Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 115
Often we can make decisions in this fast-paced modern world that all hang on the thought of "what happens if I regret it?"
When we talk like that about regret, it's almost like regret is a static thing that we have or we don't have. We could go and buy some more regret at Lidl. Most of us have probably put some level of regret on the Internet at some point or other, but "I regret that... I wish I had done something different..." is actually a thought, and it is a thought that creates an emotion. And the emotion that comes from those thoughts can be different for different people. You need to check in with yourself and really identify what the specific thought you're having is. But quite often the thought could be something like shame, or embarrassment, or sadness could be something we're worried that we're going to feel an emotion that we don't like. And so quite often, we do something that we're not really convinced that we want to do because we want to avoid feeling those feelings that, frankly, are a bit uncomfortable.
Now, if we were to break some of those emotions down to be the physical sensations that there are in our body that alert us to the fact that that is the emotion that's going on. So, for me, sadness feels quite heavy quite often. My. My throat feels dry, my palms feel sweaty. I'm very quick to cry. My eyes are very wet, very easily I feel a sort of a cold heat in my body, if that is easy to. It's almost like I go cold, which, like I have a sort of a film of sweat all over me, sadness feels like it is seeping out of my pores, nd these are all sensations in my body that alert me that this. It is sadness that I'm feeling.
Now, if I were to put this into an example of this evening, this evening I have been invited out with some friends to an event, and I actually have to work, and then I could go later, and I think that probably when I finish work, I will be very tired and I could go along and join them. And I think if I don't do that, I'll feel a bit sad, like I've missed out. Now that feeling of being missed out, which I would put under regret, would be, I think it would be sadness that they had some fun and I didn't join in.
So then when I sort of dissect it under this model, what I can do is make a more clear decision. Am I unwilling to feel some dryness in my mouth, some heaviness in my body? A slight level of sweat to avoid being extra tired, very overdone tomorrow. And just so that I can sneak in an extra half an hour of laughing with some people in a very crowded room where I probably won't be able to hear them. Maybe, maybe not.
But having a clear idea as to is that something I'm willing to experience. Am I doing it to avoid feeling that I'm able to look at it and go, you know, maybe tomorrow might be a bit easier if I actually had some rest, or maybe tomorrow. I don't have a lot on and so it would be easy for me to push the boat a little bit tonight so it doesn't really matter about tomorrow. And that is a lot less loaded than me going, I don't want to regret it, and I don't want to make the wrong decision. And what if I don't go, then they're going to be talking about it for ages and I'm going to feel really left out and maybe that will, like, pile into a whole load of other loneliness that's going on for me. I don't want to have to experience that. And so I have to go because I'm not willing to experience any of that stuff.
When we layer on all of these stories, on top of it, we have regret as a kind of like an anvil that we carry around with us. And actually regret is something that is caused by our thoughts. We know that it is here. And when we're worried and we're trying to avoid it, it's almost like we think that we're not in control of our own regret. And not only are we in control of our own regret, but we're also in control of how we treat ourselves when we talk to ourselves like this and when we feel this stuff. And when you realise that you have options about how you treat yourself, life becomes a lot lighter.
So maybe, possibly regret isn't something to always avoid. Maybe regret could act like a little highlighter around some emotions or around some thoughts so you can make clearer decisions. And it's just alerting you to where you are able to just tease things apart a little bit more and have more clarity about what you do and you don't want in your life.
Regret doesn't control you and the actions that you take. You have the ability to transform regret into anything that you want when you use it as a little magnifying glass for what's going on for you.
I'll speak to you next week.
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