Personal Growth Planet Blog

In last week’s blog post, I described what a double exposed moment or life is like and I laid out some of the potential hazards of this (usually) unconscious reaction.

Those double exposed moments are when the past and present fuse together in a weird and sometimes painful amalgam in the mind.

They literally alter a person’s experiences. The reactions that come from this confusing fusion can be anger or defensiveness that doesn’t seem to fit the situation or could involve an emotional withdrawal or shutting down.

The effects to a person’s relationships and ability to attain goals can be negative.

We do not consider ourselves Hindus, but each year my family celebrates a modern Hindu holiday. It’s called Pancha Ganapati and it honors the Hindu God Ganesh, the half-elephant, half-boy son of Shiva and Parvati.

What I absolutely love about Pancha Ganapati is the way that it brings my husband, two sons and I together for a few moments of quiet togetherness each of the 5 days of the holiday. Right next to our Christmas tree, we set up an altar with a little statue of Ganesh, colored pieces of fabric, some candles and  the daily puja– a treat for Ganesh.

“Will I be a pilgrim or an Indian?” This is the question I remember asking myself in late November when I was in grade school. We wore construction paper feathers or pilgrim hats on our heads and got to eat special food at school.

We were taught about the peaceful and cooperative meal shared by Native Americans and white settlers.

However, if you read what historians have to say, this is pretty much a misrepresentation of what actually went down.

Guilt can crop up in our lives at just about every turn.

You might feel guilty because you’ve strayed from your diet.
You may feel guilty because you forgot the birthday of a dear friend.
You could feel guilty because you spoke harshly to your spouse.
You may feel guilty because you aren’t as kind, generous, reliable, eco-friendly, productive, religious or spiritual…. as you think you should be.

It seems that we humans are hard-wired with a propensity to feel guilty.

September 11th used to be a date of happy anticipation for me. It is the day before my wedding anniversary, so it is something I– previously– associated only with eagerness for the celebrating to come on the 12th.

After 2001, however, this all changed.

Yes, I still look forward to and do celebrate my wedding anniversary with my husband on September 12th each year. But, the day before is a more confusing experience now. For me, there is a sadness and a bit of anxiousness mixed in with my excitement to commemorate the love that my husband and I have shared over the years.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”- Albert Einstein

No matter how many wise and witty quotes I read about the value– even the necessity– of making mistakes in life, it’s still uncomfortable and sometimes painful for me when they happen.

There have got to be very few people in this world who actually enjoy making mistakes.

Even the most laid-back, easy-going souls among us probably cringe when they say the “wrong” thing, drop a plate full of food on someone’s white carpeting, forget an important deadline or some other blunder among the millions of possible blunders a person could make.

Pretty much every one of us has some (or many) old wounds that we carry around. Long ago, or more recently, we were “wronged” or hurt in some way and we just can’t seem to get over it.

Forgiveness is one very effective and powerful way to heal those wounds…or so we’ve probably been told.

The trouble with forgiveness is it is such a loaded concept!

There’s a definite connotation that posits forgiveness as the “right” or compassionate thing to do for another person. Religious teachings might have helped cement this self-less understanding of forgiving in your mind; they have for me.

Have you ever wished that you could take a particularly painful memory from your past and simply erase it?

I have a few (or more) memories that, at times, I would love to be rid of. These are the images, feelings and beliefs related to events in my past that crop up and seem to ruin my whole day, week, month or even years.

Recently, I watched the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It tells the story of a man and woman who met, fell in love, argued, made love, argued some more and then broke up.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

In the previous blog post, I talked about those “oops” moments– when you’ve set diet or fitness goals for yourself only to discover somewhere down the road that you’ve veered quite far from the course you intended.

Sometimes we are very aware of the splurge we are having or the “vacation” from the gym we are taking. Other times, we simply get so caught up in life we don’t realize that we’re eating and moving (or not) in ways that we’d supposedly sworn off for good.

It happens.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

I’ve been knee-deep in celebrations lately. My two sons’ birthdays fall within 8 days of one another in November. This means a lot of parties, cake, presents and fun this time of year in my family.

It also usually means a lot of dredging up the past for me.

As we mark their birthdays, I have this habit of recalling my perceived mistakes around each of their births and early years– as well as my many missteps as a mom over my sons’ past 15 and 11 years, respectively.