The Evolving Self

Many people believe that a person’s character cannot be changed and they associate this thinking with the saying , ” A leopard cannot change its spots.” However, this isn’t really true although admittedly, doing a U-turn in our character is most difficult for many. Quite often, we require ‘life changing events’ to jolt us from this perception that our character is set from Day One. However many professional therapists have explained that a significant part of our character is caused by our conditioning during our younger days. As an example, if one were to be born into a family with abusive parents, i.e. where love and joy were hardly experienced, a deep ’emotional scar’ could be created. Even when such a person reaches adulthood, the person may still have severe trust issues and sees life as a bitter journey. In extreme scenarios, such a person may turn abusive towards others as well, thinking that it is an acceptable practice.

However, sometimes certain traits of our character could not be attributed to our earlier experiences in life. Instead, some of our tendencies are caused by our past existences as revealed by many professional past-life hypnotherapists, psychics, mediums and ‘gifted’ people who can somehow read our multi-dimensional Akashic Records or Life Books (which contain memories of our past lives). Quite a number of people’s present phobias have been linked to past existences e.g. intense fear of flying could be caused by a prior ‘death’ in an airplane.

As such, when we remember that much of how we behave today is caused by our past experiences, we can then take charge and transmute the way we see life itself. In other words, we can be who we choose to be by realizing that all our negative traits are indeed malleable. Since innate past memories can shape our present character, then by the same token, our future character can also be changed by our present attitude towards life. It may be true that we cannot change someone’s character, but we most certainly can change ours! One of my favorite mantras is this – “I am NOT who I was yesterday. I am better.”