Road to Self-Improvement: Epochs of Your Life
Knowing your past improves your future in ways that many don’t understand. There aren’t many people willing to accept their flaws. There are fewer that accept it and choose to work towards improvement, that path being unclear and challenging. To begin improving and understanding yourself now, you must reconcile with the facts of the past. Everyone needs to know how the past affects them and should come to terms with that so as not to be trapped in the past. That is necessary for moving forward.
For some people, it’s easier than others. If you are someone with deep-seated problems such as long term trauma and PTSD, I readily recommend consulting an expert as this article may not be for you.
This article is my next step of self-authoring, which will be to write out your past to better understand it and yourself because knowing your past improves your future. This can be difficult for someone with serious issues, and it may cause more harm than good. Always consult a professional if you have doubts.
Retrace your steps
What is the first step people will take when they get lost on a trip? Oddly enough, it is not asking for directions or checking a map. No, most people will retrace their steps, just like looking for car keys. It’s an obvious method, so why not try that? Well, you backtrack, get turned around a few times, but finally, you know where you are. You also understand better how you managed to get lost in the first place.
This is precisely how separating your past into sections and writing things out will help. You have somehow inexplicably misplaced yourself. You’re hopelessly lost, maybe a bit scared, and certainly confused. The only way to find yourself is to backtrack and reflect on the past. The process is straight forward but difficult.
Find the Epochs of your Life
First, separate your life into four or five major segments. It could be more, but I’d recommend not less. For example, they could be birth to elementary, elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. Like this, you’ll have sections of the past that equally represent who you are and what you’ve done in your time alive.
After you have segmented your life, list the significant events of these sections. They should be rather easy to find as they are things that people tend to measure their lives by and identify with. If it affected you in any significant way, good or bad, then it is likely substantial.
Especially any event that you think of and still have a strong emotional reaction to. A response like that means you’ve yet to sort out that event and why it was so significant. You haven’t learned from that experience.
Write About the Facts of your Past
The second part of the process is more difficult. Here, you will begin to write about the events. At first, it is best to start with the objective. Write the event out in as much detail as you can recall.
It should be the FACTS. There is no reason to write something that isn’t true. You can’t lie to yourself if you want to improve. Just like being lost on a trip, if you lie and pretend you did not take that turn, then you will never find your way back. All the backtracking will be wrong because of those lies.
How Did the Event Make you Feel
Once you’ve gotten down the facts, write about how these facts made you feel. Take the time to find the best words to express exactly what you felt at that time and how you feel about it now.
People often try to cover up unpleasant things with humor or embellish good things to make them seem better. Losing your keys can be frustrating in the moment and funny after you realize they were in your hand. Your past can also elicit different emotions and responses depending on your level of mastery of the event.
On top of describing what made you feel which emotions, explain why you think you felt that way. Maybe, you aren’t frustrated because the keys are lost. It’s the fact that they are lost at the EXACT time you were in a hurry and needed them, or you told yourself not to lose them and still did. This leads to the last point.
Understand your Roles in the Past
You must accept what has happened in your past and learn from it. You have the facts, you know how it affected you, and now you must understand how to avoid it in the future. Dr. Peterson has made the bold yet accurate statement that the reason we, as humans, remember the past is to learn and gain wisdom. We avoid stumbling into ditches and losing our way again by learning how it happened in the first place, and how we played a part in the event. That’s right; you need to know how YOU played a part.
Don’t start with the blame game of pointing fingers because there is no one here but yourself. The event has passed, and no one but you can accept responsibility for your part in the play. This doesn’t mean you are at fault, or you are to blame. Often things happen that aren’t in our control. The only thing you can do is go along with the event.
However, if you see a way in which you believe you can do better in the future, make a note of that. Write how you, voluntarily or involuntarily, played a role in the unfolding of events. Yes, as painful as it might be, it is critical you know that you may have made a mistake that led to being lost in the forest. Take responsibility. Own up to your mistakes and learn how not to repeat that in the future.
Don’t be Responsible for Someone Else’s Mistake
Not everything is your fault, of course. Be sure you figure out what was and wasn’t in your hands. Sometimes it’s pointless to take on unnecessary burdens when you were not in control in the first place.
Many times trauma is not the fault of the victim, but the fault of the assailant. For those times, it is always best to see a professional to resolve your conflicted past.
However, for people in less severe situations, like having lost your keys, it might do well to understand how you went wrong and try taking responsibility for the future.
To master yourself is to master the past. Understand what happened, know how it made you feel, and see how you played a part.
It’s better psychophysiologically to tackle the issues yourself than to let them haunt you. Once you’ve mastered and conquered the burning fire of your past, you’ll become a Lord of Flame. Then, the next time those fires arise, you will be able to control them, push them elsewhere, or put them out entirely without ever being burned.
Knowing your past improves your future, and that is the result of knowing your past. Some things are unavoidable, and it’s not your fault. Sometimes, things happen. Don’t worry about those times. However, this is your life. Take control. Be a Lord on your journey of self-Improvement.
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