Regretting The Past Hurts – Until You Question Your Thinking

A very painful human experience is the feeling of regret.

I know this because not only have I felt it myself, but also worked with so many people who felt very burdened by regret.

There is that situation I remember, and the present thoughts in the mind look like this:

• I regret I didn’t spend more time with him/her
• I regret that I said “yes”
• I regret that I said “no”
• I regret that my actions caused pain for other people
• I regret that I stole, lied, hated, judged

The origin of the word “regret” partly comes from an old Norse word “grata” which means to groan.

Such a terrible feeling as I remember what happened that I silently groan with sorrow, wishing the outcome was better….replaying how it could have gone differently, full of lament.

And always, regret involves looking backwards, at memories, at the past.

It can be immensely powerful to look at what you regret in your life with a mind open to investigation of your painful situation…..rather than certainty that what you did was wrong.

When you recall a situation where you are sure you did something wrong, and you feel sick to your stomach, sorry, tainted for life, rotten, inadequate or deserving punishment….

….even in the middle of having the confusing, conflicted, desperate, despairing feelings….

….can you absolutely know that the way it went was truly 100% awful?

Can you know that you were wrong?

Yes, yes! I shouldn’t have done that. Everyone would agree.

A client I worked with was so upset with himself for being so angry with his father, for having the feeling of anger instead of love.

How do we react when we believe that we did it wrong?

I berate myself, I say I was stupid. I think about the other people involved or those who were distressed and either wish I had never met them, or wish they would go away forever. I criticize those people.

I criticize all of us.

When I believe that something, someone, did it wrong….then I feel anger, punishment, fear.

I say “I can’t believe I did that.”

Well who would I be without the thought that I did it wrong, or they did it wrong, or that the entire thing was wrong?

Without the thought that it went badly, that it was a disaster, that if only it went differently then it would have been much better?

I am immediately here in the present moment.

The memory I see of the past discretion, is only a picture in the mind. It came and went. It’s complete.

it’s over.

I feel excited about NOW.

“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ~ Eckhart Tolle 

Then I turn the thought around to the opposite: I did it right.

Really?

Naw. Not possible.

Hmmmm.

What if I stop being such a dictator towards myself, and I open up to the idea that I CAN believe I did that?

What if something about how it went was just right for that situation, that time and place?

What if I stop having such high, extreme, perfectionist, cutting expectations of myself…and I join the human race?

I did it right.

I take a deep breath, and begin to look how this may also be as true, or truer, than my original condemning thought that I did it wrong.

Yes, I did it right.

(It doesn’t mean I will ever do it that way again, which would be impossible anyway).