What if things had gone differently in the past – would we feel better now? ‘What If’ is a question that many of us ask ourselves on a regular basis when we are feeling the negative emotion of regret. It’s like our ego is trying to solve an issue from the past to distract us from why we are feeling the negative emotion in the first place. Our ego uses this strategy to keep us from feeling the pain of the experience that is covered up with the regret. Thoughts of what if, or if only, and I’ll never, start to spin in our mind when we stay in the loop of past regrets that are unresolvable now in the present moment where we can act on our own behalf. Regret creates the illusion that there is nothing we can do now – the window has closed.
One of my clients experienced deep dread and shame when his parents potty trained him earlier than he was ready. As a very small child, for almost a year, he spent every morning in dread and shame facing the disappointment and exasperation of his parents with a wet bed not being the ‘big boy’ they wanted him to be. Unable to question why his parents were treating him this way or see THEM as the problem, his ego stepped in with the story that there must be something wrong with him, and if he just kept trying, it would be OK. This set him up with the expectation that if he keeps trying it will get better – even though he still felt the dread and fear even once fully trained. It also kept him looking back with thoughts of; ‘if only I had tried harder, what if I could have tried harder, if there wasn’t something wrong with me, I would have been able to do what they wanted’, to not be a failure in their eyes.
If everything in our experience is designed to help us to become more of who we are, then ‘what if’ is a dead-end question. Who cares what could have or should happened in the past? What happened, happened. We were there, we had an experience, and a story was created to protect us from the pain we were unable to handle at that time. The lesson, the healing and the growth is in uncovering and challenging the story, allowing the emotions to flow for completion and release, and then realizing that the old story is no longer true for us. From there, we can ask ‘What Now’?
One day when my client finally realized that there was nothing wrong with him, he understood that the issue was his parents’ unrealistic and frustrating expectations of him. With that understanding, the anger, rage, and hurt that had been stored since he was tiny had a chance to arise and be fully seen and heard by him without him getting lost in it as his ego feared. Our ego doesn’t understand that we can handle pain now as adults that we could not as a child. Once he stood as the inner parent and allowed his inner child to have a voice and express that old trapped pain, his old belief about himself dropped away. Instead of believing that something was wrong with him, he understood that his parents were the problem – not him. Feeling and expressing the anger and hurt from their actions and the emotional agony he felt each morning finally moved the old energy tied to that old belief. It became obvious to him that he never was the problem, and in the end, they were doing the best they could as well. With the old belief dissolved, he naturally began to ask ‘what now’? If that old belief about me is no longer true, what do I want to be, give, or experience?’ No longer in regret, no longer blaming his parents, now he is free.
How will you let go of regret today?
WANT TO EXPLORE HOW THIS WORKS IN YOUR LIFE?
GET THE WEEKLY EXPLORATION EXERCISE BY SIGNING UP HERE.
IT'S LIKE A HAVING A MINI-SESSION WITH ME, THE BELIEF COACH.