Here we are nearing the end of 2016, looking forward to 2017. Most of us go through life as if we are in a car on a road traveling into the future with the past in our rear view mirror. Often we just keep moving forward, not stopping to look back at where we have been or thinking much about where we desire to go.

So, what I would like you to do right now is imagine that you stop that car in which you are traveling, get out, and imagine you walk up a very tall hill from which you can look down at the road of your life. As you look off to the left you can see the past stretching back over the last year and as you look to the right you can see your future for the next year.

The past is clear, we have memories of events, holidays, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, deaths, births, jobs, marriages, children, accidents, accomplishments, and so on. Events and people have populated the time over the last year. Some of it has been awesome and amazing. Some of it has been sad, depressing, and fear producing. Now as we stand on this hill looking back at these events we need to spend some time with those memories.

The joy-filled ones need to be expanded and re-experienced as if we are reliving them. Feel the wonder and amazement of those memories. Magnify them and impress them in your mind as situations that you would like to repeat. Do this from time to time. By the Law of Attraction, more similar circumstances will come into your life.

We need to diminish the unhappy memories and change them to a new “memory” of what we wish would have happened. We can learn from every sad, frightening, and unpleasant memory. What do we wish would have happened? What would have been a better outcome? Recall as many of those negative events that you can. What did you learn? What would you do differently? What would have been a better situation? What would you have preferred? Play these new “memories” over and over in your mind. Doing this removes the fear and anxiety from the event and produces the lesson or an understanding of why something happened.

From this you can move on by looking to the right, into the future. For most of us the future is dim and unclear. We have been taught that we do not know what is going to happen to us and that we just have to wait and see. That is not entirely true. At some level we create our future. We either have hopes, dreams and goals or we have fears and doubts about what might happen to us. Where we put our focus is likely to bring us to that event. Our futures have many potential paths. There are many forks in the road ahead. If you plan what you would like to experience, there is a very good chance that you will get that or something even better. If you have no goals or definiteness of purpose, then you will have no control of what happens and you will just drift along with the flow of everyone else’s lives.

Here is a little secret.

You can increase your chance of achieving a dream or a goal by imagining that you have already done it. Imagine being grateful for having experienced that goal. Focus on that feeling. When you do this in this manner, you will have a much greater probability of actually living that future.

So, clean up your unpleasant past memories by imagining what you would rather have had and then plan your future by imagining that you have already done the things that you desire to be, do, or have in relationships, occupation, recreation, money and health.

Put Your Health in Your Own Hands.

If you want to learn more about this, you can join Barb and me at B and B’s Retreat Center above the Healing Center, Friday night from 6:30 to 9:00. Limited to 15 people. $15. Call Barb at 231-598-3033 to save your spot. If you cannot attend this Meeting of the Minds, then read, A Shortcut to Success, by Bob Huttinga, PA-C, available on Amazon.com.