“Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you now know.” The author’s name didn’t accompany this quote on Facebook, unfortunately. When I read it, I felt that it summed up quite nicely a very mature way of looking at regrets we may have as we grow older.
Most of us can reflect over the years of our lives and see where we have made mistakes, not been as kind as we could have been, hurt other people and ourselves, made short-sighted decisions and had our priorities a bit out of order. We have let people down. We have let ourselves down. As we grow older and find ourselves reflecting on our lives it’s possible to get caught in the depths of regret. It’s easy for us to judge ourselves for things we did when we were younger. As the author of the quote points out we didn’t know when we were younger the things we know now. We were doing our best with what we knew at the time.
Life is easily evaluated through the so-called hindsight 20/20-vision lens. The issue with evaluating ourselves through such a lens is that the lens is seldom clear. We tend to zero in on certain aspects when we look back. The only value in evaluating our past actions rests in how we choose to carry what we have learned forward. There is no value whatsoever in ruminating about the past. We stifle our ability to move forward as our best selves if one foot is still planted in the past.
Holding onto old hurts causes us suffering. Most of us have been educated to believe that by forgiving another person for the hurt they have caused us, and freeing them of that burden, we too are freed. When we genuinely forgive we step back and look at the past situation through the lens of compassion. To forgive isn’t to negate the harm. It is our way of holding both the truth of the harm and the truth of the other person’s inability to do better at that time.
In the same way that forgiving another person allows them, and ultimately us, to breathe a bit easier and let go of the weight of prior actions, forgiving ourselves for our past actions will mirror for us the same reality.
Regret can make us bitter and judgemental not only of ourselves but also of others. When we are not focusing on our past we are free to meet each day as a fresh beginning. Other people will be met with the best version of us now and not us engaged in our obsession with what we regret from our past.
Becoming conscious of times when we were not our best selves implies that we must now be more of the person we wish to be. This is to be celebrated.
We have learned and grown from our experiences. If we feel that amends need to be made, we can make them. We can tell those whom we feel we have hurt that we are sorry. We can bring that same practice of compassion to ourselves. This is especially true when it comes to familial hurts. We can carry the weight of previous harmful ways of acting, adopted beliefs, and values from one generation to another. When we become aware of this we can stand in our own truth forgiving ourselves, and others, recognizing that we have within us what we need to halt the hurt from being passed on to future generations and its infringement on the quality of our own lives going forward.
We can let go of the regret, forgive ourselves, and work to make every day going forward one we will look back on satisfied that we did our best. We have no power over our past. It is only in the present moment that we can affect change.
Let’s not waste the later years of our lives filled with regret for how we lived the earlier years. We have no way of changing what has already happened. Rather than waste our precious time regretting past actions let’s be thankful going forward that we now know better.
The art of honest self-reflection is seldom practiced by the young. We are blessed to have reached a time in our lives when we can honestly reflect back and say that we now know better. When we know better we can do better.
“Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you now know.”
What pertinent and needed commentary! I’ve often said ( not original), “I wish I knew then, what I know now “ in relation to many experiences and life events. And, of course, how would that ever be possible as living is about learning. Particularly, gaining insights into our behaviour and reactions to others’ behaviour is part of life’s journey.
It is not easy to forgive or to be non judgemental of ourselves, yet that is critical for moving forward and being our “best” selves, everyday!
Thank you , Heather, for sharing the wisdom associated with shedding the shackles of regret and leaping into the possibility of a joy filled day!
Thank you for your comment Sandra. I especially like your statement that “gaining insights into our behaviour and the reactions to others’ behaviour is part of life’s journey”. This is how we learn and mature. The behaviours of others that we find so challenging are often presented to us in order to give us the opportunity to examine our reactions and develop insight into ourselves. This is how we come to know and grow. Once we know something, as in having realized it ourselves, we can no longer not know it. As mentioned in the blog post, I feel this is to be celebrated.