How do you stop regretting if the past affects your present deeply?

[Manjushri]

say you lost your hand like an idiot - you cut it off while sawing wood, idk.

your present experience is poorer for one arm. you can't play an instrument, or whatever. (no prosthetic limbs yet)

or you squandered your time on world of warcraft and now youre 30 with no tangible real life skills and your life is basically a mess.

 

[deci belle]

Or consider this—

You are 62, but look 37 (and act 27), and hang out in a trendy café all day, so way too many other 20~30-something femme don't know you're not an international playboy and don't know you don't have your own place so they can't help imagining having some crazy fun (at your expense) with you and are trying to get you to chase them, but you live in your 85 year old parents' guesthouse/studio, and just love practicing rockabilly guitar all night anyway cuz it's more fun than than chasing ME? Hhahhahahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahhahhahahaa!! I wanna cry.

Just do the minimum— it hasn't killed you yet, has it?

I feel like bonking his bones and dragging him to MY place and fete him until he wakes up and LOVES me!!!!! But I digress…

I say get a lap steel guitar and stick a pick on your stump (or the bar if it's your other stump) and crank it to 12, mon ami.

Yes, it sucks, but what are you going to do? Seek the inevitable~ or just wait for it.

If you've been out chopping off your hand, go inside and write about how beautiful something is with your other hand until you pass out.

If you've been inside your whole life and are a pasty dough-boy, get outside and climb to the top of something over and over again until I can at least discern your ass from those other lumps you're dragging around.

I hope I made you smile…❤︎

Make someone else smile~ how's that for doing the minimum?

[Mu_]

3 hours ago, Gligorije said:

say you lost your hand like an idiot - you cut it off while sawing wood, idk.

your present experience is poorer for one arm. you can't play an instrument, or whatever. (no prosthetic limbs yet)

or you squandered your time on world of warcraft and now youre 30 with no tangible real life skills and your life is basically a mess.

 

There are many approaches to this question and dependent from where your at.

Perhaps start with looking into why do you regret these things?  Whats a mess as a result?  What can you do now to change this mess?  Take these steps, and let go of the regret acknowledging whats done is done and regret will only hold you back from moving forward.  And take note of this, and look at how this can apply to any negative focus you have inside, like anger about something in life, at yourself, at others, or fear of something.....its all roughly the same.

Again this is one way.

If you do the above enough and get some steady progress, then look into and add a more "Buddhist" lense.  Inquire into what is an emotion, a though, a belief, who you think you are.  Acknowledge regret is a just a thought and emotion about a past moment in time that is no longer happening now and let it go, embrassing the joy that period of time you may have gotten or the suffering it showed and finding peace in the now of what is......letting the regret arise, not clinging and fall like all emotions and thoughts do.  And from here make new choices of how you'd like to live your life and how to make those changes.....

The later approach is one in which could be a long investment of your life and you will probably need to read more about what I wrote in a book or video's or seeing a teacher. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Mu_

[zambize]

When I really fuck up,  I just remember that feeling bad about it really won't do shit.  I've known many depressed bed-ridden who went to my school.  That state of mind won't get you anywhere.  So first of all break up the barriers that you need to be sad to make up for it, that's bullshit (in my eyes).  You have to want to be happy, say it if you have to.  I think second would come dealing with all the negative emotions that come along with deep regret.  What I have found best to deal with lingering emotions (I feel them primarily in the stomach) is usually an hour meditation where I channel a sort of loving energy into those emotions while trying to be as aware as possible of them...  Shinzen Young also confirmed my formula (im sure it was discovered hundreds/thousands years ago) pain/awareness=suffering, remember that!!!

[deci belle]

I liked your guys' responses a lot— but somebody had to be the first to bust through.

It might be easy to overlook the compounded nature of this kind of mental space when unfortunate events derail healthy, constructive responses.

I say that because, at times, those I have worked with were obviously in a vortex of feeling bad about feeling bad.

I suggested as clearly as possible, that just won't do!

[purerogue]

Questions is , do you love who you are?

If answer is yes, then you should be grateful for all what happened, because if even 1 thing went differently ,  you would be completely different person. 

If answer is no, then only thing there is to say that past is past , you can live only in this moment and make sure that you move in your life where you want it to be, it is completely pointless to feed negativity in you for things you can't change, only purpose of past is to learn. 

[Shin]

Does it help you in any way to regret anything ?

Or do you only feel pain and loose time ?

[deci belle]

There are two people following this thread~ none of whom are the thread starter, Gligorije.

Nice.

[Manjushri]

@deci belle I check content I started + following once a day/2 days.

concerning your reply, are you a motivational speaker??? amazing reply. thank you very much

Thank you everyone for your time and insights!

@purerogue as from the Lion King - "ahhh yess the past can hurt.. but the way i see it you can either run away from it, or learn from it!"

the problem is where the insight from the mistake is minimal ... you know, say you cut off your hand by accident. Okay, I've now learned that I should never put my hand next to a saw unprotected! ..

I just can't let regret go. No sedonas no shit it keeps coming back. 

[Forestluv]

15 minutes ago, Gligorije said:

I just can't let regret go. 

Become conscious of the "I" that cannot let regret go. Within this consciousness there is stillness - regardless of whether or not the "I" and regrets arise within the mind.

[deci belle]

Yay! Gligorije is listening!

Thank you for that, mon ami~ even us "motivational" speakers need feedback… don't think I wasn't wondering about vous.

I saw your OP in the dungeon of neglected thread-starters with ZERO responses, and had to say something!

You are experiencing (suffering from) EXTREME loss and that just won't go away by itself. This is an excruciating process, omg…

My friend lost most of his hand when he was very young, figuring out what a gasoline powered lawn-mower does (ouch!!).

Well, what I said about a steel guitar is true, and you can do that much— so at least do that much, ok?

❤︎

[K VIL]

I cant speak from direct experience as I have both arms. But I can say the past is what you do now. 

So if i realize, the past has negatively effected me I move forward so that the next past will not cause more damage!

And then, IF i evolve, i move to the point where the past creates an even better future!

[Manjushri]

@deci belle j´ai pas perdu mon main, c´était juste un example extrème pour illustrer...

j´ai pas perdu si beaucoup, néanmoins c´est douloureux... mais bien sûr que j´ai pas abandonné. Merci beaucoup dB!

To digress, currently I regret for not having started learning Japanese earlier. I watched anime when I was a kid, so that was like the perfect time. I would´ve probably invested all of my curiosity and learning and productive energy into it, because then all I was doing was having fun and I yearned for doing something useful. 

But the causal chain is too complex...

Edited November 28, 2018 by Gligorije

[deci belle]

Oui-oui~ that's even better than I hoped, dear~ nevertheless, how you expressed it in the OP isn't to be discounted.

Use what you have left for the time being and just work with what is, (precisely as it is) in order to see through what must not be denied.

Now I'm very happy I saw your thread, Gligorjie❤︎!!

 

[Leo Gura]

@Gligorije Well, at some point you'd have to accept it and move, otherwise the suffering would be too great.

Hedonistic adaptation always kicks in in the end.

Studies have shown that people who lose limbs basically return to their original level of happiness after a few years.

Same for lottery winners.

[denydritz]

Well, losing an arm is a physical experience and has both mental and physical effects. There could be some clinical issues that are related to "phantom pain" and feeling regret that the accident happened. If it's clinical, then surely you need to consult an expert.

If the regret is limited to an emotional feeling, then it's because we have "past goals." I learned this from my mentor who says that we regret or feel guilty or ashamed about the past because we have goals that we want to happen in the past, at that particular time. In your example, the goal is to "be productive while I was young so I don't end up being 30 and having a messy life."

Obviously, past goals are impossible, because the time period has already ended. Knowing that past goals are useless, personally I can dissolve any feeling of regret I had about the past. The path that happened (and is happening) is always the path that happens. There is no other path, and comparing to another path that doesn't exist only makes you suffer (like Leo says).

In your example, you can be productive starting now. It would be bad to not be productive because you wanted to be productive in the past, and you can't because it's a past goal.

[Shin]

Something I wrote on my journal today:

 

I can see now that all that ever happened in my life was about to raise my consciousness and to learn to let go.
So there is nothing to regret, and nothing to cling to (since the present suffering is actually helping).
Nothing to cling to, because if you carefully look back, and make all the connections, you realize that all the suffering and struggles was necessary to come to this point.
So everytime I suffered in the last year I always wondered what the suffering is trying to teach me, what should I do (or not) next, and of course once that is cognized letting go is way easier.

[Manjushri]

@denydritz That's really well formulated :)) past goals... ill remmber that. thank you

@deci belle thank you, dharma jewel

@Shin yes, that's a good way to look at it. it can be too hard sometimes. but yeah the suffering is a building block

 

[Dan Arnautu]

@Gligorije Holding on to guilt prevents you from increasing your consciousness and is very counterproductive for you and for the people around you.

It's actually the most unresourceful emotion to have, worse than apathy or depression.

Learn to let go of it using Dr. Hawkin's letting go technique. You can find the book "Letting go" on Amazon.

Get it, do technique and then come back in 5 months as a brand new human being.