If you could be a time traveler, where would you go? Into the past to fix the stuff that didn’t quite work out as you’d hoped or into the future to mischievously adjust your outcomes causing them to be wildly successful, much to the annoyance of all those who stare back at the past with sore necks as their body trudges forward in time.
Of course time travel isn’t really possible.
Is it?
Problems from the past:
People automatically and without realizing become very talented at moving their problems through time, space and energy.
You might know someone (we all do) who is particularly good at generalizing and stating that “things always work out this way”, or “everybody does that.” Despite their generalizations being inaccurate some of the time, they continue to apply their rules to all occasions painting their generalization paint brush over a greater space than the original image and blurring the edges of the reality of the picture.
Perhaps you know someone (if you don’t it is probably you) who moves problems from the past into others. They like to share their story share their pain, zap their own energy and zap yours too. This is the classic “I have a terrible headache today – oh you know what it’s like when you’re head is just pounding and you start to feel sick…” Of course as soon as you hear “you know…” unless you are a ninja in mind voodoo then you’ll start trying on their pain.
So we can move problems through space by generalizing that problems are in places that they never were to begin with. We can move problems through energy by telling other people that they have our problem too, but can we really move problems through time?
Here is an example of how you can:
I have a problem
I did have a problem
I had a problem
I’m going to have a problem
I’m having a problem
I’ve always had problems
I’ll always have problems
I’ll always have had problems
Think about where the problem is travelling to with each sentence – the past, the present or future. Now change the word problem to happiness, adjust the sentence so it still work grammatically e.g. “I have happiness” and notice how you think or feel differently.
Doing these kind of linguistic exercises doesn’t necessarily get rid of all of the bad stuff form the past or guarantee that you’ll be wildly successful in the future, but you can get in touch with a little sense of making yourself feel lighter or heavier about things.
And what if, the problems that stayed and the happiness that came and went were actually influenced by the expectations your language created? If that were truly so wouldn’t you wish to err on the side of caution just in case you really do (not did) possess the ability to influence your experience in this vast universe? By simply saying that you did in the past, just as you do now, influence your own world and will continue to do so long into your future.
