If you take a look back from your past to today, you may begin to see how what you’ve experienced had progressed over time on a path to bring you to where you are at this moment.
These can be broken down to physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual paths, keeping in mind that, though they are all interconnected, we are able to follow a line as it progresses.
A simplified exercise is to look backward to see all the connections and experiences that led you to your life partner or your current career. The people, connections and circumstances that led you, step by step, to bring you here, now. Nothing really comes out of the blue. There’s clues along the path, but we usually can’t see them until they have passed us. Hindsight is an amazing teacher.
You can use the looking and working backward exercise to see the progression you made on a specific path (or experience) physically, spiritually and/or emotionally. Pick one and follow it back. Walk the path backwards (in your mind). How did you make the final connection? What happened right before that to allow this connection to be made? And right before that? Keep going back until you find the root; the beginning of that path that took you to here and now.
Looking back awes me. The connections made; the people involved; the circumstances encountered. All an intricate weaving of a complicated tapestry that becomes our adventure’s (aka life’s) backdrop.
Now, if you’re using a negative experience to follow back, it should be done to understand, not to find someone else to blame. It was your own choices, or decisions on how to move forward, that led to this outcome.
Looking back at our progression, as a person, town, city, state, country or globally can help us to understand a bigger picture.
I sometimes share a story or experience then offer a deeper meaning or view for that experience. So here’s what prompted this article:
I’ve been in a wheelchair with my leg in a rigid splint while recovering from surgery. The means I can’t reach my foot at the end of that splint.
As my husband helped me, I felt humbled and in gratitude for all he has done for me. This included him working to keep my spirits up.
One day he lovingly told me that he had a yellow sock for my foot, and waggled his eyebrows. I busted out laughing, and said, “Oh, how the mating rituals have changed over the years making me excited about the proffered warm yellow sock for a foot I can’t reach.” I said it jokingly, but it is a truth. And looking back over thirty plus years of marriage and I can see the progression and maturation of our relationship, even leading up to the yellow sock. I have to say, I feel blessed and exited to see where we progress from here.
I encourage you to query a path in your past to see how you got here today. By looking backwards, seeing the steps (or clues) that led you here can help you to start learning to see the patterns of the weaving as you continue your life journey. With practice, hindsight may not be as necessary to teach us, and may even aid us in seeing and recognizing clues as our path unfolds before us.
May this provide you insights and understandings on your life adventure.
By Jan Toomer
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