If I Could Turn Back Time: 4 Things I Would Tell My Younger Jacked Up Self

As they say, wisdom comes with age, and it is true. It is through experience, and spending more time with ‘us’ that we learn those important life lessons that turn us into better people, make the various crap we encounter easier to deal with, and let the ‘real’ us shine through without as much worry about what other people will think.

But, that certainly isn’t the only way to ‘enlightenment.’ I have come across numerous younger people who have the most amazing perspectives born of the adversity they have faced in their lives, whether it be a serious illness, living in an area rife with violence, political instability and all manner of suffering, or experiencing some sort of traumatic event.

In many ways, I am the same person I have always been, but in other respects, I have changed dramatically. My interest in personal development was a main driving factor. I am a pretty self-reflective person very in touch with my emotions, and always giving very deep thought to what drives my beliefs and behaviors, and what I can do to become a happier, healthier person.

Sometimes I wonder how differently my life would have turned out had I started on this path earlier; I think I would have saved myself a lot of suffering, and my life would have started being awesome a whole lot sooner.

But, then I think..well, can’t do anything about that now. And, I’m sure many of the things I experienced that were borne of my ‘poor’ outlook on life, bad decisions, and the like played integral roles on my path. I venture to say everything turned out the way it was supposed to. So, I try not to focus too much on things I can’t change.

But, I often find myself thinking if I could go back and meet up with a younger version of myself, what would I say to her? What little nuggets of wisdom would I want her to know right now? And of course, this information is applicable to anyone at any age. It is never too late to start being a happier person, or improving your life. But, the sooner we start, the better, that’s for sure!

Have a Little(a LOT) Faith

Nothing has produced as profound an impact on my life as developing stronger faith. I don’t mean religious faith, but just a general sense of knowing good things can happen to you if you believe they will; that the Universe is a friendly place that will conspire with you to bring you what you want, often in ways we can’t even begin to figure out, so resist the urge to try. It’s hard..I know.

We are so conditioned to think logically, and we always want ‘proof.’ Sure, these things have their place in our world, but I gotta say, if you rely too heavily on them, you are really missing out on some great stuff. Once I opened myself up to more empowering beliefs, set specific intentions for what I wanted to bring into my experience, and worked on feeling good and nurturing this ‘faith,’ my world changed in ways I could have never imagined. That was ‘proof’ enough for me.

Learn to be more open. Realize our understanding of our reality is severely limited, not everything can be explained, and just because something doesn’t make sense logically doesn’t mean it can’t be a possibility.

Don’t Be So Afraid of Discomfort

One of the things that have aided me most in living life on my terms was the ability to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Once I got a clearer idea of how I wanted to live, and who I wanted to be, it became glaringly obvious I needed to make some major changes, and do quite of bit of work on my belief system.

The things that we want most in life, almost always, lie on the other side of an uncomfortable decision. Not being fully confident, feeling scared (or absolutely freaking terrified), worrying about what others will think of you and doubt are all par for the course. I think sometimes people take these as some sort of ‘sign’ that you shouldn’t proceed, that if you don’t’ feel 100 percent good, you may be making a mistake.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are very few people who are so confident and wise they don’t grapple with this discomfort. Getting to where I am today involved me making a lot of uncomfortable decisions, and feeling not so great a lot of the time, but I powered through it because I knew I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. So many of us are not living the life we want or being the person we want to be because of the fear of this discomfort that comes with making bold choices. If you can learn to sit with it, the ways in which you can change your life will amaze you.

Honor Who You Are

Sadly, truly being ourselves and living as we wish to live is one of the hardest things to do. That is kind of crazy when you think about it. But, it is understandable to see how this comes about. We grow up in a certain family, religion, society, culture and country where particular norms, beliefs and ideas of what is ‘right’ and’ wrong’, and ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ are constantly pounded into our head.

And as time goes on, all of this gets rooted very deeply. We get wrapped up in a lot of ‘shoulds’ and it is easy to get swept up in a life we come to discover we actually never wanted. Denying our real self, and how we actually want to live our life, creates a lot of internal discord that can make for a very unhappy and frustrated existence.

But, actually doing what we want can make us feel pretty uncomfortable too, which is why a lot people never take the leap. But, I can tell you one thing. All the inner turmoil  we may experience from following our heart, being true to ourselves and all jazz, pale in comparison to what gets stirred up when we don’t allow the true us to rise to the surface, live to please others and meet their expectations, try to fit in, or pursue what we are taught to believe we ‘should’ want.

When you are being true to yourself, all the crappy stuff that you may experience is weakened by the fact you are doing the things that make you happy; you have given some serious thought to what you want, and that bolsters your confidence in the path you have chosen, and the decisions you make, so other people’s criticisms and judgments carry less weight.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking not rocking the boat, avoiding conflict with others and all the ‘benefits’ you may derive from being someone you’re really not are preferable. Honoring who I am hasn’t always been easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Other People and Let Your Path Unfold as It Will

It is hard not to compare ourselves to other people, and I can only imagine the additional mental suffering I would have experienced if Facebook and other forms of social media were as prevalent as they are now.

I remember so much turmoil resulting from comparing myself to others. Compared to me, so many people I knew seemed to have their ‘shit together,’ or were doing so much better than I was. And, like most of us do, I assumed they must have been happier than I —whether that is true is something we can never really know, so I have gotten better at not doing that as much.

Paying too much attention to what everyone else is doing will keep you from carving out the right path for you. You will start suffering from a major case of the ‘shoulds,’ and end up doing things you probably don’t really want to do, even though you will try very hard to convince yourself that you do want to do them. When everyone else is doing things a certain way, it is easy to trick yourself into thinking that’s the ‘right’ thing to do, and what you may want is ‘wrong.’ But there is no such thing.

Let your path unfold as it will; constantly evaluate what is happening to see where you need to shift gears, but be patient. Enjoy the journey a bit more. Don’t worry so much about what everyone else is doing. It doesn’t matter.

For the record, I am far from having mastered these lessons, and there are parts of me that still challenge these truths. But, I have come a long way baby. If you can work on embracing these truths, you have no idea the degree of change you can make in your life. Things that seem impossible now will seem possible; you will take greater responsibility for your life, and greater control. Things will just get better, and you will be happier, and isn’t that the core thing we are all after?