Let’s say it’s a beautiful day and you’re feeling content. No dramas at the moment. Then, in your relaxed state of contentment, suddenly you remember a time in the past when you wish it had been different. You wish you had done something other than what you did or you wish the other person had acted differently. Perhaps you wish you had made a different choice. Maybe listened to the “little voice” inside that told you to go in a different direction.
What happens at these moments? Your blissful state has altered. Your feeling of expansion and being at one with the universe has become contracted or tense. Your energy depletes. You may have a physical sensation: you may feel a lump in your throat, emotional pain in your heart or anxiety in the navel area. Some people even get slight heart palpitations.
Then what happens? Possibly you start criticising yourself, how you’re not good enough or clever enough or how you “should have known”. You become even more tense and your energy depletes even more.
Unresolved Issues Can Carry Negativity
What are these moments that deplete energy? They are unresolved issues that carry negativity. I call them glitches from the past. They can arise at any moment and especially become prominent when you are in heightened emotional reactions or circumstances.
So, let’s say you have identified a moment when you think you should have acted differently and you feel bad about it. What difference does it make? It’s in the past and you can’t change the past. But . . . the bad feeling continues to arise in the present and may arise in the future. It obviously is an issue that remains unresolved.
Certainly you can leave it that way. In the moment that you notice a memory when you wish things had been different, you can simply sweep it away—and hope it doesn’t come back. But you also have the option of working with it more completely. You can dissolve the negative impact and stop losing energy.
Acceptance and Forgiveness
Through acceptance and forgiveness you can re-write the endings of each of your stories. Instead of an incident ending with “I wish it were different”, you can accept it fully. You can forgive yourself for your part in it and accept yourself for who you were at that moment in time. As you grow older and add to your experiences you become a different person. Even with similar physical appearances, mannerisms, pattern of speech and identical fingerprints, the thirty-year old you and the fourteen-year-old you are quite different. You no longer are who you used to be. You can forgive the naiveté, insensitivity, lack of experience, poor choices or bad tendencies of your past with love and acceptance.
You can also accept and forgive the other person or other people, the circumstances, God, the universe—anyone or anything that you may have been blaming.
At first, you might feel “I wish it were different but I can accept it the way it was.” Then after awhile the negative glitch can dissolve into “I can accept it the way it was.” In time, like the sweeter moments, you can allow these memories to arise without losing energy and embrace your life as it unfolds.
Meditation: On Acceptance
Take a moment to relax and focus on your inner being. Open yourself to the idea that everything in your remarkable life has happened the way it was supposed to happen. Possibly even if you had acted differently, certain situations still might have been the same. Open yourself to accepting everything you are and everything that has happened to you. Close your eyes and meditate on acceptance.
Inquiry: Dissolving Unresolved Issues
Do you have any unresolved issues? The next time you notice that you wish something had been different, focus on it. Be specific. What do you wish you had done differently? Voice it out loud. Have you changed your behaviour over the years or is this a pattern? Would you like to act differently in the future? Voice it out loud. Imagine talking to yourself as you were then and forgiving yourself for what you said or how you acted. Release any feeling of tension or criticism. Allow peace to arise.
Contemplation: On Contentment
The very essence of the light of your inner Self is contentment.
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