What did you think would happen?

Sometimes, I wish things were different.

I look at my life – and the world’s flood of suffering – and I see how so much of it could be avoided if only we’d make the ‘right’ choices.

A few moments later, I laugh – at myself, at the world, at suffering. I see things so differently now.

I see that suffering is a part of everyone’s journey – and after doing some suffering of my own, and witnessing the long-term suffering of two of the people I love most in the world, I see that suffering can be the portal to the most intensely beautiful opening.

I see, also, that, many of the bad things that happen to us don’t come from bad choices; they come from lack of choice – when we are guided to do something and instead of doing it, we turn away. (And in this I include the turning away of entire societies – ours, for example- from responsibility for the hungry, the poor, the old, the broken, the missing, the wounded.)

Turning away

This ‘turning away’ isn’t always apparent. Most of the time, it looks completely legitimate: there are bills to pay, the phone to answer;  a parent gets sick, the basement floods. We get busy doing something really important.

The thing is: there’s this ‘voice’ …

… that visits me sometimes. It makes me stop and reconsider the things that I’ve let slide. It comes when I am making another wish list full of dreams that I’m hoping will come true. It comes when I am, inevitably, comparing that list to the life I now have. It comes just after the heart-sinking, gut-wrenching moment when I realize: I let so many opportunities get away.

The voice asks: What did you think would happen…

• When you did not call back
• When you missed that appointment
• When you forgot another birthday
• When you didn’t say ‘I love you’
• When you lied
• When you did not speak up for yourself
• When you shouted at someone you adore – your husband, your mother, your child
• When you did less than your best at work, at the gym, in your marriage
• When you stole something – a blouse, an idea, someone else’s time
• When you saw a salesclerk make a mistake in your favor and did not tell her
• When you, seeing someone struggling, did not offer to help

What did you think would happen…

… to your relationships, your career, your body, your world…

I used to hate this voice. I felt scolded, guilty, small. I fled from the voice, silencing it with denial, overeating and the empty ‘mind calories’ of long hours of TV.

I understand now that this is the voice of a friend.

I understand now that regret is not out to hurt me – it’s guidance from  a guardian with the purest intentions – a steadfast supporter dedicated to my happiness.

This inner friend is also an ass-kicker, calling me back to consciousness, waking me up from the lie that I am the hapless victim of circumstance. It’s like a really good coach – calling me back, and back again,  to the center of my own life, and reminding me that every time that I did not do what I felt guided to do, I moved out of alignment…

… and I regretted it.

Looked at in this way, the shame dissolves, and What DID you think would happen? becomes a prompt for inquiry.

With new eyes, I see how my lack of choice has affected everything. I see that when I don’t show up for life,  life doesn’t work.

I see how regrets, like melted chocolate, get all over everything. They’re stains or, more accurately, scars – the residue of choices that you could have made if only you’d known you had a choice.

You had a choice. I had a choice – and many times, I chose to turn away.

This isn’t about how I didn’t ‘believe in myself’ –  in fact,  working at this level with clients, we discover that they DO believe in themselves. We discover that all of this time, deep down inside, there was this quietly fierce aspect of the self that has always known just who they are.

• The part of the self that stayed awake as they lurched into the world of forgetting: work, obligation and not quite doing what they wanted to do.
• The part of the self that is still there, watching over the unmade artwork, the unwritten song, the half-finished novel, the dream that they are STILL afraid to talk about.
• The part of the self that waits – like an inner SLEEPING BEAUTY – to awaken to the kiss of awareness.

It’s this part, this voice, that asks: What did you think would happen?

This voice does not scold, does not judge, does not punish. The inner guardian isn’t angry with you – it’s in love with you. It’s devoted to your happiness, has never stopped advocating for you – and it never, ever, ever, ever gives up.

Understanding this, makes the voice into an ally -= and transforms regret into an invitation to look at things in a new way, to give yourself a new chance, a new choice:

• To live at a higher standard;
• To keep your word
• To show up.

It says: Here is a place where you had the chance to bring the pearl out of hiding but you didn’t.  Here is a place where you chose, instead, to go to sleep.

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How to work the alchemy:

1) Reverse the question:

What did I think would happen when I didn’t show up? to Let’s see what happens when I do…

This liberates the energy that’s been trapped in the net of  regret back into your life. This energy begins to move through you on all levels. You feel enlivened, inspired, awake. Out of this energy, Law of Attraction begins to deliver new opportunities; it also begins cleaning up past errors.

Life begins to move again.

2) Adjust for new altitude

Anticipate that this new speed of life may rattle you. You’re not used to it. If life begins to feel out of control. know that this is the result of the energy shifting and moving in new ways. Notice your tendency to want to put on the brakes – to retreat to the familiar, more comfortable speed. That’s okay. But notice it.

When you notice this, you will see that…

3) You have a choice to make.

• Will you slow things back down to a familiar, more comfortable pace? Or will you grab the opportunity? Make the appointment? Take the step forward?
• Will you turn away, or will you show up, in spite of your fear?

This is the transformational opportunity, the moment of ‘truth’.

For the moment that you make the choice to show up – the moment that you turn toward yourself, toward your life; away from guilt, from fear, from regret; everything changes.

You will suddenly see that…

• Every moment contains the seed of a miracle.
• Every moment has the potential to change your life.
• There is nothing to regret.

* * * * *

Here’s an exercise that can help:

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then, open your eyes and keep reading.

Imagine that there is a field of energy, living, warm, real, pulsing around your heart. (Because there is. Allow yourself to feel and to know that.)

See how the field pours out from the solid, muscular heart – like melted gold, warm as caramel, enveloping you while also being generated from a space that lives deep inside of you.

As the field pulses away from your physical body, see/sense how the field becomes vaporous, thinning, a mist, a cloud. Farther still, and it dissolves into rainbow shimmer, ethereal, without visible form – yet still there, joined with the world of the formless.

Now, watch as a pulse of this formlessness, reforms, moving back toward you. Responding.

Just like the steady in and out of your breath, this heart energy goes out – blends with the formless and returns. In your mind’s eye, watch this beautiful interplay of in and out – the way that this ‘energy’ – heart energy – moves in and out. As if the heart is making the energy but is also, in a way, being breathed by it.

As if your heart is breathing love. As if love is breathing your heart.