Week 104: Releasing Regret


On a recent trip, I listened to a tape series by Sogyal Rinpoche, who wrote “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.” At one point, he talked about working with people who are dying, and how important it is to help them focus on the accomplishments they’ve made in their lives, rather than on their regrets. This got me to thinking about how different we can feel moving through a day when we are focused on the things we’ve accomplished – no matter how small – compared to how a day moves when we focus on the things that didn’t happen as we would have wanted, times when we immerse ourselves in lament and regret.

As I’ve mentioned many times, our body-mind being responds actively to the tone and quality of our thoughts, and when we focus on what we should have done, didn’t do, missed the opportunity to discover, etc., etc., we begin a process of weighing ourselves down. We’re likely to become demotivated and depressed. On the other hand, when we focus on even the most mundane tasks we’ve accomplished, our body-mind response tends to be one of movement toward more experience, of movement into life rather than shying away from it.

Sometimes we grow up in families where lament is a style of thinking and we do it automatically. Sometimes we learned to criticize ourselves based on feedback we received when we were young. Sometimes we were in a situation where we needed to learn to hold ourselves back because of a competitive parent, so we became experts at catching ourselves doing things wrong. Catching yourself doing things wrong is a guaranteed way to diminish your sense of empowerment and limit your willingness to explore new behaviors.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to pay attention to your habit of mind around how you talk to yourself. If you find that you slip into lament or regret, stop yourself and focus on something else. It’s like closing a book mid-sentence, as soon as you catch the tone of your thinking. Then, take a moment to think of something you’ve done that you felt good about having done. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big thing of something no one else would notice, as long as it’s something you accomplished, completed, wanted to do and did. This recollection could involve something as fleeting as smiling at someone on the street, or a challenge like washing the dishes that have piled up in the sink, or following through on a decision to write a letter or e-mail you’ve been meaning to send, or putting away a piece of clothing. It could also relate to memories of accomplishments that have meant a great deal to you, such as finishing school, writing a book, giving a lecture, completing a major project, helping someone in a time of need. The specific content of the recollection or thought is less important than the fact that it reflects something you did that you feel good about. As you do the experiment, notice the quality of your thoughts and feelings, as well as the physical sensations that arise when you immerse yourself in thinking that supports you.

Also, be sure to notice any mixed feelings you may have as you shift from lament and regret to positive thoughts about what you’ve accomplished. You may be breaking an old rule, and it might be uncomfortable at first – or feel artificial – to consciously bring yourself back to positive thoughts about things you’ve done. Mixed feelings are invitations to greater awareness, to deeper understanding of why we respond as we do, as well as opportunities to make new choices.

In addition, as part of this experiment, for the coming week, take 10 minutes each day specifically to spend time thinking about things you’ve done that you feel good about. Use the same guidelines as above, and take the 10 minutes – as if they were a meditation time – practicing thinking about accomplishments. Be sure to allow yourself to consider what you might think of as unimportant things, such as filing papers that needed to be put away. One of the small things I focused on recently was that I unpacked and got everything in its place soon after returning from a trip, which felt good on a couple of levels. I didn’t have to face a mess later, and I enjoyed the process of putting things away. Not a big deal, but something that I added to my list of “this feels good.” Remember, the point here is to learn to move away from regret and lament, to break mental habit of lingering on thoughts of what hasn’t worked out.

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