Regrets are brutal, right?
They are energy vampires. Happiness slayers. Joy slammers.
The thing is – we wake up every day with the potential to start over!
That cliché about “today is a new day” is totally true…even though you may want to roll your eyes if someone said it to you in the moment.
Here’s why:
When we feel regret about something – your last relationship, your birth experience, your mistake on the job, how you handled your last argument with your partner or friend – we they have a spider sense for a moment in the future that might feel similar to that event that brings up regret.
Then, when we feel that moment of resonance with the past – that moment when we’re like, “Hmmm….I really hope I don’t fuck this up again” – we can use it as an opportunity to create a new response.
We are allowed to have a ‘do-over.'”
Really? Yes.
For example, I think about how lately I’ve been leaning more into my morning ritual, and making sure I prioritize it so that I start the day off fresh and inspired and grounded. This helps me feel at ease with all the mornings that I wasted away with lazily sleeping in (which, BTW, is perfectly fine if it doesn’t bother you or throw off your day!), gluten or wine hangovers, or ruminating about all my worries.
I’m making up for those big time, because my NEW mornings are infused with freakin’ magic, peeps. My mornings, even before a day filled with ho-hum errands, are started with much-needed spiritual refining and tuning-in.
There’s more about mornings in particular that help with do-overs.
Mornings are energetically in alignment with all beginnings – so we can harness that and create a new experience and oust the regrets – every morning!
Ayurveda places a big emphasis on moments and transitions throughout the day. Each moment, each day, is so full of potential for changing how we experience life.
I’ve been working with many of my clients in developing these morning rituals as well, and they are reporting massive results – more energy, more creativity, more groundedness, more juicy living.
In Freedom School this month, we even did an entire class on how to create your daily rituals – because each new day gives a chance for a new beginning, and each closing of the day opens up a new cleansing of what came before.
Think of how you start your days.
Do you wake up at the last minute so you are rushing out of the house and spilling your tea or coffee everywhere?
Do you lie in bed for minutes or hours putting off shit you need to get done?
Do you feel foggy and sluggish because of eating unhealthfully or living a less-than-healthy lifestyle?
You can indeed do it differently in the morning. And really, when you honor and reshape your mornings to a ritual that serves you best, you can honor and reshape previous experiences too.
Cool, eh?
There’s more: every MOMENT – not just morning – is also fertile with opportunity to create something new.
What about the rest of your day?
Do you spend your free time perusing other people’s successes and feeling bad about where you are at?
Do you go to bed checking your email and thinking about all the shizzle you have to get done tomorrow?
Do you say “I’m sorry” just for speaking or taking up space or asking for advice or help?
These are all energy suckers!
You can instead examine why you are apologizing.
You can examine why you are obsessed about everything you have to do tomorrow (what’s the story you tell yourself about what happens, or who it means you are, if you don’t get everything done?).
You can examine why you are jealous about someone else’s success and are focusing on that instead of creating your own.
Often the motivator is some kind of regret, and we just need to stop that living-in-the-past shizzle if we are going to move forward with a life of freedom!
Create a NEW way of approaching things when those feeling come up.
But I know that there are times when we just…drop the ball.
What about when you really fucked up?
In Tibetan Buddhism there’s a four-step formula for making amends with a regret (also applicable to apologizing). This doesn’t have to do with anybody else, though. It can be ANY regret – even letting yourself down.
Having a proper process for making amends can help you start over. I’ve found it helpful to remember, because it keeps my apologies legit.
Here are the 4 Steps to Making Amends
• Recognize that either there was an experience you regret having had, or that perhaps you did something wrong – or let’s take the judgment out of it and change “wrong” to “something you weren’t so proud of”
• Sit with the feeling of remorse and regret so that you don’t half-ass it and have it lingering sneakily behind you for months or years. Feel it fully, knowing you can release it. Don’t create a story behind it. Just feel it.
• Move into a place of compassion for yourself (and the person you’ve harmed if it’s applicable). Notice the whole “compassion for yourself” part! Don’t skip over that! In fact, start with it.
• Then set the intention that you won’t do it again and take a positive action. So if you stole something, you could give something away when you saw someone in need. If you hurt someone with aggressive language, you can more openly and quickly forgive someone for the same infraction and send them loving kindness. And really, set the intention to not do it again and mean it. Apologies don’t mean shit when someone keeps making the same mistake over and over and just says they are sorry without meaning it.
If you regret something and it is taking over your mind, choose RIGHT NOW to do something to offset it.
And when you find a moment that resonates particularly powerfully with a regret, make a strong intention that how you handle it will help you release the old regret.
Once you’ve decided to let go, and you’ve taking positive action, then truly release it. It’s time.
Do-overs are the best.
How are you going to do-over something soon?
Or what’s a way you’ve done this already?
To Your Freedom!
| PS: grab your spot in Freedom School while the bonuses are still up! It’ll be a no-brainer when you see what they are. Click here here to check it out. |