Tag Archive: Personal Growth
The past is gone, it’s dead. Learn from it or forget about it, but whatever you do, don’t dwell on it. Such thoughts will only hijack the present and cast the future into doubt. Athletes don’t save energy for races they have already run. Chris Evans
I’ve been reading Chris Evans book “Memoirs of a Fruitcake” and have found it an exciting read. Whilst I’ve often aspired to read autobiographies I very rarely do. However, during the summer I wanted a light read and picked this one up. I like Chris and thought it would be a fun book – it hasn’t disappointed. I love his quick wit and energetic persona and in recent years I’ve had a growing awareness of a new honesty within him and an appreciation for people and life.
I’ve recently had reason to consider a few things in my past. We’ve all made mistakes and done things we regret but for some reason I have a mind that sometimes won’t let go of them. My mind can sometimes be quite a vicious place for its owner. Don’t worry there is nothing major nor horrendous in my past! I haven’t murdered someone or done something equally as horrible. In fact I’m often baffled as to why my mind remembers the embarrassing minutia of my life and insists on casting it up. I’m sure a therapist would have a field day. You can see why therefore the above quote of Chris’s hit a chord, it’s time to stop the past hijacking the present and to march freely into the future.
If you’re looking a light fun read with the odd poignant moment thrown in let me recommend this book to you!
I recently came across a local band called the 1930s. I have to say they are a breath of fresh air.
If you like Mumford & Son you will want to give this a listen. The lyric below jumped off my iPod yesterday from a song of theirs called “I’m a vapour” and it has been banging round my head since.
Some people die when they are forty
But they’re not buried to they’re 75
Just because your heart is beating
Doesn’t mean that you’re alive
I’m a vapour here today gone tomorrow
Don’t want to live my life here
With a heart full of sorrow
At one stage or another we have all had the conversation with ourselves or others as to what it means to be truly living. Each one of us will have an individual answer I’m sure but here’s a little additional thought. Having an answer to what it means to be truly living and then transforming the thought to experience needs attention to detail and careful monitoring. We need to frequently visit the question and remind ourselves of the answers. If we don’t the pace at which we live often allows the answers to drop out of our daily agenda and day to day experience. For £3.16 on iTunes I think it’s worth every penny – go buy the lads EP “All these things” and see what you think.
Over the past few months I’ve been reading a series of four books written by Steve Goss as part of his work with “Freedom in Christ”. They focus on things that may be holding you back in your faith, areas like faulty thinking and dodgy theology. Alongside of this I have had a growing frustration within myself that much of my thinking doesn’t add up. Some of my rules and behaviours are simply outdated and as I examine them I wonder how they were ever helpful in the first place.
I once worked with a man who in his teens had developed severe fits of rage. He would get into fist fights very easily and found that he struggled in many social settings. As a result he set himself the rule that he didn’t go out socially. Things like weddings and parties were out of the question & he even had reservations over walking the dog. 40 years later and as we worked together he began to realise that these rules were nonsensical. Perhaps if they made sense it was for the man he was in his late teens and twenties but not for a man in the autumn of his life. Over time the seasons of life had changed for him but unfortunately he had not realised that the rules could have and should have changed too.
At the time I thought this was all a little sad but recently I’m realising that I too may have areas in my life were I’m making the same mistake. I tend to hide it but at my core I am a very insecure person and I hate this, it makes a prisoner of me and stops me from functioning. It conflicts with other parts of my persona in so many different ways that at times I could scream with the frustration of it. I want to be social but often haven’t got the courage. I know exactly the point and the events that this comes from and how the resulting life rules were made. These were made in a previous life season and have little or no bearing now and yet I still allow them to influence me.
This is just one example and I am mindful of others. The more I have prayerfully looked at my life the more myths and lies within myself I have found… Its time to cut loose, its time to move on, here’s to a future full of freedom in Christ free from falsehoods, myths and outdated thinking.
Ocean Blue 