Welcome back to the university's your therapist. I'm Lena white. And in this episode, we will be exploring the nuances around the phrase don't look back. I have a picture in my house in California. And it is a quote and it says Don't look back. You're not going that way. And I was thinking about this the other day when I was posting in our online community. And thinking about how much I love this quote. Because sometimes it may be wise or appropriate to look back. But it's never going to serve us when it's accompanied by shame, terror or self criticism. For many of us looking back is a totally unconscious or subconscious activity. And we often don't notice even that we're doing it until we experience discomfort or emotional distress. And this can show up in a physiological or emotional way. So staying focused on the past and trying to manage the emotions that occur when we're focused in the past is really exhausting. Trust me, I know, developing a way to notice and bring your brain back to the present moment will make those neural pathways stronger. And eventually we develop an ability to stay present focused without as much conscious energy. When we are able to bring our brain back over and over again, into the present moment, the neural pathways for that behavior become stronger. And oftentimes if especially if we worry a lot or have some anxiety, we are subconsciously either in the past or the future quite frequently when we realize that we are going to have to practice to set up those new neural pathways and to have those pathways become strong. Then we can stick with it even when we're doing it a dozen times and an hour. Think of your brain as a wild stallion. This is a really helpful analogy for me. We appreciate the stallion and the stallion is beautiful, but the horse will need a lot of training and wrangling in order to learn how to behave. It's wild. We want to Chaim the stallion, which in this case would be the brain through calm repetition and noticing without judgment. You may want to find an accountability partner For this, having someone that you feel comfortable with, and that has your confidence can help you be accountable. And you can report daily through text, email, phone call, or you can do it once a week, or once a month. And the purpose of an accountability partner is not to admire us and shame, and not to be in a place of humiliation because we're not keeping our promises to ourself. Keep in mind that when we do make promises to ourselves, much of our behavior is dictated by our subconscious, which does not mean that we give up making promises to ourselves, it does mean that we let go of the shame that accompanies when we break those promises to ourselves. One really important thing to keep in mind when you're working with us is that shame, guilt and feelings of overwhelm, all keep us in our fight or flight brain and reduce blood flow to our prefrontal cortex. So if you notice that you're thinking a lot about the past, try to stay out of judgment about that, and remind yourself that the old neural pathway is really solid and concrete, and is so strong that we do it without noticing. When we can act as an observer of our thoughts, without judging them, they can provide us with information, we can become benevolently curious, lovingly curious and gather that information, we can pay attention to what may have triggered us, we can pay attention to our breathing and use breathwork to help bring emotion regulation to our body. The double breath, sigh is fantastic for this, a deep inhalation, followed by a pause, and then additional inhalation followed by a forceful exhalation is the double rest, sigh or the physiological sigh, it looks something like this.