Let's Make a Deal!

Hey - do you remember that old television game show called 'Let's Make a Deal?' It's on T.V these days with a new and popular celebrity host, but the old show was more fun. It was new - these days remakes, prequels and anything but originality reigns, and I've stopped watching television altogether. I keep saying, 'they don't call it programming for nothing.'

I was a kid when Let's Make a Deal was on and I remember feeling like if only get on that show, I could choose a curtain and all my dreams COULD come true. I could also end up with a goat or a giant tricycle and be mocked, laughed at and ridiculed forever - but it was worth the risk! I was excited and knew one day I would be on that show. I knew it.

OK, so I've yet to be on that show, but it doesn't mean that I've given up on that dream. So, back to the point.....

If you think about it, our lives are exactly like a game of Let's Make a Deal. We each have our own versions of it, but essentially all of the elements are there.

We each get 'choices' all of the time - and we each make choices all day every day. How will you wake up? Cheery? Crabby? How will you start your day? A greasy heavy breakfast versus a filling, nutritious breakfast to get your body working right. Notice how I slipped the wellness aspect of choice in there? One choice gets us things we want, like and dream of - and one gets us a bunch of negativity and all that it entails.

The point hits home not when we think of the choices we face during a day, but when we use the same 'template' to address the past issues we have yet to work through.

When people decide that something from the past has to be 'fixed' because it left an emotion in them that they don't know what to do with, it puts them in a continual 'pattern of the past' until that emotion is dealt with.

Imagine someone who had a junky past - bad stuff happened (as it does to us all at some time). We judge 'worst' and 'best' based on our own experiences - so when someone has difficulty moving away from an experience in their past....I suggest Let's Make a Deal.

Take the experience from the past (that you are having trouble moving past) and bring it up....again. We get tired of replaying the same scenarios, yet we have nothing to 'replace' it with so we do nothing. We each will have something unique to us to deal with, work on or work through - and I've found this is the least 'therapy' type avenue to understanding how to do that I could come up with. I'm not a 'medical jargon' type of gal, I learn much better this way. Perhaps others do too.


We need to create 3 curtains. Behind each curtain are choices we had at the time. Remembering that we have always tried to do the best we could with what we had where we were at the time, the curtains represent real results that could have happened. One of the curtains must be the choice you actually made.

If anyone is having a difficult time understanding this, here is how I demonstrate this lesson visually:

Find three pieces of the same paper. On each one, write a choice you had regarding the situation.

Take the 3 pieces of paper, flip them over and randomly shuffle them around......then give each one a number (1 to 3). Now it's time to play! Feel free to make more curtains depending on choices available to you at the time.....it's your deal!

First, without looking under each 'curtain' - set them up like the show, in order from #1 to #3. There's no particular reason for this, I just thought the game should be orderly.

Choose a 'curtain.' Flip it over - this is going to be the choice you WOULD have made in the situation. What is the first feeling you get about the choice you selected at random? Remember, you have to trade everything you have in this present time for that choice and you must realize that a.> you can't actually do that and b.> it may not have been a good choice and you understand that now.

If the choice you selected is one you would rather not have made, great news! There's another option to choose from! Select another 'curtain' to reveal the choice you COULD have made. Is it better than the first curtain? Can you come up with every consequence of every different action to make the best choice for yourself now?

Do you keep the first curtain or trade for the second? Choices aren't tough - think about how many you actually make in a day. We all do very well!

So if you dislike both of your options at this point, there is always that last curtain. Awww, go on - open it! Get the full experience - and remember this.....one of those curtains was your present consequence to a 'choice' you wrote down. Looking back on our lives, we know we can never trade experiences and memories and go back to certain places in time......we have to close the curtains on the 'what if's' and know 'what is.'

A secondary lesson:

Flip all of the papers so that the choices are facing up. Looking at 'the big picture' now, knowing what you know and having lived what you have lived - make your choice again as though you were back when fill in your own thing here. Is it the same choice you made back then? If it is, you are holding emotion for no good reason besides maybe needing a little company. You can relax and let it go - the right choice was made for you at the time.

Always remember too, that our present day perspectives are much different (and more experienced by the second) than they were in the past. The more time that passes, the more distant some memories and facts may get.

If you see that another choice (that was available back when __________) then you have only two simple things left to do. Forgive yourself and move on. You can see clearly now, time has moved forward and you have seen the consequence of a choice you made. Again, we cannot revisit this place and we can't stand in front of an imaginary screen reliving the past. It's unhealthy and futile.

Perspective and experience of the 'here and now' looking back are different than perspective and experience of living back 'then.' I remember thinking how normal certain things used to be to me and now, they just aren't a part of my life. There are reasons for everything.

Living life in the here and now is the only thing that matters - and if we still feel that we owe the past anything (or that it owes us), then the awareness that we can only live our best life now is key. Happiness doesn't lie in the past, it should tornado around the present with the intention of leaping into the future.

Today will soon be our past, and if you happen to look back on today 5 years from now, what will you see? How will it make you feel?

Make it surreal! Rock your day!