00:00:00: Music.

00:00:11: Bitch breathe I am your host ricardia Bramley.

00:00:15: So the other day I was planning to get a new haircut yay very exciting first time in two years actually that I made it to a hair salon

00:00:24: because I hate going to hair salons I'm always afraid they're going to get all scissor happy on me and cut off way too much hair so it took me awhile plus pandemic and you get the idea.

00:00:34: So I'm going through my old pictures on my iPhone to try and find my old haircut

00:00:39: and I was actually wanting to go back to a haircut I had had before the two years ago that I lasted gone so I started looking at pictures that were from like 7 years ago six years ago

00:00:51: and I thought that maybe through all this sort of traveling down memory lane I would

00:00:56: maybe open the occasional picture of an ex or something or get lost in some other picture of a situation where a hey exotic I'm at a restaurant with friends and none of that really happened though

00:01:08: but what of course I was looking at a lot where all these pictures of me mmm younger me and after a while.

00:01:17: I started lingering not because I was looking at the hairstyles anymore but because I was looking at my face and of course associating that picture with that time.

00:01:27: In my life I thought a few things when that came up first I thought gosh I was young or.

00:01:34: Wow I can't remember I had that shooting or that job or whatever it was and then I started to look really closely at my face and I thought to myself wow okay when was I this young I don't remember my skin looking this way.

00:01:48: Or

00:01:49: I look really happy in this picture I think I really was and it kept going on and on until very very quickly the line of thinking flipped.

00:02:01: And I started to think I cannot believe

00:02:04: I was this young I can't believe I gave and here comes a really funny line my best years to this shitty ex-husband of mine or ex-boyfriend of mine I am so unhappy with where I am right now and the way I look I mean after all there's no comparison is this just how it's going to go am I just going to wait for

00:02:22: more of this comparison between me and younger me and very very quickly I had landed in this downward spiral.

00:02:32: Of regret.

00:02:33: I think we can all immediately when we think of regrets think of what that means for us maybe we even conjure up images and,

00:02:43: memories from a time where we regret something we regret that we said something to a person

00:02:48: whom we really hurt by doing so we regret spending time with this other person I know for me personally I could really have a short in my time with certain people and they might

00:02:59: I think the same way about me very very possible but in any case there's this whole negative Loop of Shoulda Woulda Coulda.

00:03:08: And I was talking to my mom actually last night about my plans for recording an episode on this very topic regrets and she says I've got a story for you there and so.

00:03:22: I just get comfortable because I know this is going to be interesting and she says to me so do you remember how I was working in this old people's home for a while and I'm like

00:03:31: mmm and she's like well you know I spoke to this one very old lady and you know what she said to me I'm thinking inside do I want to know what she said to you and she says

00:03:43: you know what Purgatory is and now I know I'm in the middle of an interesting story.

00:03:50: It's getting old and having a lot of time to think about all the things that you regret.

00:04:01: All the things that you think you did wrong in your life that didn't serve you and that you really really wish you had handled better.

00:04:11: I was laughing inside but also a little bit outside because I thought oh dear God that really is horrible.

00:04:18: I mean we don't want to come to an end of a life however young or old we are really doesn't matter but we don't want to come to the end,

00:04:27: feeling that there is more to be regretted than there is to be appreciated.

00:04:32: And though I don't have that scale luckily yet where I feel like what I appreciate is so much less than what I feel I should have done better but the whole episode.

00:04:44: And listening to my mom who buy now is like in her 70s I thought to myself this is an important topic because a lot of dead energy I want to say.

00:04:54: Can be spent on feeling regretful about something.

00:04:58: The next morning I woke up and luckily I wasn't feeling any of the negativity that had that I had felt the previous night

00:05:07: I had gone back to my usual thinking which is okay what can I do today what is new about this day where do I want to put my energy but the thought about it kept lingering so.

00:05:17: Here's a few things that I came up with that I think might be helpful in terms of.

00:05:24: Not just pushing regrets away not just pretending all this stuff these people didn't happen but to acknowledge what it means that we think about them in a certain way,

00:05:36: and the first thing I thought about was if you're regretting something and there's many ways to do that I think we all Realize by now,

00:05:44: maybe it's time to acknowledge that there's something you wanted that you didn't get could be a person to God knows we got a few stories about that one maybe and that there is maybe stuff you still do want and could actually get.

00:05:59: So yes access is always a matter of timing financials you know resources

00:06:06: situations that are in place that lend themselves to getting access to something or somebody right so not everything that we didn't get our didn't pursue in the past are going to be retrievable at this time,

00:06:18: but going to a deeper level of this.

00:06:22: What is it about that that you wanted let's say it's a person let's say there was this one woman this one man.

00:06:30: That you really really had your heart set on having I know I had this and there was no way I was going to be able.

00:06:37: To be in a relationship with this guy but boy that did not stop me from wanting and wanting him really really badly and let's just say that I tried every trick in the book.

00:06:50: To manipulate him into wanting the same and

00:06:54: you know moving sit around to be with me so I thought what about him or about that life phase

00:07:02: is it that I wanted so badly and to sort of go into this from a more energetic level as opposed to give me give me this guy and the energy behind it was at the time I wanted something familiar I wanted.

00:07:17: To be with someone whom I knew even though he wasn't a good person from me but I needed safety.

00:07:24: At that time that's what I really wanted and needed and that's what I didn't get ultimately I didn't get the guy in the long run either but.

00:07:34: That was the energy now energy does not have to die,

00:07:39: I might not ever I won't ever get this guy in fact quite frankly I don't want this guy I don't wish him on my worst enemy but,

00:07:47: sorry if you're listening dude I've really forgiven you but now they're the energy is that there was a safety I wanted so maybe thinking about what is the energy behind what we wanted back then and isn't there a way to retrieve

00:08:02: that longing that need that energy today

00:08:05: so in this particular case for me safety right I have since been able to provide that all by myself I have created.

00:08:13: A sense of security in my aloneness in my singledom that I then.

00:08:19: Have had now for many years not anymore right now but I did spend a good time by myself to create the energy that I had wanted so badly from this person.

00:08:30: So that's sort of the first thought acknowledging what it is we really wanted what was behind the longing back then and see if maybe there isn't a way to create it by yourself.

00:08:41: With another person in another job in this life today.

00:08:47: The second thing I thought about and I think with social media this has become even more poignant is the idea of comparing.

00:08:55: Now when we talk about social media were often talking about comparing ourselves to other people comparing our jobs our success our failures to those of the people whose feeds we see online

00:09:08: who's curated lives we get to be voyeurs of but what about if the comparison is

00:09:15: the comparison to your younger self or the self that didn't do what it should have could have would have we all know this is an exercise in

00:09:24: futility but the comparison to ourselves I feel like is the most merciless one because comparing myself to others at some point you realize that doesn't make sense and I don't know about you I don't get caught up in it as much as I used to it's very rare now that I look at an Instagram feed or Facebook even long enough look at it

00:09:43: to feel my life sucks compared to somebody else's but the comparison with myself.

00:09:48: This one I still find challenging because again the idea of regret I had an opportunity I thought I knew better.

00:09:57: But apparently I didn't seize it at that moment.

00:10:01: Right so what do I do when I'm comparing the opportunities the chances I had to the actions that I actually took.

00:10:10: Of that can really really hurt and it can be so merciless again and futile to do so,

00:10:19: and maybe again we come at this from an energetic level if we compare Our Lives now to the lives we had then.

00:10:27: The energy the Consciousness we bring to our lives now to the one that we brought to our lives them.

00:10:33: Then hopefully one of two things happens either we realize we're exactly here and there's a lot to be grateful to be here.

00:10:42: Because of chances that maybe we didn't take of which we think oh that would have been a great chance but do we really know do we really know.

00:10:51: That that path that road not taken because we took another we didn't stand still right we took another.

00:10:58: Do we really know it would have been more promising more successful filled with more love and abundance and teachings.

00:11:04: It's possible sure but if that's possible as we know the opposite also is and here we are today.

00:11:12: And I know from many countless conversations with Elders with friends with people in my life past and present that many of us even reluctantly have to admit.

00:11:26: That things didn't actually go as bad as we as we thought and that's we landed in this life in a way that is actually full of appreciation for the wrong in quote wrong steps that we took.

00:11:40: So just sort of realizing that the comparison yes it's a futile exercise but also realizing again where have we landed and is the comparison really one where things would have been better if x y or Z had occurred.

00:11:55: Another thing I noticed in all this evaluating and looking at things in a somewhat regretful manner is it made me very quickly,

00:12:05: ask the question am I enough have I done enough here and this one is actually quite positive if you think about it so the am I enough of course you want to eventually arrive at that answer that yes you are.

00:12:19: And I did

00:12:21: but it took me a moment first I was like oh no I'm older now and thready and you know if you want to talk more about aging or listen to My Double episode that I actually did on Aging go ahead it's one of the first ones here

00:12:32: so I'm not going to get into that too much about the whole am I enough but they have I done enough hmm there's something that can still be fixed here.

00:12:39: So if there is.

00:12:42: Sam adventuresome journey I know traveling is so difficult right now but it could also be inner journey is right like if there is anything that you would like to do go back to that list go back to that bucket list that were always talking about.

00:12:56: And check have you done enough have we helped enough,

00:13:00: for example like does it always have to be travel Journey something that I need to do what about the world what about those around us have we done

00:13:09: enough and if you are one of these women I am going to send this disclaimer ahead that does way too much for other.

00:13:16: And that is overwhelmed with work and life balance and all these things then please,

00:13:21: pour yourself a nice drink or a good coffee sit back and be like yep I did enough and I am enough but if there is any gap for doubt here that maybe.

00:13:31: There is something still to do I know from me there is a lot then this could be a good opportunity.

00:13:38: To turn regrets into action and to actually do stuff whatever that means to you it's so individual.

00:13:45: And speaking of taking actions there's this whole idea that we have around New Year you know doing things differently deciding things differently

00:13:54: and when I started looking into other spiritual Traditions I noticed that in the Jewish one especially the Kabbalah part of it they talk about parallel universes and that depending on what the decision is you make you will now have opened up a new universe and a lot of traditional spiritual.

00:14:12: Beliefs talk about this and what I loved about this was that

00:14:18: you can use this to stand still this regret you're feeling this terrible sort of

00:14:23: resentment towards the things that you've done the decisions you've made as your younger person or even the person you were yesterday right you can stand still

00:14:33: and assigned a new what do I want to do.

00:14:36: Like literally visualizing the paths that could open up in front of you if you take decision a b or c

00:14:44: and really visualizing that path that universe that will then open up because as always several universes meaning there's always countless.

00:14:54: Bountiful number of realities that you can create just by deciding to not do this but to go for that,

00:15:03: and this abundance of realities that still here yes there's a pandemic maybe you're not the youngest Chicken around anymore whatever it is but there are still,

00:15:14: a lot of parallel universes and if you are even deeper into spiritual traditions.

00:15:19: If you're into the whole plant medicine and that whole route of things I'm sure I have no experience with it but I'm sure there's even more to be looked at that we just don't know that we don't always see,

00:15:31: and that the people around us don't always see because everybody's working according to Norm according to what they think they can do.

00:15:40: But what about if we think about what we apparently can't.

00:15:43: And then try to do what apparently we can't what we've never done before and I find this probably one of the most

00:15:52: valuable things about not being in my 20s anymore not even being in my thirties anymore is that I have no time to lose if there is something I'm sniffing out a situation and it's making me curious I do not

00:16:05: drop the ball on that I will pursue it I will go down that route I've developed a kind of what I want to call not courage but desperate courage.

00:16:14: I don't know how long I'm going to be around anymore I'm not gonna waste my time I'm pursuing this path and I haven't fully done it in all areas of my life but I'm noticing the urgency.

00:16:25: And that urgency can put you into parallel universes.

00:16:30: Just stand still and I think you'll come up with some stuff that you didn't see before and if you didn't try to seek out the people who are really really good at that.

00:16:39: So since I already touched upon the subject here comes my last Point regrets during a pandemic I don't know about you.

00:16:48: But the pandemic

00:16:50: hasn't given me a whole lot of time to think about things but at the at the very beginning it did that's about over a year ago and I started to think about all the trips I hadn't taken all the people that I hadn't met

00:17:03: and all these things that I hadn't done that we're now not possible during the pandemic and I thought that was a very painful inside I've done a lot I've traveled a lot especially now with climate change the traveling.

00:17:15: Might not be no is not as available

00:17:18: as it was in the past because we're starting to make decisions of well I guess I won't be taking that trip to Bali three times a year or whatever it is right so already it's begun this idea of limitation and things that we haven't done and that we can't do.

00:17:33: But instead may be focusing on.

00:17:36: What are these regrets I'm having doing the pandemic and is there a way to make plans going forward to fix some of that,

00:17:43: so that I don't have to get caught up in all the Lost opportunities and all the resentfulness

00:17:50: towards having set still or having not taken a chance when it was given to us and lastly not a full point.

00:18:00: To forgive ourselves if that happened to really look at why we didn't do what we want to do again I touch upon this in the age issue episodes where if we had known better

00:18:10: we could have done better and the good thing about regret is the hindsight of knowing better we know better what we can do now and can change a little bit more,

00:18:21: what we want to do going forward and to make plans accordingly.

00:18:25: And of course I have to quote him because he always comes up when the word regrets comes up in my mind maybe there's a way to think of it as Frankie did,

00:18:37: regrets I've had a few but then again too few to mention.

00:18:42: Wishing us all fewer regrets and a little more opportunities and freedom when it comes in a full-fledged way or in a different way maybe as time goes forward.

00:18:54: Hoping you're well and.

00:18:56: Music.