regret, grief, and acceptance

[manuel_moe_g]

I feel regret and grief about the past many times. I can practice acceptance, to get on with my life and avoid a breakdown that doesn't help anyone.

First, I don't want to beat myself up for feelings that come into my head. I accept and notice and am mindful that I feel regret and grief during this situation. I remind myself that it will pass.

Second, I remind myself that the regretful past is out of reach to change. But from it I can learn and grow and move forward.

I remind myself that my habit is to be unhealthily comfortable with the breakdown zone. Avoid the breakdown zone.

[duck1]

sound like an excellent meditation result!

[LimitedAdventure]

Wow Manuel Moe that is some great mindfulness and observation there! And, great use of exactly the right coping mechanisms too!!

[Brooke]

Words to live by...but boy are they difficult to actually practice...! When I'm stable, I can remind myself of that, but when I actually "make another mistake that I still haven't learned from" I fall hard... It's so hard to forgive and accept your flawed self in that moment...but yes, we just can not beat ourselves any further...nothing is accomplished by beating ourselves up and tearing ourselves to pieces...

I think we've subconsciously learned how to do that because we don't trust ourselves so we need to give ourselves a good whacking for "it to sink." But we're always going to be making mistakes no matter what, that's our nature. The better road is to learn how to keep forgiving ourselves, to keep accepting ourselves for who we are again and again...and again and again...and again and again...

Thanks for the reminder, I really needed to hear it right now.

[manuel_moe_g]

"make another mistake that I still haven't learned from" I fall hard... It's so hard to forgive and accept your flawed self in that moment

Totally, all I can do is to notice that I want to punish myself, instead of punishing myself be self-loving, and remind myself that punishing myself just leads me into the breakdown-zone.

I am trying to practice noticing all my intrusive thoughts. I need practice ignoring most of them because all they do is raise my stress hormones and ruin my quality of life with a constant buzz of low-level anxiety.

One intrusive thought is "I am so depressed". I want to punch myself every time I think that. But instead I just notice the thought, notice how "squishy" is the word "depressed", remind myself what parts of me are "depressed" and what parts of me are actually doing just fine, and replace the thought with "there are some parts of my mood that I would like to improve, and I have strategies (like taking a walk) that improve those parts of my mood, and so I will act positively"

Take care everybody, thanks for listening.