The entire universe is in a state of constant change. Nothing remains the same, ever.

For example, on a cellular level your physical body completely renews itself every five years. Many parts of it renew faster. Your skin renews itself monthly, your liver every five weeks, and your stomach lining every week. Physically speaking, you are a completely different person than you were five years ago. Mentally, you can renew yourself even more quickly. Simply changing the way you think about something will change the way you approach it. If thinking about something in a certain way has created certain results, you can always change your thinking and produce different results.

So why then, do so many of us persist in retaining old thought patterns and beliefs - both consciously and subconsciously - that define and redefine us by who we used to be? Why do we persist in thinking about things in negative ways, which repeatedly creates negative results?

It all boils down to unchecked ego and the resulting misconceptions of mind. Ego tends to cling to things from the past - events, habits, perceptions, memories, beliefs, even material objects - as a way to define itself and therefore enforce its sense of separation.

Mind tends to cling to old beliefs and habits because it fears change; it feels threatened by it. By its own reckoning, it often feels safer to repeat old behaviors and stay in old situations - even counter-productive, limiting, painful or damaging ones.

Fear of change is all an illusion, of course... but when you\'re in the middle of the experience it can feel very real. Learn from the past... don\'t repeat it! The past can be a useful tool. We can look at it objectively, notice what went well and what didn\'t, and learn from our mistakes. But we must always remember this: the past might have happened, but now it\'s gone. It does not exist and will never exist again, so why continue to live there and recreate the present based on it?

If the past was painful it is much more constructive to let it go, change our behavior and create a better outcome in the present. But many of us do remain stuck in the past, dwelling on the same painful events or repeating the same old behaviors over and over again - often on an unconscious level - as our ego seeks to define and assert its identity, and therefore affirm its separation.

It doesn\'t matter if the repeated behavior is negative, hurtful or self-destructive - the ego sees it as a defining part of \"me\" and therefore does whatever it can do to support the habit. And as we know, habit is something that the mind loves.

Often, the mind will work with ego to create the perception that letting go of the past and changing negative beliefs or behavior is actually more difficult and painful than just repeating the same painful mistakes - and enduring the same painful results - over and over again.

Hence, repeating a disempowering behavior becomes a habit, even if it is destructive. And disempowering habits occur on all levels: everything from suicide attempts, drug abuse or enduring a succession of abusive relationships; to chronic overeating or gossiping or lying; to procrastination, excessive vanity or watching too much television.

But remember this: the past literally does not exist, except in our minds. Just as our bodies are continually recreating themselves every single moment of every single day, so are we recreating our lives every single moment of every single day.

Given this, we can choose to learn from the past and change our habits for the better! We always have a choice. We can choose whether to maintain habitual behavior and do things the same, or we can choose to do them differently. We can choose whether to live and re-live painful past experiences, or to learn from them, make our peace and let them go. We can choose to retain old beliefs and attitudes that hold us back and build walls between ourselves and others, or we can let them go and embrace new, empowering beliefs and positive attitudes to better serve others.

Ultimately, we always have a choice. If we repeat an action, we can expect to get the same results. If an action does not produce the results we want, we can either give in to ego\'s fear of change and do it over and over again anyway - and keep getting the same poor or destructive results - or we can learn from it, let it go, and develop a new approach that produces new, positive, superior results. We - and therefore you - always have a choice!