"There is no right or wrong. It’s then versus now."
- Rob Bell

I've lived most of my life in fear of being bad or wrong.

Sure, I've always been a confident go-getter who doesn't take shit, yet behind the scenes, my mind had a program running that no matter what I did, someone would be upset or I'd get in trouble.

This fear caused me to make a lot of choices that hurt me or others. It flavored everything I did with an energy of "I hope no one gets upset," even when I KNEW in my conscious mind that it wasn't really about me.

My unconscious mind would keep me busy as I fell asleep and woke up with a story running that I had to do things right, so I better be perfect.

I wasn't aware this was even happening, yet it tinged everything I touched. And it wasn't until I realized that I was living with high levels of anxiety all day every day that I was able to see the truth and shift it.

If you're anything like me and this resonates, I can tell you that you don't have to feel this way anymore. And no, you don't have to take medication to make it stop.

There is no right or wrong. It's then versus now.

When Rob Bell said this, I had to read it again and again before it really sunk in. And it would take me a few years to truly integrate what it meant.

Anxiety, in its most basic form, can be seen as worrying about the future—regardless of whether what we're imagining comes to pass.

Anxiety keeps us in a state of projecting what could happen.

Yet, we will never live in the future—we only have right now.

We only live in the present.

Depression, in its most basic form, can be seen as living in the past.

It's viewing life through the lens of regret, shame, or wishing things didn't happen.

Depression keeps us in the past by causing us to wish we could change things that happened to us or because of us.

But the water's already gone under the bridge, the milk has already been spilled, and nothing will reverse the flow of time. All we have is the present moment to do the next right thing (to borrow a phrase from Frozen 2).

The same line of thinking can be applied to "right" and "wrong."

When we see things through a lens of right and wrong, we try to predict what will happen to us through the choices we make. This causes us to live in a state of expectation, which always leads to disappointment.

We try to say the "right" thing. We try to do the "right" thing. We try to be the "right" whatever. Yet we can't really be right since there is no such thing. Your definition of right is different, at least in some ways, from those of the world.

We worry about saying the "wrong" thing. We worry about doing the "wrong" thing. We try not to be the "wrong whatever. Yet we can't really be wrong since there is no such thing. What we deem "wrong" is always going to be different from what the world tells us is wrong.

As Rob says, it's THEN vs NOW.

When I was worrying about being right, I was making myself wrong.
When I was worrying about the future, I wasn't sitting in the now.
When I was worrying about who I was, I wasn't enjoying myself as I am.

I am not the woman I used to be.
I am the woman I am now.

I can't be wrong for being her.
I can only choose to keep being her.
I can keep healing and growing and unbecoming everything I was then.
I can forgive myself for worrying.
I can forgive myself for making decisions about not being bad or wrong.

It's not then.
It's now.
You're not that person anymore.

It's not right or wrong.
It's then vs now.

WHAT IF you can't be wrong or bad?
WHAT IF you began to focus on this present moment instead of the past or future?
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​REPLY and share - I'd love to hear what came up for you.

I love you!
xoxo
Melanie