How to turn Regrets into Gratitude
Morning journal session in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica
We’ve all made decisions at some time or another that we may look at now with a side eye or halfway smile.
You know, something that was said or done that in the moment may have felt right.
However, after a period of time (sometimes just a few minutes later, while in others it’s maybe even been years in between), we’ve probably either felt one of these two emotions:
1. Embarrassed
2. Frustrated
Maybe our intentions were pure in the moment, or maybe we were operating from a place of being “below the line.”
Jim Dethmer’s book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership goes into great length of the traits and qualities of what being a conscious leader truly entails.
The book goes on to describe the difference between being Above the Line vs. Below the Line as:
Below the Line Leadership occurs when a leader is closed, defensive, and committed to being right.
While Above the Line Leadership occurs when a leader is open, curious, and committed to learning.
The book goes on to describe in great detail, the 15 commitments of conscious leadership as follows:
1. Responsibility - I commit to taking full responsibility for the circumstances of my life, and my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.
2. Curiosity - I commit to growing in self-awareness. I commit to regarding every interaction as an opportunity to learn. I commit to curiosity as a path of rapid learning.
3. Feelings - I commit to feeling my feelings all the way through to completion.
4. Candor - I commit to saying what’s true for me.
5. Gossip - I commit to ending gossip, talking directly to people with whom I have an issue or concern, and encourage others to talk directly to people who they may have an issue or concern with too.
6. Integrity - I commit to the masterful practice of integrity, including acknowledging all authentic feelings, expressing the unarguable truth and keeping my agreements.
7. Appreciation - I commit to living in appreciation, fully opening to both receiving and giving appreciation.
8. Genius - I commit to expressing my full magnificence, and to supporting and inspiring others to fully express their creativity and Zone of Genius
9. Play and Rest - I commit to creating a life of play, improvisation, and laughter. I commit to seeing all of life unfold easefully and effortlessly. I commit to maximizing my energy by honoring rest, renewal, and rhythm.
10. Opposite of my Story - I commit to seeing that the opposite of my story is as true or truer than my original story.
11. Approval - I commit to being the source of my security, control, and approval
12. Enough - I commit to experiencing that I have enough of everything… including time, money, love, energy, space, and other resources.
13. Allies - I commit to seeing all people and circumstances as allies that are perfectly suited to help me learn the most important things for my growth
14. Win for All - I commit to creating win for all solutions (win for me, win for the other person, win for the organization, win for the whole) for whatever issues, problems, concerns, or opportunities life gives me.
15. Being the Resolution - I commit to being the resolution or solution that is needed: seeing what is missing in the world as an invitation to become that which is required.
While I won’t spend too much time on this area (as you can purchase the book to go more in depth… which I highly highly recommend by the way), I did want to speak a little about the energetic difference between both gratitude and regret.
Gratitude Is defined as the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and return kindness.
While regret is defined as feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity.
While we can all identify with both of these emotional states, I’d like to spend a bit of time speaking to the limitations that regret can create in one’s life on an emotional expression level, and how falling in love with all layers of oneself, can create more deeper levels of inner peace and happiness.
As human beings we’re all here to grow.
We’re here to aim in a direction that creates a sense of expansion, purpose, and meaning within our lives.
To have a deeper ‘why’ as to our reason for being alive (I don’t believe we’re here to just exist, or buy stuff… as while that may provide some temporary level of satisfaction for a period of time, it doesn’t actualize our greatest potential).
One of the caveats underneath this are two aspects:
1. The necessity to have a growth-oriented mindset
2. To embrace the inevitable changes as necessary to progress forward in any aspect of our lives
When we feel regret, we can create a sense of self-judgement towards ourselves.
“If I would’ve just done ______ differently, then everything would’ve worked out perfectly fine.”
“I can’t believe I did _______, X amount of years ago, as I can’t or never will forgive myself for that.”
Even just by reading those two sentences, can you feel the sense of limitation that’s created on a vibrational level?
Did you feel a sense of inner expansion or elevation while reading those statements, or a subtle sense of contraction?
How about we take a couple minutes to try it and see if you may notice any difference inside of your body while repeating it.
If you can deeply relate to something specific within your own life, I even invite you to insert it into the underlined area.
Is anything coming up for you to personally put there?
If so, go ahead and fill it in (no judgement here) :- )
Once included, re-read the sentence three (3) times to yourself (even verbalizing it out loud if you’re alone too).
Did your body feel slightly lighter or heavier while speaking your statement?
One way isn’t completely right over the other, but when this exercise was done with me for the first time by my Coach at the time, JP Morgan (and no I’m not talking about the bank), around my relationship to the word “push,” it was life-altering for me.
A common phrase of mine (for years) was “I’m got to push myself to _____ (workout, finish a project, wake up by 4:30AM, or complete some other challenge, etc;).
When he reflected back to me how it felt inside of my body when I said this, I originally looked at him like (and truthfully thought) he was crazy.
“C’mon man, it’s just one simple word (push), it can’t really mean that much.”
However, he lovingly challenged my way of perceiving the words, and invited me to close my eyes and repeat certain phrases that I unconsciously had been communicating to myself for most of my life.
“How does it feel in your body Brandon? Do you find it to be useful or inspiring language?” He asked.
“If I’m being honest… actually no.” I repeated.
We then spent the rest of that particular session identifying self-talk and language that may no longer be useful, in order to express gratitude and appreciation for it, while at the same time breathing into and releasing it from the body.
To be fair, I will say the power of language and words is different for each individual person.
A word or phrase may create a sense of expansion and inspiration for one, may alternatively create a sense of contraction or fear to another.
The beauty is in identifying your own personal language that you uniquely find uplifting, to the point of frequently utilizing it to yourself.
I soon realized that the word “push” was creating a warrior-like feeling of “not enoughness” within my personal body.
It often led me to a place of ‘pushing’ myself so hard that I would oftentimes feel more stressed or absolutely exhausted (physically, mentally, and emotionally) by the end of whatever it was that I was ‘pushing’ towards.
In that instant, I had an epiphany.
“The word ‘push’ no longer serves me. Period.”
Guess what happened next though.
I went into regret mode.
“No wonder I’ve had so many frequent bouts of being overstressed or mentally exhausted, I can’t believe I’ve been using that word (push) for my entire life up until this point, I regret it.”
It’s like going from one massive insight (creating a sense of inner expansion in the body), only to go into self-judgement a moment later (neutralizing whatever expansion was created, naturally reversing it).
I was then asked to repeat to myself the following phrase:
I forgive myself for judging myself as _______.
For me the phrase looked like this:
“I forgive myself for judging myself as being not enough, just the way that I am.”
This was in relation to my perception that I could only be ‘enough’ if I pushed myself to obtain or achieve some specific external outcome.
Can you see the underlying problem with living from a created belief that on its own, is coming from a place of lack?
If ‘lack’ is at the base of the house’s foundation (your inner core), then everything that is created from that place out into the world is created from the illusion of needing to prove oneself on some level, in order to be enough.
I really hope this is landing to some degree, as if it is, it allows the space to create a whole new (and more uplifting) relationship to not only oneself, but what they truly transmit out into the world (which is naturally from the beliefs in which they hold of themselves).
You don’t need anything outside of yourself to be happy or feel fulfilled.
You don’t need another book.
You don’t need another course.
You don’t need to add something else to your daily agenda or plate.
You don’t need another lover/wife/husband/partner.
You don’t need to be thinner or heavier.
You don’t need that position title.
You don’t need that bigger house.
You don’t need X amount of dollars in your bank account.
What if all of that could be released (if coming from a place of lack), and re-harnessed from a place of already being completely whole and amazing just the way you are (right now in the present moment)?
Not only that, what if you’ve ALWAYS been that, from the time of entering this beautiful world, until the time you may one day physically depart it.
Now does that feel lighter or heavier to you?
Do you notice any difference in how you may have felt when you first began reading this from the beginning (or alternative while rehearsing the regret statements)?
This is the power of language.
This is the power of choosing to be your biggest cheerleader.
This is the power of loving ALL of yourself to the absolute highest capacity.
Then, from that place of wholeness, what if we created the bigger house, higher position title, woman of our dreams, or body composition that we desire?
How cool is that?
It’s like a total flip of perception in as little as 5 short minutes (maybe I should rename the article to that title instead). 🤔
Everything I just shared in this latter part around being whole is synonymous with the feeling of gratitude.
When we are grateful for everything, we regret nothing.
We see life as a dance that is continuously offering us opportunities to grow, expand, and learn.
We recognize that the person we are today, is probably not the same person we were 5 or 10 years ago.
We then harness a big vision for what it is that we would truly love in our lives.
We slow down and get crystal clear on what that picture looks like.
We embrace and remain grateful during the processes of our limiting beliefs being shown to us with a bright flashlight and reflective mirror, only to love up on them to the point that they shed off of us (like the skin of a snake or layer of an onion being peeled away).
We allow and embrace all of our emotions that come up in any given moment (without suppressing or stuffing them), creating an even greater capacity for us to be highly in tune to not only what serves our highest growth, but also what could be useful for us to gracefully let go of.
We know and align to a vision that is so authentic to our inner most essence, that even when our deepest fears may naturally rise, we still choose to expand by opening our hearts, continuing to courageously progress forward into the unknown.
We have faith.
Faith in ourselves, faith in the creator of our experience, and faith in knowing that we are here to shine our highest essence and light to its fullest capacity.
From this place we say hell yes to living a life that continuously places exactly what we need to see, feel, and experience directly in front of us, so that we can continue to stand up and rise above any and all limitations that we try to place amongst ourselves.
We express gratitude for every layer of ourselves, to every moment within our lives, and to every experience that has created the strong, integral, and deeply self-loving person for which whom we are.
We learn to be gentle and express even deeper love, to those areas within us where we may feel most sensitive or vulnerable.
And through it all, we choose to show up, each and every day, in our most loving, vibrant, peaceful, and powerful essence.
An essence that knows within every fiber, cell, and crevice of our entire being, that we are here to live out our highest meaning and create a magnetic ripple of positively enhancing the lives of those on the planet, who are all ultimately here to do the exact same.
With the upmost of Peace and Love,
Brandon
P.S. –
- Earlier in the week I made a short video with Three Simple Ways to go Feeling Anxiously Overwhelmed to Peacefully Relaxed (in no more than 5-10 minutes tops)
- I’m also excited to share that I’ll be one of the speakers for the 2021 Man In Me Summit on Saturday, August 14th. This event is centered around mental health, emotional wellness, and self-care for men (which is free via registration in the link above).
- Lastly, one of the themes that has frequently come up in different conversations I’ve had earlier in the week, has been around has been how to transition into a different career or more meaningful role within one’s organization. Since I’ve kept hearing the same thing over and over again, I felt led to share one of my previous writings, Four Steps to Creating a Purposeful Career you Absolutely Love . I’ve been sharing blogs for nearly four years straight now, and this one by far has received the most positive feedback and messages by others stating it was very helpful to them. If you presently feel stuck within your own profession, I think you may receive value by giving it an intentional read.