trapped by your past? read this before quitting

There is a film I watched the other day that carries a very important lesson for you if you’re in a situation where you keep getting negative results and you can’t see the light, can’t see a way through to the moment when your life finally becomes the life you truly want to live.

The film is Carlito’s Way.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but let me sum it up really quickly:

Carlito Brigante, a Puerto Rican ex-con and former drug dealer, is released from prison determined to go straight and save enough to start anew with his girlfriend. But old loyalties and a ruthless rival pull him back into crime, with tragic consequences.

The hostile life of drugs, gangsters and the mafia in which the protagonist grew up is, well, a peculiar life, and it’s a life most people will never live. His life is very extreme, a life of many risks, a life lived on the edge, lived on the dark side of life.

The film gets at something essential: the character is born into that world, spends years in it and rises to the top of the drug trade in New York. He ends up in prison, and when he comes out he fights hard not to be pulled back into the same life.

But my friend.

It is so hard, so hard…

When the only thing you know is that… It is so hard when everyone you know is dedicated to that or connected to it. Whether they are your family, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbours. Everything that makes up your world, your whole sense of normality, belongs to that.

So if one fine day, whether by pure divine illumination, because you’ve hit rock bottom, or because you can’t stand that life any more, you want a radical change…

It is going to be so hard to get out of it.

This film, although it centres on the world of drug trafficking and organised gangs, carries a moral you can see in so many places, in most lives that are, let’s say, “normal”.

And you’ll say, what has a drug trafficker got to do with my lifestyle? My life decisions?

Well, I’ll tell you: a lot, a great deal.

Because this feeling of “being trapped by your past” is something many people can feel.

I’m sure that in your life, or in the life of someone you know, you see repetitions piling up, patterns piling up that are negative. Obviously in most cases they aren’t as extreme as in the film.

But how many times have I heard someone, constantly complaining, saying, for example, that they are never valued by their friends or loved ones, and how long it has taken in therapy for that person to start making decisions to start relating differently to the people around them, to start getting different results?

How long did it take?

Let me tell you: a lot, a lot of time.

That’s why I am so against some of the narratives brought by certain coaches who say you can change your life in five or ten sessions, and that all you need is a ‘mindset shift’.

You know what I call a mindset shift?

I call that a fucking load of crap.

When you have spent your whole life being someone who is very accommodating to others (sticking with the example I mentioned, although we could talk about thousands of different ones), and this has led you to take on a role in your relationship with your family, your colleagues, your partner… then you can become aware of it and realise the negative consequences that taking on that role has for you, in the same way that Carlito Brigante knew perfectly well that making certain decisions kept leading him down the same path.

Even though he kept telling himself again and again that he wanted to leave, that what he wanted was another life, that he wanted to share his life with his woman, to start in a new place, to have an ordinary business…

In the same way, it can be very hard for someone to set boundaries and start relating differently to people who abuse them or treat them badly.

It takes a lot to change a way of acting, a way of being.

And many of us may be trapped not by our past but by a way of behaving, something that has become normal for us even though it brings very negative consequences, and we are in a vicious circle where we can’t see the light.

So it is going to take effort, it is going to take a lot to start making small changes so you stop living that life you do not want, that you do not choose, that harms you, and start living a life that is more consistent with what you desire, a life that makes you happier, a life where you have healthier relationships, a life where you have a job you like, a life where you feel satisfied.

Can you imagine a life like that?

Can you imagine it?

The process is hard. The process for some people can be very long, but I hope that if that is your case, you become aware and begin to make changes, whether small or radical, as soon as possible. The sooner the better.

Do not wait until the end as Carlito Brigante did, because for him it was too late.

But you know that for you it isn’t too late, because you can start taking small steps towards a life that is coherent for you, a healthier life, from now, from this very moment.

To that end, I suggest you reply to this same email and answer briefly with what worries you most, what is hardest for you to change. Something you know is stopping you from living the life you long for.

Reply to this email and tell me exactly what’s on your mind. I promise I will use these very responses you send me to address those topics with practical solutions in future newsletters. I have already gathered some replies from last week’s email, but I am still missing yours, so don’t be shy, and hit reply!

Love,

Noemi

P.S. #1: If you don’t know the film Carlito’s Way, it’s this: here.