How Did You Get Here?

Hey Friend,

Today I am going to share an exercise I discovered that will give you a more cohesive sense of self and creative clarity.

It all begins with the past…

How did you get here?

I typically pride myself on my future focus. "No point in looking back", I tell myself. Can't change the past, so no point in focusing on it, right?

Well...

I focused on the past this weekend, and it was...profound.

Here is what I did: I laid down, closed my eyes, and for about an hour, I intentionally visualized every major period of my life.

I started at the first four years of my life, when we lived in the mountains in Northern California.

Obviously, I can't remember a lot personally, so I remembered photos, stories, and everything else that came to mind. Anything that contributed to painting as accurate a picture I could of my and my family's life, at that time.

Over the next hour, I did this for each major period of my life:

• 4-7 years old: First move to Hawai`i.

• 7-11: Back to California, public school.

• 11-14: Back to Hawai`i, parents are together.

• 14-18: Parents divorce, home school, first girlfriend.

• 18-22: First half of college, COVID adventures, Daddy issues begin, single Ryan.

• 22-present: Finish college, traveling, no more single Ryan (dang snagged AGAIN?)

The details of my life are likely irrelevant to you, but the exercise itself certainly is not.

Why?

Reason #1: It's just good for you.

Our pasts are an integral part of us, whether we like it or not.

I think I run from my past in some ways. I think I block out hard moments and tell myself a story that "it wasn't that bad", when at times it really was.

Doing this kind of exercise forces me to accept what I have been through and integrate that into who I am. As long as I am rejecting a part of my past, I am not whole.

I think this is true for any form of trauma.

Are there moments you prefer not to think about? As long as you cringe at the memory, it dominates you. 

Until we fundamentally accept, integrate, and rewrite the narrative around these moments, we are at their mercy.

I will leave you to figure out how you want to do that, but the most absurd (and hilarious) example I’ve heard is from David Goggins, unsurprisingly.

He takes all the hate he receives online (which is a LOT, given he has 6M+ followers), speak them into a microphone, then make a mix tape out of it and listen to it while he goes to sleep!!

He now gets excited hearing people try to tear him down. Talk about rewriting the script.

I’m not advising you do that necessarily (although I’ve considered it!), but goes to show that you can be very creative with how you choose to integrate the things that sting. The important thing is that we do it.

Reason #2: It helps creativity.

When we make art, we are taking our being and channeling it through some medium, whether words, paint, music, etc.

When I write and make videos, I'm channeling myself, present AND past, into my work. Understanding my past, then, gives me perspective on what I am creating.

I might think that I write about personal development just because I find it interesting.

In reality, I likely write about it because I needed personal development to give me direction in a life that lacked male mentorship.

It comes back to my past.

This is why therapy always has us talking about our childhoods. We might tell ourselves a story that what we are doing now has nothing to do with what we went through as kids.

Not very likely.

If you create anything, you can be guaranteed that your past is heavily influencing it, and probably in more ways that you know.

Better understanding our pasts gives us a greater perspective on what we make, and allows us to more accurately convey to others what we are all about (#marketing).

So, there are two reasons, both personal and practical, to do this exercise.

I invite you, my friend, to try it out. Set aside some time to sit with your past. Look through photos, journal about it, sit in silence like I did, whatever it is.

Just be intentional.

I recommend going through chronologically if you can, so that you don't simply skip over the things you might not want to remember.

Those moments are often the ones we need to sit with the most.

Good luck!

Until next week.

Much love,
Ryan

P.S. No new content this week. I’m taking a step back to re-evaluate where I want to go with the content. Check back in next week!