All day long, throughout our lives, our minds snap multidimensional images of everything we see, hear, and feel. Sometimes, smells and tastes are also mentally recorded right into the pictures we’re taking. This is why a smell or a song reminds us of a moment in our past and gives us a warm or cold feeling.
Our conscious mind “talks” to our preconscious through the series of “pictures” we’ve taken throughout our lifetimes. This can be advantageous to us—or not. Mark Twain said, “When a cat steps on a hot stove, he’ll never do that again. But neither will he step on a cold stove.” This quote pretty much defines our challenge when we get stuck and resistant to moving forward in life.
Pulling out photo albums can be a wonderful way to recollect (or recollect) pleasant memories, but it can also be how we remove ourselves from what is happening now. If we start picturing, “This is me crying when I fell off my bike… This is me when the kindergarten teacher punished me… This is me ashamed when my parents caught me doing X… This is me when I was in shape…”—our shutters are stuck and we’re not seeing the setting nor ourselves as we are today.
To move forward in life, we need to learn that those pictures we’ve snapped—no matter how vivid they might be—are nothing but an old photo album. And believe me, no two photographers ever see a scene the same way. This uniqueness of interpretation is a testament to our individuality, a quality that makes each of us valuable and unique. One hundred photographers would interpret the exact same session differently with their unique perspectives!
It’s time to put the albums away. If we start bringing these past pictures into the present, it’s like watching an old movie yet again. Although we might be captivated by the storyline and actors, it had an entirely different cast, director and crew than the ones we’re working with today.
Old films have little to do with today. What photographs will you take today? Will you stay in the moment or slip away to past images? Will you see only black and white? Or allow yourself to see all the grays and silvers of a situation in between the extremes? How about trying to catch the present moment using a rose-colored lens? It’s time to focus on the present, to take control of the narrative of your life and steer it towards a brighter future.
