Sometime all you need is to realize you’re absolutely not okay with the way things are to start making changes. You can’t change the past or the decisions that you’ve already made, but you’re starting from here, from right now, and you can choose a different path. Your anger at how things are could be the driving force for you to change and turn things around.
Many posts on Reddit where I hang out to help out are by people who think their life is over because of all the mistakes they’ve made. And it definitely seems that way on occasion, when you look at your life, compare it with where you wanted to be or with the people around you, and come up short. It feels awful and in those moments it seems like there’s no way out. But there is.
There’s a story about a 90 year old woman who was interviewed for TV a few years ago. The interviewer asked her if she regretted anything about her life. She said: “I wish I’d taken up the violin when I was 70 years old, I would have been playing for 20 years by now.”
It’s never too late, never. Even on the last day of your life, even at the last hour, you can shift, change your perspective, become a better version of yourself. There’s always time because changes in perception are instantaneous and our perception colors our reality.
The reason it’s so hard to see is that our minds are clouded by unrealized and unfelt emotions. Regret, envy, self-judgement, anger, fear and just plain old resistance to what is are the coals in the fire that stokes our mind and causes it to generate thought after thought, one worse than the other. We’re walking around (or as the case may be, laying awake in bed) trapped by those thoughts, and by the underlying emotions.
Tuning into these emotions directly, feeling them fully, viscerally, directly, is the shortest path to getting rid of the troubling thoughts and seeing things clearly. It’s the shortest path to realizing that yes, there is time. Yes, there are choices to be made. And yes, the choices you make do make a difference.
I’m particularly inspired by older people like Dorit, Yael’s mom, who at the respectable age of 65, after a life of struggle and after losing many people dear to her, is walking the path, waking up, opening up, touching her core and finding love, companionship and intimacy.
So I encourage you to pause, take stock, acknowledge your faults and your strengths, lift your head up, and walk on. And if you stumble and life threatens to overwhelm you, reach for Wuju. It’s a wonderful tool for these rough moments to help you get back on track, back to your center and to find the will to shift your perspective and your life.