The future becomes a reflection of the past if you continue looking in a distorted mirror.

Most of us have experienced "Fun House" mirrors. They distort our perspective. When we want to move forward, we spend too much time in the past, looking for perspective.

The best viewpoint is from the position of now. The most actionable assessments are made now.

I made up a philosophy I call Self Acceptance Psychology. The main premise of Self Acceptance Psychology is you have to accept yourself right now, warts and all, in order to move forward.

Did you ever meet a fat person who doesn't think they're fat, or an obnoxious person who doesn't think they're obnoxious? The mirror they are looking in is so distorted that they can't get an accurate reflection.

They recreate their past every day by looking past what's actually here and hang on to the magical thinking that the future will be much different without them having to acknowledge where they are now.

You may not like where you are now, but if you deny you're there, you're not going anywhere.

My CD, I LOVE MY BODY is based on the notion of self acceptance being the ticket forward. Since I do weight loss seminars, I can speak to the fact that most people who want to lose weight, but can't seem to, hate their bodies. The question I ask them is this: "If you wanted a loan from someone, would you go up to that person and mercilessly berate them and tell them you hate their guts?" If you do, what are your chances of getting their cooperation?

People talk to their bodies like that all the time and the results are the same - no cooperation. Loving your body is a metaphor for recognizing and accepting what is. "I'm a big fat slob" is an opinion and shows no love. "I'm 50 pounds overweight" is recognizing and accepting that fact without the personal invective.

Once you recognize your past conditioning rearing its opinionated head, you can interrupt it with only a factual assessment of the evidence, without the weight of opinion. That's noticing and accepting what's here now. It opens the door to cooperation from a part of you that's been fighting with you in the past.

You can't change your past and your past can't change you. Hanging onto and defending past patterns will only make your future a carbon copy of what you already have.

The point of growth is always now. Your future is dependent on now, not on your past. The past has to be outgrown to get to a different future. That means you have to start noticing and interrupting the conditioning of the past. Each time you do these things, you recreate who you are, not reinforce who you were. That reinvention begins at the same spot each time - here and now.

All the best,

John