Welcome to Jim Phillips’ Wednesday Wisdom for January 30th! Each Wednesday, WU World Changer Jim Phillips will share some mid-week wisdom for you to ponder and embrace!
“Neither your past nor your future defines who you are.”
If this is true, “neither your past nor your future defines who you are,” then what does?
When you are asked, who are you, how do you respond? Have you ever thought about it, do you even care?
Our past only shows us who and where we were, not who we are or where we are going. There’s no question the experiences we have, influence who we are and where we are going, however, they don’t define who we are unless we give them the power to do so.
We read and hear a lot these days about the importance of being authentic, living in full expression of one’s truth. To do that a person has to know who they are beyond what they see in the mirror or what others might say or have said about them. A person is certainly not what happened to them, although all too often we hear people refer to themselves in terms of what happened.
This isn’t to say that an experience wasn’t traumatic or extremely challenging; only that it does not define the person.
Everything in life, every event in life is an experience, nothing more and nothing less. Every experience of life offers the opportunity for each one of us to gain a greater understanding of who we are, to get to our own truth, and ultimately, life from and as that truth.
“What happened doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens.”
It is difficult to detach from our emotions, feelings, and beliefs of who we are that are tied to previous experiences. Yet when we do, what remains is the truth of who we are. We are not what we think, what we say, what we do or what we experience. We are that which experiences and is witness to that which we think, say, do and believe.
We are all engaged in a version of identity theft which robs us of the life of joy, happiness, peace, and love that is our birthright; The life that has been made available to us by the Divine force of creation. Why would we deny the life that we so passionately desire? That is the question for each of us to answer.
Why do we live in the present mired in the past and fearful of the future? Why do we believe that because something happened it is forever the determinant for what has yet to come?
As we stand in this present moment, the only time that exists, we are always at the point of choice, the point of creation. Nothing that preceded this moment can prevent us from creating anew.
Our resistance to life, which is our attachment to the past, causes the fear, stress, and frustration we too often experience. Living in each moment untethered to who we believe we are, what has happened, or what we fear might happen, frees us to experience and express our Self in ever-expanding ways as we fulfill the purpose of life, the progressive realization of our truth.
To facilitate this realization, each morning ask, “what is required of me to allow that which I am to experience and express through me and as me?”
See you back here this time next week!
– Jim
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Jim Phillips is a LIFE Strategist, speaker, and America’s Leading Authority on Living in Full Expression. In fact, he wrote the book on it. He has also been engaged in the business world for over 40 years during which he has been inspiring others to higher levels of achievement and understanding through strategy sessions, coaching, writing and more than 20 International Business Conference presentations. He currently resides in Ashburn, VA where he continues his writing, coaching and speaking. To learn more, visit his website.
