“How easily a life can become a litany of guilt and regret, a song that keeps echoing with the same chorus, with the inability to forgive ourselves. How easily the life we didn’t live becomes the only life we prize. How easily we are seduced by the fantasy that we are in control, that we were ever in control, that the things we could or should have done or said have the power, if only we had done or said them, to cure pain, to erase suffering, to vanish loss. How easily we can cling to – worship – the choice we think we could or should have made.”
― Edith Eva Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible
Let’s break this down shall we?!
1. A song that keeps echoing the same chorus — rumination my friends, spurred on by regret and anxiety. The problem is – if we keep playing the same tune in our minds, we will not see any opportunity for change, new possibilities, transformation – AND we keep living from a disempowered place – life always being something that is HAPPENING TO US rather than something we are experiencing, crafting, creating, and stewarding.
2. Inability to forgive ourselves — so so many of us are comfortable with guilt. It’s a familiar (and easy) feeling. When we turn away from guilt and towards self-forgiveness (releasing that which we wished had been different), the feeling you will allow in? – grief. Not so easy as guilt – often one people try with all their might to avoid. And yet, it is through our grieving that we plant new seeds for living.
3. The life we DIDN’T live becomes the ONLY life we PRIZE. Damn!!! Should I even elaborate or is that to the point enough? What a sad thing to be forever glorifying that which isn’t while missing out on all this is!
4. How easily we are seduced…fantasy is a powerful tool, but it can have a very sharp edge. One that we use to cut ourselves again and again with the illusion of “if only”. We imagine we can find the exact moment in our lives when a “should have” or a “could have” would have been our saving grace and all terror would have been banished. But no, this is a falsehood. Quit imagining the life you might have lived and live the life you have!
And with that – we access the true source of our power – choice and presence.
“I can celebrate your choice to dismantle the prison in your mind, brick by brick. You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now. My precious, you can choose to be free.”
― Edith Eva Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible
To unlimited possibilities,
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