Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

People often say, I just want things to go back to the way they used to be. It's a common but impossible wish because everything is

constantly changing. Things can improve or get worse but they can never go back

to the way they were. For example, it took me a very long time to heal when I kept trying to return to who I was before the hurt.

But that person is long gone. Only after breathing life into a new me did I start developing into the person I am today.

Even if you bake an apple pie using the same recipe as always,

each comes out a little different because the apples aren't the same.

If you want your dessert to taste exactly like when your grandma used to make it,

you might be disappointed with a perfectly delicious pie simply because it didn't turn out

identical. When we hit a snag in relationships we want to smooth things over by

trying to get the relationship back to the way it was before the bump in the road.

But since each experience changes everything and everyone involved,

we cannot recreate yesterday's outcome with today's ingredients.

Real growth can only come when we embrace the newness of one

another. I can't tell you for how many years the only pictures that my parents

had of me on their walls were from when I was a child.

All of their disapproving sentences start with,

You used to be such a good kid.

But heck, I used to be a lot of things,

yet none of them defined me. After playing a lot of volleyball in my 20s, for example,

I took a break for a couple of decades

and then decided to play again in my 40s.

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