Navigating Nostalgia with the Wisdom of Impermanence
How to Honour the Past Without Losing the Present
Dear Reader,
How has your week been? As always, I hope you’ve been able to implement some of the insights from my weekly newsletter into your life. The good news is that by reading this content regularly, your brain will naturally seek positive habits.
By reading this each week, you're part of a community of nearly 9,000 people, all seeking to live their lives with happiness and positivity.
Do you ever have one of those weeks when you keep forgetting what day it is? That was me last week. I thought Tuesday was Thursday and Wednesday was Friday. I’m not sure if that makes me super ‘in the moment’ or just scatter-brained! Either way, it was a full week - my mum left for Greece, her first time going without Dad. I'm very proud of her. She has a good friend with her and many others over there, so that helps immensely.
I made the most of the stunning sunshine, caught up with friends, and recorded my regular slot on Newstalk with Clare McKenna, which aired yesterday where I answered one listeners questions on how to navigate her IVF journey . You can listen back [here].
Amid everything, I got a notification from Google Drive saying that if I didn’t clear some space, I wouldn’t be able to store any more files. Help!
So, I did what any sane (or perhaps insane) person would do: I went down a rabbit hole of the past.
It was both enjoyable and heart-wrenching to watch some of the videos (which take up the most space). But when the time came to press delete, I couldn’t do it. Most of the videos were work-related, just my good self talking to the camera. Even though I’ll likely never watch any of them again, it felt harsh to delete them. I felt a tenderness toward my younger self, almost like a motherly pride. A desire to protect her.
That, to me, is what self-love feels like. It’s warm and comforting, and not at all ego-driven.
(Although, I will be honest - my ego did pipe up to compare my current wrinkles to those from five years ago!)
Speaking of motherly love, I found some videos of Luca, and there is nothing in this world that could make me delete those. If you’d like to take a little trip down memory lane with me, I’ve included one of myself telling a simple and helpful story, and one of Luca, who we shamelessly recruited to market The Positive Habit in Rome when he was just six years old…it makes my heart melt and I hope he has an abundance of all the positivity in this short video for his long life.
Luca, Rome, 2016
Me, Dublin, 2020 - During the First Covid Lockdown
On top of all this, I was also preparing for my ‘Art of Living’ one-day retreat, which will be over by the time you read this. I’ll be sure to share some of the content with you next week.
One of the seven insights in The Art of Living is impermanence and I found it hard to be both nostalgic and practise this. As Thich Nhat Hanh says…