...in a previous incarnation, I had a page called the 'Z-Esoterica'. it still exists; my brother Lando Gale is the admin there now. i had to leave my Facebook page because of the toxicity and stupidity of people battling over the nuances of hate, and it was distracting me from my publishing service business. however, it was a page of provoking thought. That is a great thing, in my esteem; to bring about the desire for thought, to get people processing information and coming to conclusions, rather than jumping off the lemming-cliff of what sounds clever or catchy and forming their lives and online identities around bullshit that has no substance. if this irks you, you're welcome.
anyway, i was at the gym this morning, managing my fat. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! whooooo...good times. yes, i was at the gym, and i was thinking about regret. (i wake up and force my brain to conceptualize, because it gets me focused on critical thinking, and it's more fun than crossword puzzles. ) i was thinking how, when you run down your wall, you can see a lot of really empowering statements from a lot of people who may or may not really be on that page in their real world life. and, as a recovering addict/alcoholic of no particular fellowship (Tradition RESPECT, MOFOS!) i thought about my own regrets, about how i am now in a very transitional place and yet i don't feel as if i'm making mistakes, as if i'm fucking up, to put it bluntly. and as i reflected on this, i realized there is a process, and that might just help some people. and as human concerns, it is our job to help when we can, how we can, though many of us have forgotten this.
see, when you choose to get sober through 12 step means (which the recovery network tries to cast aspersions on now; the easier, softer way as the new way of getting 'cured') you have to clear away the debris of your life, and that debris exists first in your mind, then in your physical environment. like cleaning a particularly filthy, poorly maintained house. you first have to have a starting place and a plan, and if you plan well and start strong, the work gets done pretty easily, right? that's what the discover/discard part of the program has been for me. and at this phase of my life, i don't really have a bunch of regrets. and this is how that happened for me. thanks to Johnnie C, to the Olde Tymers who mentored my immature self into 'putting away childish things', and to Jehovah God first and foremost, so you don't think i'm just so damn clever, cause i don't)
regrets can be seen as question marks, hanging from the ceiling of one's mind. they are suppositions and hypothesis, the 'what would have happened', lingering as an echo in the conscious, unconscious and subconscious mind. most of us, or many of us to be more accurate, learn to simply push those back into the closet, but the residual effect, the radiation they give off, tends to permeate our important actions, and then we see self-sabotage, an inability to have anyone close to us for any length of time, a toxicity toward self that damages our own perception of who we are, a constant need to justify and a constant urge to flee when it feels as if the walls are closing in. maybe there are other manifestations of that resonance, but those are the ones i used to experience most profoundly.
what helped me was looking carefully at those regrets, those question marks hanging from the ceiling of my mind, and (starting place and plan), prioritizing the elimination process accurately.
okay, dig. i got rid of a whole slew of them right off the bat, by looking at the ones that could not be changed even if my actions changed that very minute. things i'd done, things that were done to me, the immutable history of my life. i couldn't, and can't, change any of that stuff. mistakes i made and the effects they had on me, i can't change. in a 12 step program, there's ownership, acknowledgement to damaged parties and restitution where possible, but for removing regret, there's just seeing them clearly for what they are. example: I am a divorcee. I began a relationship with a woman who was new in her recovery, and to justify my bullshit, I married her. We ended up divorced. A failure among failures that haunted me for a long time. in the sense of removing that question mark, I will always be divorced from her. even were we to remarry, we will have been divorced (we'll never remarry, by the way. she is married now and, i assume, happily so, as she deserves). since there is nothing i can do about that as a fact, i throw that question mark away. What would life be if i had no children? Moot; i have kids, so there's no point living that question. in the trash with it.
you'd be amazed how much you can get rid of when you look at those kinds of regrets clearly.
next, there is the mutable questions. (mutable: liable to change) like going to the gym. i can't change that i lived my life as a fat person. i can change if i choose to live the rest of my life as an unhealthy, immobile, weak and undisciplined person. i have that choice. so, if i open myself to address that question, it stops being a question. do i choose to discipline myself to the gym? it may not mean i'll not be fat, but it sure has meant i have my mobility, my health is better, my glucose readings are better without as much insulin, my mood is better. question answered. those kinds of question marks take more time, but the answering of those questions not only remove their marks on the ceiling, they promote growth, change and self-awareness. and those things REMOVE REGRET. dig?
now, the last ones, the ones that remain after the immutable and the mutable have been removed, these are actually the hardest to fuck with. i think of them as the Hypotheticals. Existentialism force-fed crack and steroids and let loose on the psyche. because they are all future based. they are truly rooted in a damaged perspective, usually not created by self but adopted into a language that the self most easily understands. 'What would happen if..." well, there's only two things that can happen...you either do 'IF' and find out, perhaps creating more regret, or you don't do 'IF' and never find out, perhaps creating more regret. there is also the possibility of satisfaction, but it is a gambling with one's own spirit as the last thing of value thrown into the pot. and these games are rigged; why else would one end up in a life with so many regrets?
i can only address this question with my current experience. i have found myself 'housing-compromised'. life got away from me, trying to maintain life. so i have some debts that i want to tend to, i have a child about to graduate, i have a business that really needs an advertising budget that has to wait. i have books for sale which would generate income, but its hard to get people to forward information for me because i can plan a plan, but i have no control over the results, favorable or otherwise. and my child, in the process of becoming a legal adult, doing what teen-agers do (don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows), was planning to start adding question marks of the immutable kind and without the skills to deal with them.
i made a decision. strangest decision in my life, but in the Hypotheticals, you can act off-script, such as it were, as long as you do the Hippocratic oath thing: first do no harm.
i turned over the home my child and i have had for the past almost six years to she and her significant other. i have moved out, with the plan to go from place to place and work on promoting myself, my writing and my business. at the moment, i am at my parent's home because that decision, while made during spring weather, led me right into snow and cold. but this is also part of the Hypotheticals, because i've found my parents really need someone to do some things for them, things i couldn't see when i was just immersed in my own life. And in the process of continuing to advance, continuing to do the life stuff to get my life back, things are still changing. and, so it's not thought to be a complete loss of senses, there is shelter at the end of this road for me. a house that i am waiting for. a house being made ready for me.
child safe, rent paid, parent's tended to, book and business promoted, belongings safe, a home at the end of this road, learning, growing, hell, teaching even. why would i not start the process of removing that question mark? why would i have a regret about not being more than i am, or feeling like i am less than i should be?
we are human vehicles that are spirit driven. life is just the road that our bodies have to run to get us all to our final destination. a life of wondering 'what if' and 'how come' and 'what would have happened' is a life that is in large percentage wasted. there is a way to live without more regret than necessary. talk to those you should talk to. apologize to those you've wronged. forgive those you can and forget those you can't. let go of the resentments against people who will never see their own wrongs, because that chains you to a vat of nuclear waste. and for God's sake, love yourself. LOVE your SELF. because if you can't do that one thing, for real, not for Facebook, but for REAL, how the fuck do you expect anyone else to love you? love has depth and roots in aquifers as ancient as the earth itself. if all you have is surface, the elements of life will tear you down, and all that will remain...
is regret.
Aspire Higher.
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