Once we have got our brains around the fact that we can’t let the past control us, it is time to look to the future and stop making predictions. You see, you are not, nor have you probably ever claimed to be a Clairvoyant (someone who can see into the future) so why do so many people worry about their own futures? Once you deal with past issues all that is left of the present (where we are right now) and the future, but so many people do indeed worry about the future and what it might hold…
While you might well have a valid reason for thinking about the future there isn’t any need to worry about it as it simply hasn’t happened yet. By needlessly worrying about the future you can give yourself anxiety issues as well as feelings of depression simply by thinking about things that might never happen! But that is all it is, you are thinking about the future, not foreseeing it, not predicting it, just thinking about it.
Introducing just a small amount of bias in your life towards positive thinking will often result in a much more positive outcome regardless of how inevitable the negative future result is. Positive thinking helps with adversity, it helps with stress levels and anxiety levels, plus it always gives you a better outlook on life. The problem is when we look to the future and worry about it we are only seeing one side of the result. You have already made it a negative future even before something has happened. If you also look at the best possible outcome to a situation or event you will often find that to be much more favourable and therefore more likely.
So what if things don’t go well and that negative thought you had turned out to be true? At the very least you should have learned by the experience and grown stronger from it. Look back on your past for a moment and realise how far you have come as a person. Many people with BPD have already endured a lot of hardship in life, so it’s not so hard to think that their future might be positive as well. Accepting life as it comes might seem like a big goal, but by taking one step at a time, one day at a time you can do just that. By taking just small positive actions in your life today will leave you seeing big improvements in the future.
This Week’s Homework: Just for fun I want you to look out a window so you can see the traffic passing you by. You can do this on a bus, or even just sat on a bench somewhere and write down what colour car you think is going to drive past you next. Give yourself +1 point if you get it right and -1 point if you get it wrong. You will soon realise that you are not a Clairvoyant at all and anything that you do get right is little more than pure guesswork. Unless you do end up with more positive points than negative ones in which case I would start playing the lottery immediately.
