Dang it, I shouldn’t have done that!
How many times have you thought this? It’s a very common, almost automatic, kind of thought. A part of the evaluation process that the mind runs through when you feel regret, or are scared about the future.
The thought gets bigger, more intense, more serious the greater the risk. The greater the fear.
Five years ago I noticed a bump on my leg. It grew over a year, bigger and bigger until it looked the size of a pencil eraser poking up on my thigh. It turned out to be a cancerous tumor.
One of my thoughts was “I shouldn’t have waited as long as I did to get it biopsied”. I also thought “I shouldn’t have been so nervous about my divorce over the past year”.
Once I was dating someone, got involved for awhile, even after fairly quickly feeling this was a pretty wild, uncomfortable, unhealthy kind of dynamic…not calm and happy.
It seemed hard to end the relationship. I felt scared, angry.
I had the thought “I shouldn’t have done that.” I shouldn’t have even started in that relationship. I should have known better from the beginning.
In just about any moment with people I love when I’ve expressed anger, and felt stuck or trapped, and maybe yelled, or slammed a door….I’ve had the thought “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Anything ever perceived as a “mistake” means I am considering that the event, The Mistake, as an “error”, a problem. I shouldn’t have gone outside, I shouldn’t have changed lanes, I shouldn’t have left, I shouldn’t have stayed, I shouldn’t have been interested, I shouldn’t have encouraged him, I shouldn’t have been so self-critical, I shouldn’t have eaten that, I shouldn’t have purchased that, I shouldn’t have been so unaware….
The great assumption is that if I hadn’t done that, then this terrible CURRENT situation wouldn’t actually be terrible. This present moment, this experience here and now, is Yuck. I could have prevented it back there in the past.
But here we are in the present moment. Now is now, and all those images about how it could have been different, if only I had done it differently, are not real. They are made up. In fact, it’s basically completely insane to think we shouldn’t have done something we did in fact do.
So here, I come back to what is going on now, and I find out by looking very clearly, what I believe I don’t like about it: I don’t like the cancer tumor (I don’t like dying), I don’t like that other person’s anger and intensity, I don’t like that relationship, I don’t like the accident I had, I don’t like that the thing I bought broke, I don’t like my own anger, I don’t like feeling so full, I don’t like being lonely, I don’t like being stuck…
I notice what I am resistant to, the sense of lack, being Against what is happening, thinking this needs to change FEELS TERRIBLE!
My relationship to this current situation is defensive, uncomfortable, unhappy. My mind kicks into gear going over the Replays and pointing out where I should have known better. But that is distracting to just being here, in this present moment, and having to deal directly with what I really believe right here and now (plus, remember how I mentioned that the whole Replay thing is actually insane?).
So what IS so terrible about this, right now?
And a most amazing thing begins, when deeply considering what is truly terrible about THIS right now. I realize I am surviving this moment. It is possible that this moment is not so bad. It is possible that I do not have to DO anything. Maybe I’m not so sure about what is terrible.
Eckhart Tolle suggests that focusing on the past and the future, believing this present moment is not happy, not great, not the best, is what creates suffering.
What’s so great about this present moment?! It’s NOT what I want! Boring! Stupid! Awful! Painful! Agonizing!
But what if this moment is actually the gateway to freedom? Not only do I see I am surviving it, and that it may not be so bad, but what if being entirely here, right now, is the place that I can finally see. Awareness.
Can you imagine being free of external conditions, including YOU doing something DIFFERENT last week, or last year?
“As long as you regard this moment as undesirable, an enemy, an obstacle, something to reject…then you will experience life the same way…This is what is. You HAVE to start with this.”~Eckhart Tolle
If you find you repeatedly think that you shouldn’t have done something, turn it around and find advantages to why you SHOULD have done it. This is a readjustment of the path to this present moment.
I should have been there, done that. It didn’t kill me. It helped me enter into an opportunity to wake up. It was part of my evolution. It was the best I could do at the time. It led me to here. It helped me surrender, it’s helping me surrender right now. Something hurts, so I am having to look at all THIS. I am willing to see it differently. It’s allowing me to accept what is, to love what is. Now.
Love, Grace