Rear-View Living

Have you ever tried driving while staring exclusively in your rear-view mirror? Impossible, right? Yet many of us attempt to navigate life exactly this way—especially after 50.

We fixate on youth lost, opportunities missed, mistakes made. We reminisce about "the good old days" and wonder what might have been if only we had chosen differently. This backward gaze doesn't just distract us—it completely blurs our vision of the rich possibilities waiting ahead.

The Danger of Looking Back

The biblical story of Lot's wife offers a powerful metaphor for this phenomenon. Despite divine warning, she couldn't resist looking back at the city she was leaving, instantly transforming into a pillar of salt—frozen forever between past and future.

Salt, interestingly, has long been symbolic of preservation and stagnation. Like Lot's wife, when we remain fixated on what we've left behind, we become vessels for regret, resentment, and missed opportunities—emotional states that crystallize and immobilize us.

The truth? At 50+, you possess a richness of experience and wisdom that was not available to your younger self. The real tragedy isn't in having a past—it's in allowing that past to overshadow your present and future.

The P.A.S.T. That Holds Us Hostage

In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), P.A.S.T. represents a powerful acronym that reveals exactly how backward-focused thinking constrains us:

• Pain we refuse to release

• Assumptions about what's still possible

• Stories we keep telling ourselves

• Triggers that reactivate old wounds

This mental framework creates a self-perpetuating cycle. We relive painful experiences, make limiting assumptions about what's still possible, reinforce negative self-stories, and constantly trigger ourselves back into these disempowering states.

The result? Depression, anxiety, diminished self-worth, and a profound disconnection from our sense of self. We want more, yet we keep looking in the only place it can never be found—the unchangeable past.

Balancing Your Inner Compass

As women navigating life after 50, we must recalibrate our inner compass to point forward. The 6 Pillars of F.I.R.E.™—Confidence, Relationships, Health & Fitness, Intuition & Creativity, Financial Independence, and Sexuality & Sensuality—represent areas that require balance if we are to move toward our North Star, the manifestation of our dreams.

When these pillars are aligned, our path forward becomes clear. When they're unbalanced—often due to excessive focus on past regrets—our magnetic field weakens, and we attract more experiences that keep us stuck.

The Allure of Yesterday

Why do we cling so tenaciously to what was?

• Sometimes it's because the past feels safer—it's known, while the future remains uncharted.

• Sometimes it's because we believe our best days are behind us—that youth equaled possibility and aging means decline.

• Sometimes it's because we carry unresolved grief or regret—emotional weights that anchor us to specific moments in time.

Whatever the reason, this backward focus creates a peculiar form of psychological suffering. We experience the pain of the past while simultaneously missing the joy of the present and forfeiting the potential of the future. We waste our precious "now" moments mourning what can never be changed.

The Now Moment: Your True Power Source

The Core 4 Principles—Purpose, Passion, Prosperity, and Power—can only be activated in the present moment.

• Purpose isn't discovered by dwelling on past missed opportunities but by aligning with who you are today.

• Passion isn't about rekindling old relationships but about allowing your authentic self to flow freely in alignment with what brings you joy NOW

• Prosperity doesn't flow to those trapped in old scarcity stories but emerges naturally when Purpose and Passion align in the present.

• Power is your natural state of BEing Fierce, Intentional, Resilient, and Empowered, and manifests only when you're fully present and aligned with your divine design.

When we truly understand this, we realize that our age is not our limitation—our perspective is.

Every woman who has ever transformed her life after 50 has done so by facing forward, by using the wisdom of her past without becoming its prisoner.

Breaking the Spell of "What Was"

Many women over 50 fall into the pattern of sentences that begin with:

• "I used to be..."

• "Back when I was younger..."

• "If only I had..."

• "I wish I could still..."

These phrases keep us mentally and emotionally tethered to versions of ourselves and lives that no longer exist. They create a false narrative that our worth, beauty, possibilities, and joy have diminished with time rather than evolved and deepened.

The insidious nature of backward-looking is that it's often disguised as wisdom or experience. We think we're being realistic or practical when we limit our current possibilities based on past experiences. But there's a crucial difference between learning from the past and living in it.

The Moment of Decision

Just like Lot's wife, we stand at a critical juncture. Behind us lies the familiar—comfortable in its predictability even when painful. Ahead lies the unknown—exciting in its possibilities yet requiring us to release our grip on what was.

The choice seems simple, yet it requires extraordinary courage. It demands that we trust that what lies ahead is worth more than what we leave behind. It requires faith in ourselves and in the wisdom we've accumulated through every trial and triumph.

Most importantly, it requires recognizing that our most extraordinary chapter isn't behind us—it's unfolding right now, choice by choice, moment by present moment.

Are you ready to adjust your mirrors and set your gaze on the horizon? Your future is waiting, but you'll only find it by looking in the right direction.

The women who truly Age with Power™ understand a fundamental truth: we cannot change a single moment of our past, but we hold complete authority over how those moments shape our future. By deliberately shifting our gaze from the rear-view mirror to the windshield, we transform from being frozen in time to dynamic creators of what comes next.

The past may have written your story until now, but you alone hold the pen for every chapter yet to come. The only question that matters is: which direction will your story move from here?

About the Author

Dr. Diva Verdun, the Fierce Factor Expert and #1 transformative architect on aging, empowers women over 50 to seize their destiny and Age with Power™. Through her signature F.I.R.E.™ methodology and Fenom University, she ignites women's fierce potential to live life on their terms. Follow her on Facebook or Linkedin.