No Take-Backs

This Weeks Life Lessons

So this week I was reminded of a very hard and important lesson.

It's something we've all heard over and over again.  It's become so cliche that I think we've become desensitized to it.

Here it is:

"No going back , Don't cry over spilt milk, what's past is past, shoulda coulda woulda" 

And like most things in life, it's so much easier said than done.

This week I found myself playing a lot of "what-if games", and shoulda coulda wouldas (apparently a lot of the phrases are also titles of songs I've written).

What if I had acted on my feelings, what if I had said this instead of that, what if I had gone to that show... would I be in a different place now? Could I have changed the course of my path even a little?

But here's the thing that I really started to get when I was thinking all these things.

Thinking like that and "going there" are really just forms of distrusting my former self.

It's completely disregarding how I felt last week, or yesterday or even 6 months ago in that moment. From my stand point now, it's easy to think that maybe I would have done something differently. And maybe if the situation presented itself to me NOW, feeling the way I feel NOW, TODAY, THIS MOMENT, I would choose a different option.

But what I'm trying to remember is that IN THAT MOMENT it felt right. IN THAT MOMENT I decided not to reveal my true feelings, ask for help, buy those tickets, press send etc etc. And I have to trust that I knew what I was doing and was using my best judgement.

And ultimately, second guessing previous decisions or ruminating on the past is taking us out of the present moment and keeping us in our head (That's a whole 'nother life lesson). Doubting the choices we've made or wanting to take-back, go back or cry over your spilt milk is invalidating everything about that moment-How we felt, what we heard, the lesson we were supposed to take from it.

It's easy to say from where I stand now, "oh but I should have and could have." The truth is that it was the only decision I could have made because it's the only one I did.

So the overwhelming lesson for me is to trust my former self. To trust that I made the best decision for myself at the time even if from my current viewpoint I think I know better and can see more "clearly." To not go round and round with what ifs and should haves. I'm already getting better at it.

Won't you join me in trying to trust that you did everything you could have and should have done ? In no looking back, in no taking back, and no crying over spilt milk?

Yours truly, D