Oh hello, darling, and welcome back to February on benpechey.com and compassion month. I want to bring you content that urges you to reconnect with yourself and to put love and joy into all aspects of your life. So far I have discussed the relationship we have with ourselves, and how we can exercise self-care to improve our wellbeing.
Today I want to talk to you about memories, and the power they have over us. We often look back at the things in our past, and only pick out the negative parts, as if we are a treadmill that is ascending higher and higher, with our only goal to beat ourselves.
Well, life is not like a Mario Kart time trial, it’s not about beating ourselves all the time. We have the right to be proud of what we have achieved, and we need to take the time to remember that. The memories we have are the experiences that have made us the person we are today, and we would not be where we are now without them.
No matter how bad you think something was, I guarantee it will have helped you, in ways that you may not have comprehended at the time. I for one know that I have had some pretty rubbish jobs in the past, with rubbish pay, long hours, no pay at all, and no job satisfaction. Yet I sit typing this here today, knowing the skills that I took from all of those jobs are things I still rely upon.
You may well be sceptical here, but let me show you how a less than desirable job can create foundations for amazing things. I started retail aged 16, nearly 10 years ago, I was shy and unsure of myself. From the very first day on the shop floor, I had to speak to so many people, that this soon became easy. I owe my ability to speak comfortably and confidently publicly to my retail positions. Oh, and as a bonus, these jobs also mean I will happily answer my phone because once you have dealt with angry customers on the phone, you can handle anything!
So you see, the past years of our lives are a minefield of great things if we just apply them to our lives right now. It also gives us breathing room when it comes to working out the events of our current lives. Whether a person has faded from your life, or you feel unstable in your work life, in a few years these big events will be memories you have converted into positive attributes.
So for the here and now just accept what’s happening and go through the motions. It can be a legitimate and compassionate way to help you cope, and will allow you the time to mentally come to terms with what happened.
Humans can be hard on each other, but we are even harder on ourselves. Often we need perspective to make sense of events, and this post could do that for you. If you can see things differently, it may make way more productive sense than ever before. Try it for yourself, take the positives of your past, and see how far you have come my darling!
Thank you for joining me today, as always, I will be back next week to continue compassion month.
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Photographer - Poppy Marriot
Art Director - Josie Gealer Ng
Shot for - Getty Images Creative