I want to flex my letting go muscle. How can I let go of regret?

[Vision]

Sold a PC component for $680 yesterday, realized I had missed out on potentially $300 given how rare and high in demand it was - which explains why I got a swarm of messages within the same night I listed it... and sold it...

I keep thinking "I should've just left it up for longer at a higher price and not have sold it the same night I listed it" and what I could've done with that money. There is this knot in my chest about it even though it's probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

While it's few hundred dollars and that's quite a lot, the problem mostly stems from me wanting to make the most out of everything, not really the price. I think that even if it was $100, I would still be regretting it. So this is more than just it being a lot of money.

How can I use this as an opportunity to flex my letting go muscle? It's just a few hundred dollars... If I'm struggling to let go of a few hundred dollars, I'm probably quite far from letting go of my life.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Vision
removed the full story and condensed it

[bliss54]

I struggle with regretting so many things Its so painful for me

[Tim R]

@Vision You don't even have to let go of "a few hundred dollars". Those 300$ don't exist, they are literally just a thought.

You're not clinging to 300$, you're clinging to the thought of 300$, that's it. Become as deeply aware of this as you can. Those 300$ are a complete fantasy, they were never taken away from you and you have lost nothing. 

Don't make any excuses, don't say "well but I really could've had 300$ more now", no. So long as you insist on this silly fantasy, you will feel regret. But only because you insisted. 

Before you can even cling to a fantasy, you have to believe that it's real. So that's the first thing you need to see, it's just a fantasy. And then you can start letting go, because it's actually quite easy to let go of something which isn't even real.

[Vision]

@Tim R

Yes, $300 is just a thought.

Money is also just a thought. Survival is also just a thought. Survival runs on thoughts and fantasies.

When thoughts and fantasies are all we have for survival, how do we relinquish attachment to them? Even being aware that it is a thought, it is hard to let go of how (relatively) "real" it is compared to any other thought. Would you agree with money being a reasonable belief to use? There is such a thing as reasonable, useful beliefs... right? We can still be aware that they are illusions, fantasies, with no basis in reality itself, while still making use of them?
 

If you let go of money, how will you effectively survive?

[Tim R]

@Vision I'm not telling you to let go of money or survival, just to let go of those hypothetical 300$. 

[Crane Bahnsteik]

Maybe its not about the money.

You failed and experienced a loss, failure is part of life and loss is guaranteed, we will eventually lose everything, even our lives, so grief over loss is something that has to be trancended.

Accept that you are not perfect and that you are subject to error. Accept that life is the experience of change and in a world where everything changes loss is a given, also, look at your past and all the times you didnt deal with loss properly, surrender those losses as well.

[Vision]

2 hours ago, Tim R said:

@Vision I'm not telling you to let go of money or survival, just to let go of those hypothetical 300$. 

@Tim R We do want to let go of money and survival at a certain point, no?

Since it happened so recently my mind is still thinking “What if I asked him for it back and refunded” which is irrational and unlikely to work but a part of me thinks it is rational because it’s in denial. How do we let go for irrational thoughts? 

[Vision]

57 minutes ago, Crane Bahnsteik said:

Maybe its not about the money.

You failed and experienced a loss, failure is part of life and loss is guaranteed, we will eventually lose everything, even our lives, so grief over loss is something that has to be trancended.

Accept that you are not perfect and that you are subject to error. Accept that life is the experience of change and in a world where everything changes loss is a given, also, look at your past and all the times you didnt deal with loss properly, surrender those losses as well.

@Crane Bahnsteik

How can I figure out why I’m finding it so hard to accept it?

It could be because I’ve grown up with a scarcity mindset my entire life due to the influence of my parents. It seems to be deeply ingrained into my psyche. I don’t know how to unwire it.

[hyruga]

Read the book Letting Go by David Hawkins.

[Crane Bahnsteik]

@Vision
 

Yes family plays a big role, as well as genetics, friends, and so on, you were programmed to feel that way in that context. The situation itself is of little importance, what matters is the program running in your mind making you feel that way when certain variables align.

Attachment to parents is one of the most difficult things to release because of the god image we attribute to them, we put our parents in a pedestal and live subconsciously by their notions and opinions of reality, this is obviously part genetic programming telling us to learn from them because they survived long enough to reproduce, and social programming because we have to fit in our family to survive, depending on how your brain works you can either live by their rules or do the opposite. What we fail to realise then is that our parents are just two people who had sex, no more than that, parents are of no more value than a random person in a street, this does not mean that you have to treat them like some random people, this just means that they know no better than you when it comes to living your life.

The effectiveness of letting go or acceptance increases as you increase the resolution of that which you are releasing, the more specific you are the better.

If you try to let go of money for instance you get stuck, money is not the problem, money is neutral, the problem are the emotions behind it, see, the ego is like a wall, if you want to tear the wall down you dont start by removing the top blocks, you remove the bottom ones and the wall will crumble, the same with the ego, you have to identify what happened in your life that made you feel that way.

Now, beacause memories can be clouded by emotional content, the best way in my opinion to reach them is to experience the emotions out, dont resist the resistance, dont resist the feelings as bad as they seem to be, let go of wanting to let go, the more you want the feeling to leave the more it will stay, stay with the emotions, even if you have to sit in a room alone with no eletronics, just let them take over you, as you experience the emotions the memories will arise and it will become obvious why you feel a certain way, be it by social or genetic programing (Like inheriting an overactive amygdala for instance), and its there when you can release the bottom blocks of the wall and make it crumble.

[Vision]

On 11/11/2021 at 7:02 PM, hyruga said:

Read the book Letting Go by David Hawkins.

@hyruga THANK YOU! I remember reading an excerpt from this book which made me instantly buy it. This was literally a year ago and it's been sitting in my kindle library ever since. Thank you for reminding me. Once I finish reading this book on SIBO this may be my next read.

On 12/11/2021 at 2:03 AM, Crane Bahnsteik said:

The effectiveness of letting go or acceptance increases as you increase the resolution of that which you are releasing, the more specific you are the better.

@Crane Bahnsteik What do you mean by resolution? Like the clarity and specificity of what it is I am trying to release and how close it is to the root?

On 12/11/2021 at 2:03 AM, Crane Bahnsteik said:

If you try to let go of money for instance you get stuck, money is not the problem, money is neutral, the problem are the emotions behind it, see, the ego is like a wall, if you want to tear the wall down you dont start by removing the top blocks, you remove the bottom ones and the wall will crumble, the same with the ego, you have to identify what happened in your life that made you feel that way.

Now, beacause memories can be clouded by emotional content, the best way in my opinion to reach them is to experience the emotions out, dont resist the resistance, dont resist the feelings as bad as they seem to be, let go of wanting to let go, the more you want the feeling to leave the more it will stay, stay with the emotions, even if you have to sit in a room alone with no eletronics, just let them take over you, as you experience the emotions the memories will arise and it will become obvious why you feel a certain way, be it by social or genetic programing (Like inheriting an overactive amygdala for instance), and its there when you can release the bottom blocks of the wall and make it crumble.

This makes sense. Thanks.

But it's so difficult. Especially trying to let go of trying to let go. Why do I find it so hard to let go of trying to let go?

[Cathal]

regret just makes no sense. come to a conclusion about how it makes absolutely 0 sense to regret things, see the errors you've made, forgive, and take new actions aligned with your new level of understanding. until you do that, the action part, you will be enslaved by it

u couldnt ask for a better book for this, letting go by david r hawkins

[Crane Bahnsteik]

12 hours ago, Vision said:

 

@Crane Bahnsteik What do you mean by resolution? Like the clarity and specificity of what it is I am trying to release and how close it is to the root?

This makes sense. Thanks.

But it's so difficult. Especially trying to let go of trying to let go. Why do I find it so hard to let go of trying to let go?

@Vision Yes precisely.

Subconsciously you are afraid of letting go and being dominated by the emotion which is normal, letting go of an emotion is a pandoras box to the ego since the ego does not know whats going to happen to its identity and it also means its eventual demise. In a way, the you that feels regret will die so it takes a lot of courage. This feeling of courage is sometimes crucial in the process of letting go, if you let go from a place of courage it becomes much easier. Dificulty can arise from the fact of you trying to release an emotion when your "state" is low, like for example, trying to release fear from a place of fear, it just forms a feedback loop from which is dificult to escape, try to get to more powerful emotions like courage and acceptance and release from there, its like jumping from an airplane, you feel the surge of courage and jump.

You can try and make the emotion bigger and see if it helps, feel the emotion, isolate the visceral sensation and increase it as much as you can. 
The sedona method technique by Lester Levenson which inspired the letting go method by David Hawkins is also helpful, especially the 1992 course on youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5F6-cxbtT6KM9Sxk48QOMC2KZmU1_1z, the new ones are not so good. The 90's Office Visit Series by David Hawkins is also great, you can get it for free on audible by using their trials.

[Vision]

9 hours ago, catcat69123 said:

regret just makes no sense. come to a conclusion about how it makes absolutely 0 sense to regret things, see the errors you've made, forgive, and take new actions aligned with your new level of understanding. until you do that, the action part, you will be enslaved by it

@catcat69123 See, I think there is still a part of me that thinks regret can be used as motivation. Like - avoiding doing something that I will regret in the future. Delaying gratification or regret indulging in instant gratification in the future, etc.

 

8 hours ago, Crane Bahnsteik said:

You can try and make the emotion bigger and see if it helps, feel the emotion, isolate the visceral sensation and increase it as much as you can. 

@Crane Bahnsteik How can I do this? It's sort of just "there".

8 hours ago, Crane Bahnsteik said:

The sedona method technique by Lester Levenson which inspired the letting go method by David Hawkins is also helpful, especially the 1992 course on youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5F6-cxbtT6KM9Sxk48QOMC2KZmU1_1z, the new ones are not so good. The 90's Office Visit Series by David Hawkins is also great, you can get it for free on audible by using their trials.

I've heard of the sedona method before and watched some summaries on it but I have never seen this course. This will be profound. Thank you so much.

[Crane Bahnsteik]

5 hours ago, Vision said:

 

@Crane Bahnsteik How can I do this? It's sort of just "there".

@Vision It boils down to practice really. Become in contact with the feelings of the body, the heaviness of the physical sensation that comes with the emotion, the visceral feeling of resistance and contraction of the muscles, and then play with it. Its like the difference of having your dog barking against your will or inviting the dog to bark see, the last one doesn't bother you so much because you are hearing the bark on your own volition.

[Cathal]

@Vision you already have the answers then, you want to practice letting go - so you avoid doing something to avoid feeling of regret, do the thing and let go of identifying with the regret as you, the real you knows the right thing to do. keep doing it over and over, for sure you will notice a difference.

just ask yourself, do you want life to go by because you avoided feeling a negative emotion? lets go back to the root ft. buddha

aversion, craving

so, you want to suffer less and enjoy life more? lets work on it bro, aint gonna come easy

[Moksha]

When you realize that regret, guilt, and anxiety not only accomplish nothing, but actively sabotage your presence, it is easier to let them go. A conceptual realization isn't enough though. The suffering has to go bone-deep for most of us to be willing to release it.

[universe]

You've got some amazing replies already.

Some people feel bad for marking up their stuff due to shortages others feel bad if they didn't squeeze out the last tiny bit possible out of the exchange. Whatever floats your boat 

Seems to be super chill to feel bad. You could say it's kinda in vogue.

Ask yourself why do you need this drama in your life right now?

Maybe you really crave this sensation.

It feels so important! Doesn't it bring welcome excitment into this illusion?

Makes it all too real.

Otherwise let those 300$ go. You made someones day, maybe he couldn't afford the full price and you also learned a valuable lesson to do your research before selling stuff. Mark it as a win in your book and keep rockin your life!

[Adam M]

Think of it more as an unflex

[Raze]

Try the Sedona method or Byron Katie method