Regret, like all emotions when grasped onto blocks flow, traps one in a imagined past of ‘should of’ giving birth in the same moment a mourned for future that cannot be of ‘if only’.

True regret can point one to different paths in the present and if skillful then released, but my experience and observations is that regret is the emotion we tend to hold onto more then the others. I wonder if thier isn’t a perverse pleasure of holding on to our disappointments and failures so tightly while discounting out gifts so easily.

The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.― Fernando Pessoa

How does one stop? By stopping.  I suspect that stopping is so easily difficult is that we attach our emotions and experience to time.

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas…. – J Campbell

How does one stop? Stop naming and break the dam that hinders flow. We stop by flowing – a ironic paradox .

Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.  ― Richard Siken

Cry until you laugh… I recognize that person on the floor… We are such wonderous, messy absurd beings.

Hi Sprteflower – I like that username – what led you chose that, and did you intentionally leave out the i – sprite  – a small being, human in form, playful and having magical powers? (I wonder if its not time to embrace a little of the sprite in only to see what ‘powers’ such play might revel?)

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality. – Seneca

Thanks for sharing your story.

Your post reminded me of something I read long ago

If you have a nagging feeling that you do no measure up to the person you imagine you ought to be, the generic label for what you feel i shame. We have shame when we persistently feel that we are not acceptable, maybe unworthy, and are less than the good person we are supposed to be. Shame is a vague undefined heaviness that presses on our spirit, dampens our gratitude for the goodness of life, and slackens the free flow of joy. Shame is a primal feeling, the kind that seeps into and discolors all our other feelings, primarily about ourselves but about almost everyone and everything else in our life as well. 

Shame can get us in touch with the most beautiful part of ourselves, a warning we that we are becoming a person we do not want to be, But shame is often an unhealthy feeling of un-worth that is distorted, exaggerated, and utterly out of touch with our reality. Most of us carry both kinds of shame – shame we deserve and shame we don’t deserve.  – L B Smedes

Reading through your post I suspect the shame your experienced is undeserved yet in holding on to this undeserved shame it is also a warning that it is this holding onto this undeserved shame that is leading you into being the  person you do not want to be.  The irony of being caught in a loop of being ashamed about being ashamed, trap I can relate to.

You mention – My path has been successful from the outside – suggesting that you have overcome the objective experiences of your past, a indication that you will continue to do so and to which you should give your self more credit. It seems it is the inner stories you are telling yourself that you can’t get past. In other words its possible that its language that is keeping you stuck in undeserved shame.

A meditation practice I like is creating space and stillness as I remind myself that I am not my thoughts, there are thoughts, I am not my memories, their are memories, I am not my emotions, thier are emotions, I am not my past, the past has past, I am not the words I use to tell my stories, there are words. The map is  not the territory, and words are not the things they can only point to, there is no requirement that I hold on the them.

<p lang=”en-US”>“You likely have parts of your own history you’d rather forget, same as I do. But when I actually wrote these things down, when I got up close and personal with them—yes, there was pain, and yes, there was hurt—by giving them a name, I stripped them of their power. And what I learned is that lies (undeserved shame) will always be worth fighting against. Because what you’re left fighting for is the truth, and that is the most freeing thing in the world.”
― Joanna Gaines, The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters</p>

When I think about meditation Alan Watts words come to mind.  “If you want to outwit the devil, it is extremely important that you don’t give him advanced notice. Even if you only announce to yourself your intentions, the devil will know, because who do you think the devil is? You”

Just like when you try to be spontaneous you can’t be spontaneous, when you try to meditate you can’t. Here the words of Yoda ring out. “Their is no try on do“.  In Zen you have Wu wei  which means – non-doing or ‘doing nothing’.  Easier said then done, the ‘saying‘ being part of the problem as ones inner narrator loves to play the devil and fill ones thoughts with words of judgment and measure.

That said the inner narrator is also a pretty good observer and when focused on the breath this observer might notice the breathing is both voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary as one can choose to take a deep breath, or hold ones breath….Involuntary in the sense that breathing is a happening – a kind Wu Wei. One does not have to understand breathing to breath one does not have to be continually, consciously manipulate the mussels and nervous system to breathe.  The observer might sit mesmerized as breathing as a happening while the narrator  might become anxious and start judging, measuring.

In art and sport the artist and athlete take lessons, learn the rules, train, practice… but when they create and play the master artist and elite athlete does not think they do. If you have ever taken dance lessons over a period of time you will eventually hear the teacher say you need to learn the rules before you can break them. What they mean is that when you get to the point when you trust what you have learned is in your body. That your ears hear the rhythm without you having to listen, ears hear and the body responds… then your truly dancing.

Wu Wei. – We work for that which no work is required. We train, we learn then we trust and trusting that we ‘know’ let go of what we learned and do. One sites in Meditation and notices the breath, practicing different kinds of breathing and eventually trust that we ‘know’ without needing to be the knower, breathing a happening, the inner narrator quiets and dances.

I think Lao Tzu would agree.

“Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub,
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes its useful.
We make the doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.”  Lao Tzu

Here’s a 4000 year old riddle which may have stated a few people drinking. 🙂
“Heaven above, heaven below;
Stars above, stars below.
All that is over, under shall show.
Happy who the riddle reads!” – The Hermetic Emerald Tablet

I was watching the NASA channel where one of the astronauts returning from moon was looking out the window that one moment showed the earth the next the moon the next the sun. And in that moment for him the opposites dissolved into the All or One and the he was not separate from the One.

From that perspective what is up, what is down, what is in what is out, what is west, what is east, what is good, what is bad, what is birth, what is death, what is a beginning and what is a end?

Thought experiment.

How do we measure the present moment?
Stop time and project yourself out in to space as you watch the earth recedes. 8 billion consciousness experienced the same moment in a multitude of experiences. Continue on this journey past the galaxies and universes and you arrive at the big bang. The Present moment is bigger then big, the eternal ‘Now’ includes the big bang!  As you look within this big bang you notice a drop that is also the All, sitting quietly in a room performing a thought experiment. The present moment smaller then small.

LOL no drugs required.

Hi Helcat

These thoughts don’t upset me persay. I can move on pretty quickly from them. I think it’s the idea of it happening that bothers me. Seeing it as something to solve.

I think you hit the nail on the head. You do the work yet still the thoughts happen, a unwanted reminder of past work and or that more work is required. I find the experience more frustrating then upsetting, which of course only adds fuel to such thoughts. The mind is a amazing thing yet it seems it can’t help itself getting in its own way.

Hi Helcat

This morning as I woke to a general sense of anxiety for no apparent reason, the usual thoughts followed, wishing that I could end it as in die. To be candid I cannot remember a time when these thoughts of ending things have not been part of my life. So when I read you post I could relate to your question as I asked it myself this very morning.

It seems to me these thoughts have been planted deep from a early age and the part of the self that keeps bringing them to the surface is doing so more out of habit that for a reason. I assume their is a part of that self that is addicted to them.

My method of dealing with it has been to take a step back and observe the observer that is experiencing the anxiety from which the thoughts arise.  A practice of detachment to unblock the flow and move on from the thoughts. It sometimes works though this morning the frustration of noticing these thoughts arise yet again and not knowing why got in the way. Why can be a very unskillful word especially, as I’m beginning to suspect, this is no why, at least no one that is relevant to the present.

Allan Watts said “If you want to outwit the devil, it is extremely important that you don’t give him advanced notice. Even if you only announce to yourself your intentions, the devil will know, because who do you think the devil is? You”

I think part of what Allan is referring to with that statement is the art of ‘doing by not doing’ That when you try not to have such thoughts as suicided ideation your pretty much going to have those thoughts.  And to that I have no answer as part of the problem is language itself… and the constant nattering of the inner narrator that can’t seem to help itself in describing every thought and feeling.

Something I learned was the life is a cycle of birth, death, rebirth – the reality of every breath. Put another way Life eats Life, or Life requires the sacrifice of Life in the pursuit of Life and growth.  This is the reality of organic organisms and the subjective things as thoughts, feelings, desires, fears….. such things have their time to be born and to die so that we might learn and grow.

Only the ego isn’t usually fully conscious of this reality and or does not trust it, that rebirth will follow. Such a ego consciousness does not like IT as it feels like death as a ending, so It resist this flow of life, which it can’t. This produces anxiety and the paradoxical desire of ending this cycle by suicide.  The ego self fear of “dying” creating the suicidal ideation, which surly is ironic.

Anyway I took that to mean that when I experience thoughts of suicide its a sign pointing to the likelihood that I’m holding on to something that needs to die so that a something else might grow. I suspect thier are a few things I’m holding onto that is blocking flow.  Thus we work for that which no work is required as the flow is always flowing and the thought we are blocking it only a illusion. Holding on to something which time has come to ‘die‘, still ‘dies’, only the rebirth of what come next has changed.

So this morning I woke up ‘on the wrong side of the bed’ but seeing your post didn’t feel so quite alone.  My name is Peter and I’m addicted to Suicidal Ideation…

Hi Mindy and Matilda

Alive but not living… not a great space to find oneself. From my own experience I learned that the way out is through. Each day taking step to change something and noticing when thinking and feeling were blocking flow. The author Matt Haig writes about such experiences. I found his book Midnight Library helpful as it reminds us we arn’t alone in this experience of being alive but not living.

It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.

It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do the people we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.

We can’t tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.

…..

Of course, we can’t visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we’d feel in any life is still available. We don’t have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don’t have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don’t have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays.

We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum.
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

Thanks Helcat

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experience with  attachment, memory and being Present.  I find it helpful in hearing how others express thier experiences with what they are learning.