Are you constantly brooding over the past? You might have ‘rearview mirror syndrome’
Why can’t we overcome our past experiences and look towards the future?
If you’ve passed your driving test, you’ll know how important it is to look in your rearview mirror while on the road – it helps prevent accidents, keeps you aware of what’s around you and enables you to drive more safely. But what about off the road? Is our rearview vision helping or hindering us?
If you’re wondering why the hell I’m interrupting your Sunday Netflix sesh talk to you about rearview mirrors, bear with me. In January, at the start of a new year, it’s actually more apt than ever. In fact, it might be something that is limiting your life and causing you angst without you even realising it.
Rearview mirror syndrome (RMS) refers to a subconscious phenomenon where we constantly relive and recreate our past. We mistakenly believe that who we were is who we are, thus limiting our true potential in the present.
As Hal Elrod explains in his book The Miracle Morning, “Statistics show that on any given day, the average person thinks somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts. The problem is that ninety-five percent of our thoughts are the same as the ones we thought the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on. It’s no wonder most people go through life, day after day, month after month, and year after year, and the quality of their lives pretty much stays the same.”
In short, instead of creating a new future for ourselves, we just tend to stumble down the same paths again and again. And the problem with that is we are limiting our futures and condemning ourselves to a life of mediocrity without even realising it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you’re wondering how this plays out in reality, let me give you an example – and let you in on the reason I started wondering about RMS in the first place. I tend to consider myself someone who faces life head-on: I go after what I want, I drive myself forward in my work, I set myself big goals and I’m always keen on new experiences. However, I'm constantly limited by the idea that I lack self-discipline. This was certainly true at school – it would come up at every parents’ evening I attended.
I was constantly being told that I talked too much, that I was unable to focus even when crunch time was just around the corner and that I struggled to get down to work and really put in the hours needed to achieve what I was capable of.
So, years on, despite all the evidence of my accomplishments since school which have been driven by my putting in the work, I will still give up on something before I’ve even started because I’m convinced that I won’t have the self-discipline to follow through. I limit what I could achieve because I am, metaphorically, too busy gazing into my rearview mirror to really make conscious choices about the road ahead.
Another example comes from a friend of mine, who recently told me that they turned down a brilliant job opportunity that came out of the blue because they had never worked in such a high-level position before and couldn’t get past the belief that they would be unable to handle it due to lack of prior experience.
Rearview mirror syndrome is not an actual medical diagnosis, but a term – used by all sorts of wellness practitioners – given to someone who consistently looks to their past as a guide for their future. Moving into uncharted territory can create intense anxiety and stir up old feelings of low self-confidence and often, we end up turning down incredible opportunities because of this anxiety, and stick to our comfort zone.
So, what is actually going on here? Why, when we are so capable, can’t we seem to overcome our past experiences and look towards the future? We have free will after all, so why don’t we seem to be using it?
Louise Rumball, founder of pioneering next-generation therapy OPENHOUSE and the OPENHOUSE Podcast, explains: “We can view consciousness as three distinct levels: the conscious mind, the subconscious (or preconscious) mind, and the unconscious mind.
"We are actually only acting from our conscious mind, approximately 5-10% of the time. 90-95% of our life is actually directed by our subconscious mind. It is thought that this subconscious mind is 30,000 times more powerful than the conscious mind.”
This goes some way to explaining exactly what you’re up against when trying to override the decisions and beliefs being created by your subconscious mind.
“Your conscious mind uses willpower to control day to day behaviours, habits and beliefs but the conscious mind is no match against the power and influence of your subconscious. The subconscious runs in the background constantly,” says Louise.
But before you start cursing your subconscious mind, it’s actually trying to do you a favour – it’s just misjudging things a bit.
“Ultimately, the subconscious mind is trying to keep you safe and in your comfort zone - but often can really hold you back. The reason for that is because sometimes, keeping you safe, is akin to keeping you close to what you know - and what you know, isn’t always positive,” Louise tells GLAMOUR.
“Every single stimulus we come into contact with is compared against what we have experienced and logged previously. If we had a bad experience – the subconscious mind logs this. In every moment of every day, the subconscious mind is assessing what is going on around us and is communicating to the conscious mind if it needs to be alerted of something.”
So the question is, how can we start to overcome this process and take back control in our lives to ensure we are the happiest, most fulfilled we can possibly be?
Louise explains, “Overriding the subconscious mind is hard because of how powerful it is. However, it is possible to release and rewire your subconscious mind once you have a conscious understanding of it. There are types of therapy that can give you a ‘subconscious rewire and reset’ – they are based on a kinaesthetic muscle testing experience, where a qualified practitioner taps into your etheric energy field and essentially talks to your subconscious mind. By doing this, you can work out what beliefs you are holding.”
However, if you’re keen to start taking action straight away, here is an exercise you can walk yourself through:
Whenever any feeling or emotion comes up – first ask yourself, what am I feeling? Why do I think I am feeling like this? What might be driving this?
Try and step back from the emotional reaction – and understand that emotion is just ‘energy in motion' – which is coming from somewhere deeper
Knowing that your body is just wired to protect you – even when it feels like it’s really causing you a lot of problems – actually helps you to be more compassionate to the frustrating thoughts, feelings and experiences that you are experiencing.
