by Mike Mandel
Is it Time to Turn the Page?
Over the years, I've come to view my life as a long, complex novel filled with chapters.
It's a fitting metaphor for living because seeing life this way enables us to handle change, especially when the future is uncertain.
When I reflect on my seventy-plus years, a vast collage of images sweeps across my mind. I can classify these memories as triumphant or traumatic, fabulous or frightening.
I immediately recall the scary week I spent at Toronto Island Science School when I was about nine. My unconscious mind offers long-forgotten thoughts and images of our activities and the loneliness I felt being away from home for the first time.
My mind jumps further back to our voyage from England to Canada in 1957 on the HMS Carinthia. I remember the horror of endless seasickness in the turbulent North Atlantic in the fall of the year.
I remember childhood friends, like Tony, an Italian boy who swore we would be friends forever until I moved away, and a chapter ended.
Friday nights were always wonderful, starting with Cub Scouts at Kimbourne Park United Church, then home to watch Don Amici on International Showtime and Candid Camera.
We truly are a font of memories, aren’t we? These memories largely define who we are by what we've done, meant to do, and the things that have happened to us.
More recently, I recall the parade of wonderful cats that have blessed me with their friendship and the week I spent in Newfoundland shooting a pilot for a haunted lighthouse tour.
Memories...
Young hypnotist Mike
As I look back, I notice a common theme running through my life events, both good and bad. It’s not just a series of things that happened, automatically classified as good or bad events in the ongoing chapters.
Instead, these sentences and paragraphs that I lived and that arranged themselves into chapters had something in common: resourcefulness, or the lack of it.
When we have the skills or knowledge to cope with life’s variety, we tend to frame those moments as positive. Conversely, the lack of specific life skills in any given moment tends to mark those events as negative. However, when we learn from those negative events and choices, we increase our likelihood of creating more positive memories in the future.
It’s all about resources and being resourceful.
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It’s the difference between meeting life head-on and being crushed by a nasty set of events. This difference comes from continuously growing, improving, and learning powerful practical skills that create a better life.
It all comes down to personal growth and development.
The greater your base knowledge and the more varied your skills, the better equipped you'll be to take on life’s challenges and write positive new chapters in your life.
To that end, it’s vital to furnish your brain with learnings that will serve you throughout your life. Becoming an expert on every Hunger Games episode probably won't be a useful resource unless you're attending a conference on the subject.
On the other hand, there are real skills to be gained in emotional health, physical fitness, finances, relationships, creativity, and other areas that provide the resources to enjoy a good life, no matter what comes your way.
Personal growth and continual development won’t enable you to avoid all the speed bumps you’ll hit along life’s highway. But it’s much better to be well-equipped to deal with them than to frantically attempt to cope in the midst of a crisis.
When I teach hypnosis, both live and online, I emphasize to my students that they must always bring their best selves to hypnotherapy sessions. But it goes beyond that.
We need to bring our best selves to all aspects of life, both ours and the lives of those who matter most to us.
The more resourceful you become, the more good memories you’ll create, and the chapters that close will be good ones.
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