The Peaceful Mind Podcast-Episode 93 Transcript
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You are listening to episode 93 of the peaceful mind podcast.
welcome to the peaceful mind podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind. You need to be the best mom you were created by God to be. If you want to bring more balance, more joy and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host certified life coach at Catholic mom, Danielle Thienel . In the name of the father of the son and of the holy spirit.
Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining me. I want to do a little bit of a public service announcement at the beginning of this podcast today, to just ask if you would consider rating and reviewing this podcast, if you haven't already, and you find that it is helpful to your life, I would so appreciate you just taking a minute to.
Hopefully five stars. And to leave a little something about what you have learned or what you get from listening to this podcast each week. And I ask this because this is the best way that I can be. Given a bigger platform to help more moms have peace of mind in their life and around their motherhood.
And this is my mission. So I would really appreciate that. Okay. Now I'm going to dive into today's episode and I'm really excited to help you all have more peace about your past more peace. When you think about. And to have it not keep you from having the future that you want, because this is what I see a lot with my clients and all the wonderful moms that I work with is that so many times they are relying on their past to show them the way for their future.
So how do you use your past? Do you think you use it for you in a serving way or do think that it keeps you stuck and it holds you back? Your past it no longer exists. That's right. I just want you to know it's over it. Only now exists in your mind. That's all you have is like right now, the past is done and it's over.
And I know intellectually, we know this, but I just wanted to reiterate that to your brain right now that it's the past. And then the future is in your imagination. And so all we have is now, even when you are thinking about your past, that's happening in the now in the moment, all those thoughts you are currently thinking they're not even old thoughts, they might be thoughts about your past, but those thoughts are happening now.
So when you're thinking about your past, that isn't even your past. And this is a huge distinction that you need to make, because again, I know I'll repeat this over again. Our past is over and we can't change it and it doesn't affect you right now. It only affects you when you start thinking about it.
And I just, again, checking in, when you think about it, do you feel good? Are you more apt to go to the happy memories? Are you pulling from when you had something that happened in your past that made you stronger and more capable or was fun and that was loving or is it a whole different story? Because your past no longer exists.
So if you find, when you do start thinking about it, that you don't like, it brings up a lot of negative feelings, just see what parts are you focusing? And just know that that already happened and it no longer exists and you have the choice to not think about it and have it affect your present moment.
What I tell my clients, and I think it is part of the best news ever is that you get to decide what you're going to make your past mean in your life. You decide whether you're going to be the hero of the story that you tell yourself about the past, or if you are the victim, or if you remain the. Some people who come to me, they just are really attached to their painful story about their past.
A lot of times it is talking about what should have been different and what wasn't fair and the things that other people cause to happen in their past. So a lot of. And there may be some circumstances that are absolutely true that took place, and we're not arguing with what really did take place, but the way that you tell yourself and others, the story, which is just all of your collective thoughts about it are painful for.
And I just want you to see, like, is there an upside or does that serve you to keep that painful story? And it's completely optional. This is, this is where I get so passionate, you know, you can say like, oh, I'm just being realistic or I'm just telling you like it is, but, but how is that making you feel?
And so I would say you can change the story of how you tell it to yourself. I mean, you could want to believe that your past made you strong and made you capable of wherever you are in your life now, like it had the benefits, but instead what happens is our brain go goes, mining. It goes digging for all the things.
Weren't going well and didn't happen. Like you wanted it to, and I say, there's another option. There's a way that you can go back and look at evidence and find it. And then that, that feels good and positive. And that you can retell that story in a way that will ultimately serve you, benefit you. That gives your thoughts the way to build feelings of stress.
And wonder, and that will actually really kind of light you up no matter what happened. You can go find a way to retell the story and you don't have to take any of the parts that you don't like with you. You don't have to take that with you into your now and into the future. You may not be able to change what happened to you.
In fact, I know you can't change it. It happened, but you get to change what it means to you. And speaking of not being able to change your past, let me just talk to you about the argument that I see happens in a lot of people's brains, right? We spent a lot of time arguing with our past and you, you don't even realize it, it, it usually shows up in the form of it should have been different.
And this causes just a tremendous amount of strife with. Especially those words should, right. I shouldn't have done that. My childhood should have been better. My parents should have done X, Y, and Z, or I shouldn't have gone there or I shouldn't have done that. I also hear a lot of, I wish statements. I wish I would have.
I wish this wouldn't have happened. And some, if. If only that had been different. If only I would've done this, if only that other person would have done this, then my past would have been better. It would have been different, but these are always just lies because the past should have been exactly as the past was, there is no argument.
There doesn't need to be an argument. The past just was how it was. And when you accept that, and then again, like I said, we write a different story about it, a story where you do pick the good parts. You do get to tell it in a way where you are the hero and you bring yourself right back to the present and asking yourself, what is it that you want to be thinking and believing today?
Because your past successes and failures don't predict your future success and failures, unless you believe that they do. So I want to invite you to Trop believing that your past is going to predict your future and then bring yourself back to all that really matters is right now what I'm choosing to think today at this moment.
And if you're open to what I presented here today about your past, this is how you can then move into making peace with it. So ideally you realize that everything that happened in your past is a circumstance, and then you have the option and choice to think about it any way you will. And I'm inviting you to have more peace, choose more thoughts about your past, that bring you peace.
And to do that, we tell the story of our past in a way that makes us the hero, the champion, even if they were things that you would deem as negative, you can go mining and find where it was. A positive thing or brought you success or made you stronger, whatever you are needing to have more peace about that option is there for you.
And the second thing was to drop this argument that we have, that things should have been different than they were, or you wish that they would have been different. And when we're no longer wishing or believing that it should have been different, you will access more. And peace of mind for sure comes with the fact that we can't change it and that it doesn't predict or have any bearing on our future.
This is central to my life coaching practice in that when you come to me, you, you get to know that what I want to help you with is what your current thoughts are today. And where do you want to go? Meaning the future? What goals do you want to achieve? Because that's the only two things I need. I need what you're thinking about now and where you're headed and notice how in that combination.
There is nothing about the past, because what you tell me will only be your thoughts about it. And I hope that today's episode helped you find some real, tangible ways and some, a new perspective to know that you have access to have making peace about your past and how that would be so beneficial for your.
Thank you again for being here with me today. I love you all so much and I will talk to you again next week. Thank you for tuning into today's episode of the peaceful mind podcast. Are you ready to take everything? I teach you here and put it to work for your own. To really learn how to have peace of mind, no matter what is happening around you.
If so, I'd love to have you as a client, as your coach. This is where you'll get personal and focus time on your own mind using life coaching tools, concepts, and proven life, transforming wisdom, all through a faith-filled lens to learn more about how we can work together. Come on over to DanielleThienel.com . There are, you'll see how to sign up for a free coaching consult and learn how to get started until next time.
Peace be with you always.
