or starting that new business simply because we think, well, you know what? I saw what happened to that person before.

3:34I'm not going to do that. It's like walking by a bush and you see someone get attacked 100 ,000 years ago by a lion. You're like, nope, not walking by that bush. Well, that bush and that lion don't exist nowadays. not in our realities that most of us live in, but we go, oh yeah, it's not that bush and that tiger. It's, oh, that failed business. Oh, it's starting a business. No, there's potential pain with starting a business. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna play small. I'm gonna just stay in my lane and do what I've always done because that's predictable. And we end up running our businesses into the ground because we're focusing too much on protecting ourselves, knowing that we had a failed business in the past, or we don't even start a business because of the failed businesses that we've had in the past.

4:17Now, the focusing on the past was protection. That makes a whole lot of sense. But that last business has nothing to do with your current business or has nothing to do with your future business. It's like the phrase, you never step into the same river twice because it's not the same river. The river is always flowing and you're not the same person as you were when you stepped in the river the last time. Your past does not dictate your future. Now, your past does give you lessons. it does teach you how to avoid certain things. Like maybe you had a bad business partner or maybe you did really bad in your marketing and you learn lessons from all of this stuff.

4:53But the beautiful thing about failed businesses in the past is that you can look at your current business right now and you can learn from the past and say, okay, I know what I did well. I'm going to do that again. But I also know what I did really bad and I'm going to make sure I avoid it this time. That happens with relationships too, right? Like I'm married now and I don't see all of my past girlfriends as failed relationships. They were just relationships where they didn't work out. I don't see them as failures, but I learned how I want to show up. I learned how I want the other person to show up.

5:22I know much better of how to work in a relationship. Like if I look at my very first relationship with my first girlfriend, I was a shitty boyfriend because I didn't know what it was like to be in a relationship. I didn't see a really good relationship around me to actually see that because my parents divorced when I was nine. And so I didn't really see it. So I couldn't really create the relationship that I wanted to. And so I messed up in relationships. They messed up in relationships. We all do. But then it allows you to get better and to know what you're looking for in the future.

5:58We were focusing on the past for protection. That makes sense. But it really has nothing to do with what's going on in your life right now. It's just lessons in ways that you can learn. And, you know, like I said, with the relationships I've had in the past, Sure. They didn't work out, but this one's working out with the businesses I had in the past. Sure. They didn't work out, but this one's working out. And lots of people do that with businesses, relationships with many things in their life. Lots of people do this with the relationships. Like just, just because you were cheated on in the past does not mean that you won't be cheered.

6:33That does not mean that you will be cheated on in this relationship. But how many people go into their next relationship with their guard up and they never let that person truly in because they're afraid, man, you know what happened last time? Yeah, I was cheated on and I love that person and they freaking broke my heart. I don't want to do that again. And so you don't show your true self. You don't show your vulnerable self to the next person and the relationship doesn't become what it can become because you're too on guard. You're too closed up for something that this person that you're in a relationship right now didn't do to you, but you're projecting the last person who cheated on you or that last heartbreak that you God onto this new person.

7:11Some people in this world, many people in this world are still pissed off over something that happened to them years ago, 10 years ago. And that's terrible for yourself. That's terrible for your future, but it's also really terrible for your body. One of the most important things that we need to become aware of is how our memories of the past actually really do affect our bodies. Your brain does not know the difference between something that happened to you in the past and something that's imagined. So if you wake up and you remember an event that happened in the past that was painful, you can literally put your body through that same event as if it's currently happening right now.

7:48If you think about how you were cheated on in the past and you really get yourself into that feeling, you can put yourself into, you put your body into a terrible state of fear, of worry, of stress and anxiety when in this moment, in this present moment, there's actually nothing that's wrong. You're listening to this podcast right now. If you look at this very second that you're in, I guarantee you, you're safe, you're okay, and everything's going to be fine. But we can really make this present moment terrible by taking the past, projecting into the future, and trying to feel those feelings right now.

8:27And many people do this every single day. I did this for years. For years, I beat myself up and I beat my body up because of fear that I had projected into my future based off of the past. You know, if your spouse cheats on you and then you get a divorce and that cheating spouse gets married down the road, that person who is cheated on sometimes wakes up every single day and thinks about that event. I was watching a video, a show, Hoarders, which is one of the wildest shows to watch. It's so intriguing to see these humans. And these people who are hoarders are almost always, like 99.9 % of the time, hoarders because of trauma that happened in their past.

9:08And they start saying, oh, well, everything really changed for me when that person died, or everything really changed for me when that person cheated on me and then got married to the person that they cheated on me with. And that person who was cheated on wakes up every single day and they think about that event. How could they do this to me? How could they do this to my children, to our children? How could I be so dumb not to know that they were doing this? Why couldn't they just love me? Why couldn't they love me the way that I love them? And even though they might've been cheated on 10 years ago, they still wake up and they put their body through the same exact chemical reaction as if they were cheated on today.

9:47And if they were cheated on every day for the past nine years. That takes such a toll on your body. You can't let your past steal away the greatness of your future. Now, here's what's really cool. This is the benefit of this. If you can feel the feelings of your past and create the chemicals from your past in this moment, and you can put your body through it every single day, can you do the exact same thing for your future? Yes, absolutely. The only problem is most of us, what we do is we fear our future, right? We fear a future. Oh, I don't want to be broke anymore in the future. I don't want to be cheated on.

10:22I don't want to be unhappy anymore. And we can fear a future that doesn't exist, right? Have you ever felt the feeling of a future that doesn't exist, the fear inside of your body by projecting yourself into the future and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't want this to happen. And your body in this moment can feel the future that you're creating in your mind, right? You can feel the fear. Well, if that's the case, is it also possible if we can fear the future that hasn't happened, can we also feel grateful for a future that hasn't happened? Why not live in that energy? Why not live in the energy of I'm so grateful for everything that's coming for me versus I'm scared shitless of everything that's coming down the line for me?

11:09Because that future doesn't exist. The future that's creating all the fear doesn't exist right now. Is it possible that I can feel grateful as well for a future that doesn't exist? Absolutely. Why not live in that energy? Because I lived a good portion of my life in fear when I was younger. Fear of being broke, fear of being rejected, fear of not being good enough, fear of being cheated on again, fear of having another heartbreak, and it took a freaking toll on my body. But now what I try to do is I try to wake up and set myself up for how I want to be and how I want to feel. So this is a practice that I've been doing for quite some time now.

11:48I did it this morning. So right now in Austin, the weather is not 110 degrees like it was all summer. It feels amazing outside. It feels great. So I go outside in the morning. I do my meditation in the morning and I get my cup of coffee and I go outside for about 45 minutes to an hour. I don't have a book. I don't have a journal. I don't have anyone I'm talking to. I sit there by myself with my dog and I look off into the trees and into the sky. And I think I'm so grateful for the life that's coming to me. I'm so grateful for how today's going to be. I'm so grateful for how I'm going to feel. Well, how do I want to feel today?

12:21I want to feel full of love. I want to feel full of happiness. I want to feel like I'm doing something good with my life. And I sit outside and I try to, I guess you could say, attract the future into me, the future that I want, but more than anything else, I'm just trying to set my, like setting a GPS, I'm trying to set my GPS on how I want to feel. Think about how cool this is. Instead of being a little sourpuss for something that hasn't happened yet, or being a little sourpuss for something that happened in the past and reliving that past over and over and over again every day in your body, what if you became so clear on the future that you wanted, that you woke up every day and visualize that future.

13:00And you felt gratitude for that future that's coming to you. And you feel grateful right now in this moment. Because you can feel fear in this moment if you want to project into a future that's scary as hell. But I'd rather not do that. I've done it before. I didn't like it. I did it for years. What I'd rather do is sit there and be like, I'm so grateful because I believe there's something out there. I don't know what the higher power is, God, universe, spirit, source, whatever it is that you want to call it. I believe there's something. That's on my side. That's working with me, working for me.

13:31And we're doing this together. And I'm saying, hey, this future, it's going to be amazing. Damn, I don't know what it's going to be. I know what I want it to be, but I trust that it's working for me. And me and this external source are working on creating the most amazing future we possibly can. And damn it, it feels really good to feel that way. It feels really good to wake up and feel those feelings every single day, to be grateful for something that hasn't happened yet. and to just have faith and just trust that, hey, this is coming to me. This future that I want is coming to me. It might not be exactly what I want it to be and how I visualize it, but damn it, it usually ends up being a whole lot better.

14:10That's what I've realized. When I started this podcast, I remember I just wanted it to be something that was decently successful. I wanted to be able to have a little bit of success from it and just maybe help people's lives. And I remember the first day when I got 44 downloads, I was so excited. Oh my God, 44 people. And I felt so fulfilled with it. But I knew if I just kept following this path, it would be good. Maybe I'll get to like 100 ,000 downloads or something like that. Maybe I'll get to$100 ,000. That would be awesome. And now we're literally approaching 300 million downloads. Because I just followed the path and I just trusted that it was going to work out.

14:42I want you to figure out what it is that you want. What it is that you want to draw into you. What you want to feel in this moment. And be very clear on the path that you want to go in your life. And wake up every single morning and start to draw those feelings into you. because all too often we draw those feelings of fear into us. I'd rather live, instead of living in fear, I'd rather live in a state of gratitude, a state of love, a state of happiness, a state of joy, and try to pull those feelings into me because what I've found, I don't know how the universe works, I don't know how all this stuff works, but the better that I feel and the better that I feel inside of my body and inside of my mind, the better future I start to bring into my life and the better I start to actually work in this world.

15:26And what I really want you to do is to start attaching yourself to that future. Stop being so fearful of what could come down the road as if you're just waiting to be attacked by a lion. Start being grateful for what it is that you know is coming down the line. Be so clear about the future that you want and be so grateful for it in this moment. And you're more likely to achieve that future when you come from that place. And so you've got to ask yourself, what future am I imagining for myself? because whatever future you imagine, you're going to attract to yourself. You are creating your reality at every single moment.

15:57Where you are right now is created by your mind and the actions that you've taken in the past. If you want to create a different future, you're going to have to start thinking about the way that you think about the future and also start changing the actions that you take. And if you do that, I promise you, you'll create the future that you want one, two, five, 10 years down the road. so trust it follow it and feel the feelings of gratitude now so that's what i got for you for today's episode if you love this episode please share it on your instagram stories and tag me rob dial jr r-o-b-d-i-a-l-j-r and i'm going to leave the same way i leave you every single episode make it your mission to make someone else's day better i appreciate you and i hope that you have an amazing day