Its been almost two years since we moved to California and as I look back at all the decisions that brought me to this juncture in life, I struggle with the direction of a few of those decisions...
All those what ifs in life, all those moments that seem so huge retrospectively but I had hardly paid attention to those moments and the over arching effects they will have on my life.
I think it would be unfair to say that I don't regret any of the decisions and yet I wouldn't have gotten here without those decisions. Life's precious moments seem to be constantly straddling this dilemma, hurting, analyzing and acknowledging the series of decisions that brought me here.
It seems this isn't an isolated phenomenon, others suffer from it as well and during a discussion on this topic with a friend, she introduced me to a new way of thinking about the things in life. She mentioned that often people say you have to 'Let it go' to come to terms with any loss but that's not true. If its hurting you can't let it go, you need to let it be.
One needs to acknowledge the loss, the pain and frustration that is hurting us. We need to look back and review those moments when we picked a path on the fork of life and closed the door on everything that was possible on the other path, acknowledge the fact that you can never go back to the dilemma again, the hurt that's lingering would likely stay there for a long time to come. One possibly needs to go through negative emotions to acknowledge it and express the anger and frustration through bad words and physical retaliation but don't feel guilty about your behavior.
Guide books often guide you to feel zen and above the situation in order to achieve peace but to achieve the calm, your heart needs to agree, you can't just impose the logic of the brain and pretend like things aren't bothering you anymore. If you'd want your heart to come along, you do need to go through the pain, acknowledge its presence and 'Let it be'.
My mom quoted something from an article the other day, "if you want to understand life look to your past but if you want to build a life you need to look forward". I realized that every single moment I'm making a decision and I'm not even sure which one these moments with turn into those life changing events that I'll look back on and ponder over. I can only try and detach the emotions that I am acknowledging as a consequence of a previous decision, from the decision that I'll be making next.
All those what ifs in life, all those moments that seem so huge retrospectively but I had hardly paid attention to those moments and the over arching effects they will have on my life.
I think it would be unfair to say that I don't regret any of the decisions and yet I wouldn't have gotten here without those decisions. Life's precious moments seem to be constantly straddling this dilemma, hurting, analyzing and acknowledging the series of decisions that brought me here.
It seems this isn't an isolated phenomenon, others suffer from it as well and during a discussion on this topic with a friend, she introduced me to a new way of thinking about the things in life. She mentioned that often people say you have to 'Let it go' to come to terms with any loss but that's not true. If its hurting you can't let it go, you need to let it be.
One needs to acknowledge the loss, the pain and frustration that is hurting us. We need to look back and review those moments when we picked a path on the fork of life and closed the door on everything that was possible on the other path, acknowledge the fact that you can never go back to the dilemma again, the hurt that's lingering would likely stay there for a long time to come. One possibly needs to go through negative emotions to acknowledge it and express the anger and frustration through bad words and physical retaliation but don't feel guilty about your behavior.
Guide books often guide you to feel zen and above the situation in order to achieve peace but to achieve the calm, your heart needs to agree, you can't just impose the logic of the brain and pretend like things aren't bothering you anymore. If you'd want your heart to come along, you do need to go through the pain, acknowledge its presence and 'Let it be'.
My mom quoted something from an article the other day, "if you want to understand life look to your past but if you want to build a life you need to look forward". I realized that every single moment I'm making a decision and I'm not even sure which one these moments with turn into those life changing events that I'll look back on and ponder over. I can only try and detach the emotions that I am acknowledging as a consequence of a previous decision, from the decision that I'll be making next.
This is the most beautiful of posts and resonates close to my heart!
ReplyDeleteI have learned the phrase "let it go" actually does me a disservice. Like you said, let it be, or "find peace with it and move on" is what I do. Or try to do anyway. :)
I love what your mom said about building a life so look forward. Something I am doing at this moment in time.