The Grasshopper offered an early springtime blossom this morning: “It’s irrelevant how you felt then; it’s only relevant how you feel now.”

“I felt so betrayed.”

“I felt so helpless.”

“I felt so angry.”

Notice how all those phrases are in the past tense and notice how they drag you into the past.

Some therapists make their living by inviting these phrases. Is it any wonder that people who remain in therapy for years don’t show any appreciable forward movement.

The past tense keeps you in the past.

Notice your past tense language and you’ll get a handle on how you keep yourself there.

For many, the past is kept alive even though it’s dead and buried. Digging up the corpse again isn’t going to breathe life into your life. It has never worked and never will work but that doesn’t keep us from a steady diet of repasting on the past. Here’s the rub: Even the memory of a wonderful dinner won’t sate your appetite now.

What are your feelings now?

If you examine your situation closely, you’re not “betrayed,” “helpless” or “angry” now; you only get those feelings when you entertain how you felt then. I call that “feeling bad on purpose.”

What’s the purpose? It’s certainly not going to project you forward.

I request that you start monitoring your language and see how much of it is in the past tense. The more you start to focus on now, the more you begin to move on.

What’s going on now is your life; what was going on then may be the death of you if you keep it alive. The key to feeling less tense is to change your past tense.

All the best,

John