What Do You Do With Your Regrets?
Since the beginning of the year I’ve been visited by old wounds and reflections on events from the past.
The past week it was a surprising regret around the way I behaved with someone. It felt like I was possessed back then, not noticing the harm I was causing myself and the other person.
Like a star we’re spiralling through life lessons so our light can gain momentum and grow.
As always I sat to digest those intense feelings with meditation and writing and this is what I found:
Regrets can feel like a stain on your heart. The temptation to keep playing the narrative of what you did wrong is strong. Like when you're trying to rub a stain on your short and only make it worse.
Resisting this temptation and staying with the pang of regret you’ll see that at the heart of regret there’s a seed of desire to witness your deep unfulfilled needs.
Maybe it was the seed of being seen. But you went about it, like I did, in the wrong way. You were willing to be satisfied with crumbs because the hunger was so big.
Maybe it was the seed of feeling worthy. But when you were gifted with a lump of money you felt uncomfortable in this new state of abundance, like I did, so you found ways to use it so fast you’re not even sure now what you spent it on.
To regret is to come back to something left undone. Regret offers us the chance to pick up those seeds equipped with a fresh perspective that will serve us better.
To admit a regret is to confess the yearning to love ourselves fully.
To appreciate a regret is to witness how we’ve grown and witness what else is beautifully possible in the future.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about regret is that it’s like a fence, marking a border of a terrain you can’t go back to. It doesn’t matter that you can’t go back to the past to make things different because the fact you can’t go back means you’ll never get to be replayed by those hidden sabotaging beliefs as well. You can’t go back to the washing machine of the unworthiness patterns because regret stops you just as you’re about to automatically play it the same way.
Like a bud that can’t go back to being a seed hidden in the belly of the earth, our regrets are a sign of growth.
And you can’t enjoy a seed as much as you can enjoy the beauty and fragrance of a fully grown flower.
Shelly's helping those who know their gifts and strength lie in their life story and wounds, yet after many efforts they don't seem to live that reality to the full and want to learn how to deepen their self-trust and be an authentic expression of themselves
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