Just a thought…

“The past does not decide now. It is our now that decides the past.”

I’m not sure where I got this note from but when I came across it this morning it stuck with me.

We are so convinced that what has happened to us in the past dictates how we feel in the present. And yet our only experience of our past is in the the thoughts that we have about it in the present. Those thoughts emerge unbidden, they change all the time, and they are fleeting glimpses rather than a consistent narrative.

This is true even of the immediate past. That row you just had can either feel like a major tragedy or something that will blow over. Which it is, is just a thought and the next moment that thought can change.

Rather than getting locked into the ruminative circles that keep us stuck, what if we consistently noticed that our past is just a thought?