Viterbo, July 27th 2025
Were you top of the class, Friend?
And did you feel like you were right on time? Maybe even ahead of time?
Or did you feel like you were lagging behind, rather?
That frustrating feeling started really early for me, I remember I was in third grade, and I was thinking that if only I could go back to first grade, I would be so much better at it, this time around!
My notebooks would be so tidy and well written, with no mistakes. My drawings would be so much nicer. I would be top of my entire class, so smart, so self-confident, so popular!
And the fact that I couldn’t go back, and fix and erase that mess, really bugged me.
I was feeling painfully ashamed of how shy and awkward I had been at the beginning…
If I could go back as the big girl that I am now, I would walk around with my head up, smile at people, look straight in the teacher’s eyes. I would pick the desk that I like the best, and display my outstanding homework on it.
But there I was, struggling with my third grade stuff, having to go through all of it it for the first time, feeling really small, overwhelmed, and underequipped.
Over the following decades, that same idle thought kept resurfacing from time to time.
If only I could go back, but as the person I am today! I would handle things a lot better, make much better decisions, go in much better directions… God knows things would be different!
♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️
This thought pattern seems to pester a lot of people, it comes up in conversation all the time, with my clients, with friends and family, with strangers while queuing up at the supermarket – I’m not joking, it happened again this week 😊
This comes with quite a few undesirable side effects attached. The first one is, that we’re often beating ourselves up for not having been better in the past. All the “what was I thinking”, “how could I be so stupid”, “I have been so bad”, and all the horrible names we might be calling ourselves, have absolutely nothing constructive, they only bring down our energy, our mood, our hopes, and our self-esteem.
Another problem is, that while we’re stuck in the past, revisiting situations, replaying them over and over, we might be overcome by those same emotions again. And as you know, our emotions broadcast a certain frequency, that then reveals more things to us, with that exact same frequency. So if we’re often ashamed, we’re setting ourselves up for more shame, if we’re sad, for more sadness, if we’re angry, for more anger, etc. That’s why staying stuck in regret over the past will only keep us in a limbo that feels the same as our past.
The next big problem with that is, that this limbo is not our real present. We might think we are at the current time and date, but that’s still not our present. Our present is determined by our presence. And when we’re present to the past, we’re absent to the present. Basically missing out on life, because it’s only from the present that we can create consciously. When acting from the past, we’re creating unconsciously, and will usually not be happy with our creations.
But this I know for sure:
🔸 Your soul knows, understands, accepts, and loves, everything and everyone. When you came into this physical life, you chose to really challenge yourself. You accepted to play a very demanding game, and to play it with a huge handicap.
Choosing to play from a perspective of separation — apparent separation from your soul and from any guidance that you would be aware of — in ever-changing environments full of unknowns, is a brave step to take.
And in this rough game, it’s perfectly normal to figure things out as you go, to not have the answers, to make ‘mistakes’. I personally don’t believe in mistakes, I only see options, learnings, unexpected outcomes, chances to grow.
🔸 Everyone’s path is unique, everyone is seeking different experiences, and entry levels to the game vary greatly by number of games already played. But what we all have in common is, that we will find some mud on our paths.
Mud slows you down, you might slip on it and fall on your face, it will stick to your body and your clothes. When the mud is high, going forward can feel almost impossible. But then it will crumble off once it’s dry, and it can be washed off if we dare to bathe in a clear river. Cleaning off the mud means healing from trauma. Just reply to this email, if you want to talk about this.
♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️ ♾️
Have you ever bought some really beautiful notepads and books, some gorgeous paper, some really special ink, and then never used them because you didn’t want to waste them? Kept them in a drawer for when you have more important things to write in them? For when your handwriting will come back, after decades of typing? For when your poems will have reached absolute perfection, because you don’t want any strike-throughs on those beautiful pages?
I still have an elephant-shaped notepad from when I was 9…
Those beautiful pages were created for you to write on them. You need to be alive to be able to write. If you’re alive, you’re constantly writing chapters and poems in the book of your life. And even if you end up with corrections, asterisks and arrows, with ink and mud and blood stains, with torn pages, all of that is still worthy of the most precious stationery you can find.
Your most precious page is this very moment, right now ❤️
What are you writing today, Friend?
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