What Are Pictures and Smashed Pictures?

We might hear the word ‘pictures’ in relation to what hangs on a wall or is a visual representation on a camera or phone and typically, these pictures are tangible objects representing what has already occurred.

However, when Senior Behaviour Specialist Tanya Curtis and her team of FABIC clinicians talk about pictures, they do not refer to images from the past but to those we expect to happen at present or in the future. These pictures are not tangible, they are mental projections of how we anticipate life to unfold.

There is much in our past that we can’t change, but some people spend hours, weeks, years and even lifetimes regretting their past movements. Why? Because it stops us from focussing on our responsibility to learn to do life differently at present and into the future.

So when life brings a so-called challenging situation, we can try to control and change it, which we know is impossible to do and therefore sets us up for guaranteed anxiety and fear. Instead, we can bring focus to our own behaviour, to how we approach life, to our own livingness and ask what’s there for us to look at and learn so that the focus is on responding to this life situation rather than react and try to change or control it.

Can we change anything that has occurred in our life up until this point? Absolutely not. So, no need to focus on it. Just simply focus on the lessons at hand and ask how to do life differently when this same lesson is re-presented again and again.