In your life you will make many decisions. Some will go by without any effect on your life. Others will influence your life in such a way that you can look back to that point of time and say, “It was then”. “It was then my life changed”. You may even see a chain of events coming from one decision or an experience which created a decisive action that influenced your thinking from that moment on and throughout your life.

If it changed for the better, you may not look back on that momentous decision, but if it had ramifications on your life that did not work well, then perhaps it will be part of a time that you may later view with regret wishing you had done things differently.  Many people have a bag full regrets which they have accumulated throughout their lives and even if they express it, they put off until they “find the time”, or “tomorrow is another day”. 

The word “Tomorrow” is a term in itself that is always in the future, never today or the “active” present also called “Now”. Time is often mentally put off by our perception of it, but the saying is true that “time does not wait for no man”.  Or does it?  Can time be changed? Can we manipulate our linear time?  Is time just a perception? How do we arrive at that moment at the end of our time and look back and say we truly do not regret anything that has happened in our lives?

Infinite and Alternate Possibilities

Throughout life there are infinite possibilities open to us. Potential choices which lead to different futures. Rarely will you think that as well as the person you have become that there could be an alternative potential you existing in another universe. A “You” who did not make the choice you made, and is now living the consequences of the other possible pathway that you decided not to embark upon. Perhaps living life better than you, or even worse than you. Consider this possibility, that at every crossroad, every decision, an alternative potential You is created. As you explored and thought through your choices, as you opened up with each thought of what was possible you created a potential pathway each and every time you made a new decision. You made a decision and walked one way and,  the other “You”,  went another way to live out that specific choice and pathway.  How is this possible? Consider again for a moment that all of our physical reality and universe is made up of energy.  Atoms, the components of our universe, are made up of waves of energy, and atoms form solid matter, which is what our physical world is created from. Consider too the possibility, therefore, that thoughts are energy that creates and manifests into reality.  So as you think these thoughts you become just like a Demigod creating your own world and reality.  Think a little further, that everything that is created exists somewhere in time and perhaps there are millions of you in sub-universes existing and living out every choices you have ever made. It’s both powerful and a big thought hey?  So let’s stop there before we step too much on to the toes of the science of Quantum Mechanics and potentially boggle your mind with theories of universal laws and sources of creation. That is a subject that can make interesting reading for anyone who wishing to understand their world, but do be prepared for mind acrobatics!

That being said, we do not really have to go to the extreme of understanding quantum science just to accept the idea of what might have been could have been, and what we hoped for did not happen in our reality or timeline and was possibly what we would call a missed opportunity. We can also take on board that what we think is often what we become and that “what you think therefore you are”.  Appreciating that our thoughts dictate so much of how we interpret the world around us and that it changes as we experience new things.

So, when one day you wake up and notice that something is not quite right with your world and life seems a little less joyful, it can happen to many and has done.  It can lead you to question and evaluate your life and go through a variety of responses.  Avoidance, denial, frustration, negativity and conflict are all things that can be the trigger to you finding yourself lost in uncertainty, depression and the overall feeling that someone else is in charge of your world. 

The reality is that truth is hard to face when you have to take responsibility for your actions. And so, for those who feel there was someone else to blame for the decisions you made, and you were forced into making them, then you may need to take a look again.  We are never the puppets on a string, but really are always our own puppet master.

What is Your Thinking?

What you can do when you arrive at this questioning point and awareness is to assess where you are and what you are really thinking. You can do this by carrying out a “now” mini life review of all your past achievements and expectations and notice when truth waves it’s hairy, and often, ugly hand at you. Think back for a moment to when you have made a major decision in your life.  What was your thinking at the time, and do you agree with what you thought then, now? This review is not about looking for your own wrong doing so you can hit yourself on the head for all eternity or to expect a karmic punishment. It’s more about recognising your actions, and considering whether the results were as you expected, and if not, appreciating the alternative path, and whether you would have obtained more joy from that possibility, or even other possibilities that now may show themselves. Conscious awareness is the key.

The big point here to remember is that we only make our decisions upon the knowledge and awareness we have at the time. What we may later learn or become aware of is always a fabulous afterthought and, as they say “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, but what we are not consciously aware of and do not know does affect our decision making.  As a result what appears to be the right or wrong direction at that time, can be still flawed.  It is human nature to need certainty. Perhaps to become wise in the situation you may have had to go through that specific experience to move forward in your awareness and life.  Every experience brings it’s positive and negative elements, but often we mostly concentrate on the negative.  It is only when we have the knowledge and awareness, and acknowledge it, that our world can open up to new possibilities and where change becomes a natural, but conscious, positive transition to a new opportunity.  Effectively we can time travel in our imagination to those points of time and change things.  No we can’t change our actions or the past, but we can observe it, and take new awarenesses forward to change our future, from Now, the very moment we recognise that there is a potential new joyful path and future for us. 

It is gentle to remind yourself that you can only be the best person you can be, doing the best things you can do, with the knowledge and awareness you have at that specific moment of time (Now). And recognising this, allow yourself to be open to every moment of now (time) giving you new knowledge and awareness to create your joy in what you do.

The mini life review is also not about necessarily correcting those things you now decide you could have done differently. You can if it is valid to change, but it’s not the point of the exercise. You cannot undo what you have done by your actions nor can you change your experience of it. It is what it is. You can only see the experience with fresh eyes and more objectively and abridge it in the time of now with new thinking. Neither is it about throwing the baby out with the bath water because something has not gone your way. It is more about noticing when you have the knowledge and awareness, about focusing on what is important to you now. Observe and question if things are not what you expected and your world has become uncomfortable in some way or less joyful, less inspiring, less fruitful.  Being open to being honest with yourself and asking yourself some open and thought provoking questions. 

• What was important then, and what’s important now?  
• What was challenging you then, is it still now? 
• What were you doing at that time to bring that experience to you? Are you still going this now?
• How did it affect you, and is it still affecting you?
• What did you allow to happen then, and are you still allowing it to happen now Or,
• What did you not allow to happen?
• What joy does your alternative self have in the other universe? Does that joy still resonate with you in your timeline now?
• What new insight do you have now that you may wish to act upon now?
• What is going to happen if you don’t act now?
• What decision are you making in your mind right now?

Cause and Effect

In the art of blaming others, avoiding responsibility, we all look outside ourselves for a reason why we shouldn’t or can’t do something. We will self-sabotage and put somebody, or something, in between us and our true happiness. Everything we do is by allowing, giving conscious or unconscious permission for that situation to occur. It is just easier to blame others than see and accept our own painful flaws. When we are between the deep blue sea or a rock and a hard place, we often think we do not have any options open to us other than what we see. It is more honest to say that there are always options but ones which we choose not to take and the reason why is always down to ourselves and our own challenges inside ourselves. Our choices are often risk adverse, i.e. if there is too much at risk, we won’t do it, and take a softer and easier less risky path.  It is true the road less travelled is far rocker, but it brings the highest achievement and can add more colour to our world.  Risk is not a bad thing just that you do have to appreciate what you are risking by the actions you choose to take.  And in addition accept that when you make a choice, you are accepting all that follows, the resulting consequences and others actions as a result.  This is basically another universal law, the rule of Cause and Effect which says that for every effect, there is a definite and relative cause. The issue is that people often make choices, without accepting the responsibility of making them, and struggle with the consequences of what they have caused by their own actions.  They then become at “effect”.  This is when they mostly talk around the results of what has happened, and blame others and things other than see themselves in at the beginning, at “Cause”, where they are seeing and appreciating their own actions and looking at how their actions could have been different.   Whilst someone is at the “Effects” end of a situation, they will never be able to change their world until they have accepted the cause, their action.  It is your choice to action, and your consequences.   

In truth you know that. I am not really saying anything different than you already know inside yourself. Human nature is to be hard on oneself and the sub conscious will have many coping strategies to maintain survival, including the comfort of living in blissful ignorance from the most obvious.

Mind Talk

How we mentally talk to ourselves is, therefore, important. Recognition of what has created the most happiness in your life, and how you can improve on that happiness, is a positive way to allow awareness of what opportunities you have not made the best of or did not see or take at the time. It is not about wrong doing, even in other potential pathways you may have not made the best of and achieved what you had originally thought you had set out to do, even though it may look in hindsight a far wiser path to have taken.  Appreciating yourself in all that you aim to do, observing when you are negative and hard on yourself and removing the negative telling off that follows when it seems we have broken one of our rules of living or believe we have failed or feel wrong inside. 

Checking In With Yourself

Happiness is paramount in our lives, it is what gives our existence purpose.  It is the simplest way to evaluate your life without questioning the “did I do this” or “did I do that” – just checking in on whether your actions in your life have brought you happiness, and if it did, how can you now capitalise on that. How can you bring that same, or if not more happiness into your life now?

Asking yourself questions and listening to your heart first, rather than applying logic and potential mind programming, by looking at what gives your heart the most joy. Feeling whether something feels light or heavy is another way to check in with truth, and is called the “heart barometer” test. If an option feels heavy or wrong, it probably will not bring the happiness you seek. If there are elements of joy but your mind runs off in a mad frenzy of thought rather than a gentle knowing and confidence in your next step. You may not be asking yourself the right question and perhaps you could observe a little closer at what it is that may be making you feel uncomfortable. It is highly likely that you are responding to something embedded in your thinking and clarity and truth is needed before you go any further. If you feel light and your heart is swelling full of joy at the thought, then allow it to inspire you. 

What Is Your Truth?

Sometimes when we put ourselves at the bottom on the list, we put others people’s happiness first, before our own happiness. When we carry out the “heart barometer” test, it may feel heavy as it is not really your choice but one you are taking by proxy for someone else and allowing yourself to live it. In simple terms it’s not your truth or journey.  Your truth is the things you genuinely positively feel you can express and attach yourself to, act upon and believe in and feel naturally motivated towards.

Throughout time the human race has conformed to moral and social rules. We are programmed and conditioned by our people closest to us, from our early life experiences and we bend to survive and adapt in the hard world of living with the tools we have acquired as a result of them.  When we are young we are dependent on our parents for our survival, and indeed would conform, bend and please, just to maintain it. Often we continue to do this automatically later in life having adopted these coping strategies as our own set of rules.  When we lived in the past as cave men, we were more reliant on our surroundings and our senses and utilising our basic animal instinct.  Now in the modern world it is not just enough to know or feel it, but our mind seeks confirmation of reality that we are indeed safe in our surroundings and situations. We apply labels to describe everything we see, and are no longer reliant on our sense and touch. We now need to see it to have the reassurance of its existence in reality, and that it lives in fact.  Fact is science’s ruler to measure all that we do. Logical thinking and science tells us that if it is not fact, and measurable, therefore, it does not exist, and our belief in it should therefore be limited.  This can form into human programming, and living by conforming to approved rules to where we are an automaton in our own lives where we follow rather than lead.  It takes time to see them, and break them, and become an actively consciously awake person who is instinctively aware and can immediately adjust and change themselves and their actions within their reality. 

One of the universal laws is that we live in a world of polarity where everything must have its opposite, it’s ying and yang, it’s up and down, it’s left and right, it’s to and from, it’s right and wrong. It is always one or the other. And, as we tread on quantum physics again, it is about forces of energy that exist in our universe.  That there is no “push” without an equal force of “pull”. Again, leaving the science aside, we make rules to survive created by our own subconscious mind, our life’s personal navigation system. It has its own factual thinking, but often does not question the validity of what it sees and so allows us to be automatically and blindly led into situations and managing our choices through what it sees. Human nature is about keeping ourselves safe and promoting our survival. Our thoughts, however, govern our world.  Whilst we are keeping ourselves safe, and working to the rules we have adopted it can lead to box and pigeon hole thinking. If you allow yourself to be defined by this type of thinking, you will be a prisoner in that box until you realise that that by allowing yourself to think of possibilities and imagine yourself outside the box, it is what will move the walls and boundaries of any box you put yourself in.

Changing Views

So how can you change your world? Essentially, it is all about perception. Consider for a moment a coin. It has two sides, a top and a bottom. When you flip the coin it can fall on either side, hiding the other side, the other perspective, from you. Imagine yourself being immersed in that one perspective, the view that is visible to you. Emotionally investing in it, committing yourself to that one perspective and following through all your thought processes and beliefs because of that one perspective. But what of the other side of the coin?  Has it stopped existing? If you flip the coin onto its other side, the other side is now on top. It is no longer on bottom or hidden and plainly exists. It is the new perspective.  It doesn’t mean that the other side now no longer exists and the vision of it less true or valid than the other.  It is just two perspectives, as is up and down, to and fro, here and there.

Indeed going back our multi-universe theory, and to a multi universe you. You could be living that perspective just as passionately and with as much conviction as you would living the other perspective. Both exist, both are right, both are true. Our focus, however, is mainly all about that which is in front of us, and it is hard to pull away from something which we have invested in emotionally and can see as fact. 

When we are in conflict with ourselves or others we often apply the polarity labels of right and wrong. All our lives we have been told what is right or wrong by our parents, peers, school and social society, and in their absence we continue to apply these rules to our world. In conflict situations, and following the rules of polarity, if one person is right, then the other person then has to be wrong and vice versa. And, here is where we arrive at the automatic judgement that brings condemnation and non-acceptance of ourselves and others. 

Judgement Day is not just a day.  W e judge in every corner of our lives. The biblical judgement we are promise, we do every day to ourselves and others just because opposites and polarity exists.  The labels which were taught to keep us safe is the minds filter and ruler and becomes the final judgement of ourselves.  Could it be true to state that without your own specific ruler and experience that in another universe you could have adopted the other perspective, and that you would have equally committed to it, invested in it, and live it as your truth? 

As we learn to recognise perspective, and accept that no perspective is right or wrong, and accept that people hold perspective only because they have experienced and emotionally invested in a given perspective, and in essence only have a genuine experience of their own truth and reality. You can remove the judgemental positive and negative emotional charge which the labels of right and wrong give. It becomes far easier to consider other points of view and at the same time to be more open to change as we are being less judgemental on ourselves, and others.  Withdrawing from judgement and noticing that just other perspectives exist, like the coin, allows us to look at past situations and experiences and to focus on always being the best person we can be in an open and compassionate way.  

Happiness is not the just the journey but the destination

Past experiences do not need to hold us back.  We can take the best from them, revisit and recognise that as people we grow and change. Objectively reviewing our selves, and our potential other selves, and the true energy we initially create when we are designing our lives.  So many people let go of things they once loved doing because of the experiences they labelled as right or wrong.  Compartmentalisation of their lives through pain they experienced, but also pushing away the positive things they also experienced, and “forgetting” the joy that inspired and created who they were.  Have you suddenly re taken up doing something you previously enjoyed, and wondered why you stopped doing it as you enjoyed it so much?  The energy of the young does not die, it gets buried in experience where the old label themselves that they are no so young any more, but in truth their minds have just grown weary and distracted through living.Happiness has got lost in the journey of reaching a destination, rather than it being journey and the destination.

Active Awareness

Living without regrets is an active process through the recognition that you are the one who is in charge of your choices.  Accept the responsibility of what is your life. Be gentle with yourself and appreciate that your perspective can change, and so look at what perspectives you have held objectively and subjectively.  Design the life you wish to live, imagine and create it with positivity and belief. Keep revisiting the plan, checking whether your perception of it has changed.  Is it joyful, do the other possibilities resonate joy inside you?How can you bring those possibilities  into your reality to affect you? 

As we live in a linear time, it is perhaps knowing that our past, present and future is a perception in our head, and really everything is present, and Now. Our alternative selves may be living out our other choices in sub-universes, and perhaps, we may not be able to change or control those actions that have taken place, or the consequences of them. Mentally we can time travel to those potentials and imagine talking to our alternative selves and seeing whether anything in that potential resonates with us, whether the joy we avoided, in hindsight is a joy we can build on, now.

The possibilities are endless. There are many paths to joy, but in truth it is just the one you choose through ensuring joy is in every moment that comes your way, and accepting the choice you make, but being consciously awake living this life to be the best person you can be and living with no regrets.

If you would like to understand more about coaching or how I could assist you further, do feel free to contact me. 07795511494