Healing regret

It comes as an ache.

Over something I did, or thought, or said, or felt.

And I want to take it back: not do it, think it, say it, or feel it.

But I can’t.

Because it happened.

So there’s the reality: It happened. I’m not happy it happened. I know I could do better. I know I am better than succombing to whatever pulled me to do, think, say, feel it.

But I caved.

And there it is: that regret.

So what do I do and how do I move on?

And am I allowed to let myself move on?

Or must I dwell in the pit of regret for a certain time frame?

And if I do dwell, how long do I have to stay there?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I started asking those and so many other questions earlier today.

At the dentist’s

…while hearing him say my tooth was no longer good and needed to come out.

My regret: I used to binge and purge. a lot…every day for years.

Upon hearing news of my tooth, thought uturned back to the past.

I felt immediately “It’s because you were bulimic.”

In that moment, the magnetic pull attempted to suffocate…that pull to feel like the most horribly disgusting woman: filthy, impure, guilty, a waste.

And I knew the ensuing result of caving to that pull: I’d fall into the black hole abyss of regret and spin down, down, down into the vacuum of blame, shame, guilt, and its resulting hell: regret.

Tears flowed.

Dentist thought I’m scared of procedure.

Dentist explains procedure.

I don’t listen.

Instead?

I pray.

meaning?

I self advocate.

I defend my innocence.

I defend my freedom now.

I defend I’m not my human history or my sum total of mistakes.

I advocate that my being is entirely separate from the shit I’ve sometimes done.

True. For all of us.

One thing to know this.

Another to get there mentally.

I cry some more.

Silently.

Tears flowing.

I think by then they were already beginning to extract my tooth.

I dig further.

I realize this: regret is sorry for wrong doing.

Not a bad thing.

At all.

But what’s the time limit for the prison sentence?

In other words: how long am I to feel sorry before I rally and move on?

I think back.

To childhood.

To falling out of trees.

Back then, I would stumble to find my footing again.

And I’d launch back into climbing.

I use this metaphor a lot because for all intents and purposes, I should have stopped climbing.

Bloody knees didn’t stop me.

Bloody noses didn’t either.

Nothing stopped me from climbing tree branches up to the highest spot and finding a branch’s elbow to nest in.

I spent zero time dwelling on sorrow for falling.

Zero.

Probably because back then my innocence and curiosity and eagerness to CLIMB outweighed my sense of idiocy for falling.

In other words, back then my intense yearning to grow my courage and climb outweighed the pull toward pain and sorrow over falling.

I simply didn’t allow myself to get mentally stuck in the fall.

I fell but my thoughts didn’t stay there.

I’m remembering this while in the dentist chair.

In this moment I rally: bruised conscience and bloody soul feeling and all.

And I say to my heart: “Tre, you must choose. You must choose to get up out of the pit of regret for past wrong doing. Or you must resolve to always feel horrible for that history. Which is it gonna be?”

Well, I kid you not when I say, simply braving the question snapped me out of the regret. Initially.

I’m exhausted from regretting.

Regret imprisons. Keeps us stuck in the how come we did certain things.

Assessing why is important.

Dwelling in shame? Paralyzes.

Nope, I’m not gonna get those years back.

Nope, I can’t press rewind to each night of hell and somehow push the pause button right before I started to binge.

But that’s not really the point.

The point for me now was choosing to get over the fact that this horrible habit was something I gave my consent to.

Okay.

And further?

I knew this: In order to heal, I would need to go take a long hard core honest look at why I kept engaging in that behavior.

And I know why: every single time I caved to fear. Over the future, over feeling inadequate as a woman, as a professional, as a daughter, as a granddaughter.

So now, sitting in that dentist chair, I had something tangible to ponder: How was I going to climb this tree?  of opportunity? to reclaim my adequacy: as a life, as a woman, as a thinker, as a professional?

How was I going to do that without succombing to fear of inadequacy?

Or more gently asked: how was I gonna get through onslaughts of fear without self harming?

And that’s when the shift occured.

And I remembered there’s another view.

Of course.

The view of that which is responsible for me.

That which evolves me.

That view that is of my source.

What does She see?

How does She view me?

This source to me?

A divine Mother.

And just like a mom cradles her young one and reassures and comforts when the little one fears, so too, did I know with my whole heart, this same Love is right here, always, comforting me…removing blarings of inadequacy and restoring it with assertions of my innate worth, goodness, purity, and innocence. Yes, even innocence. Even now.

This soothed my heart so much.

Of course.

How is Love mothering me and seeing me this moment?

How has She always mothered and seen me this moment?

Is that love gonna somehow stop?

Is that love gonna somehow be inadequate?

Might I be able to let myself have that love?

Why, yes, I’m sure I can.

I keep on that way….feeling calm…feeling loved.

And I realize something more:

This now moment of feeling loved?

This moment is all.

When there, there’s no past rehearsing, no reviewing, no going over and over why.

When I stay enveloped in Love’s view, I find wholeness and calm. Now.

And it’s there, in that now knowing,  I set my sights on resolving to grow my sense of adequacy.

But from Her vantage point.

And in that resolve?

Regret dissipated.

And hope soothed.

And courage rekindled.

And my resolve to be true to my integrity soared.

And I felt whole….adored…even cherished.

Right there.

In the dentist chair.

With one less tooth, no less.:)

Hmmm.

Here’s to resolve to know Love’s view…

And to understand why.

And the freedom to keep at it.

Love.