One of the thinking errors we single parents can be guilty of is relying so much on our experiences and our past history and trying to use it to predict the future. This can get us into a place where we expect that things will always stay the same or because we have one (or more) “failed” relationships, lost jobs, personal struggles—then we will definitely have more in the future. Using our past experiences as a means to try to predict the future can get us stuck and get us into trouble with our self-esteem and optimism.
I know that you are thinking that learning from one’s mistakes and keeping one’s history in mind is just good common sense, and it is, to a point. But we can get stuck and focus so much on how things have gone down before that we don’t allow or expect things to go well in the future. As a single parent, this can keep us from being able to heal, let go and move on—and keep us from being able to focus on the joys and gifts now and in the future because we are clinging so hard to what we have known to be true in the past.
Those big life lessons can be so painful and hard-learned that we don’t want to repeat a mistake, or take a risk that might lead us down the same path. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Where we get into trouble, however, is when we try to predict what is going to happen, what sort of people we meet, what they will be like, what will happen with our children or at work—all based on past experiences. We are not allowing for any new scripts to be written or any new stories with happier endings to be told.