Tag: depression

Regretting the past is a waste of time.

Regretting the past is a waste of time. Our minds have a natural tendency to think of the past, to think of what could have or should have been, we all by default think this way, but to live in reality and to find more peace in our lives we must practice what doesn’t come naturally to most of us which is to let things go, live in the moment and stop thinking about events that can’t be changed.

We love to think back on things that have went wrong in our lives and say ” if only I did this or said that things would’ve been different” sure they may have been different but we can’t assume what could’ve been would’ve been.

Another thing to realise is how many unfortunate events have we avoided without even knowing? Let me explain.

Have you ever had an unfortunate event happen in your life such as a car accident for example then told yourself ” if only I left a minute later, or a minute earlier, if only I took that other road I normally take etc this accident would never had happened” it’s true it wouldn’t have happened, but how many accidents have we avoided without even knowing by leaving a minute earlier or a minute later on other days?

If you could see the unfortunate events that could’ve played out but didn’t if we did do something slightly different that day we wouldn’t feel life is against us so much. Life is unfolding as it should at all times, life owes us nothing, we are either getting what we want or getting a lesson how to do something better or not at all next time.

Regretting what has happened or using mental energy thinking about things out of our control doesn’t solve anything. The quicker we can go from thinking about why something shouldn’t have happened to thinking, “it has happened and what am I gonna do now?” the quicker we can move on with our lives and live back in reality.

It’s not about having no feelings or blocking out sadness and grief when things go wrong, we should feel what we are feeling to the fullest when we are experiencing it, it’s about realising that a perfect life with nothing going wrong, no adversity, no problems or no mistakes is a dull life. Imagine watching a movie where nothing went wrong, there is no conflict, no drama or tension etc, how boring…

Treat life like an unfolding movie, you never know what’s coming next, also many times when something goes wrong in our lives it’s setting us up for something better to come along, but it works both ways, sometimes what seems like something good happening to us sets us up for something bad as well.

The point is we can never really say what is ultimately a good or bad event for the entire story of our lives, sure if we zoom in to that one event we can judge it good or bad, our minds love being short sighted, but if we can zoom out we never know what this one event that we label good or bad is setting us up for in the future so why regret anything? Just sit back and watch the movie we call ” my life” unfold. Just do the best you can, no one has a problem free life regardless of how their life appears, my thoughts on it anyway.

Thanks for reading guys, thanks for liking and subscribing to my blog, have a good day.

Simon Coleman.

You just need to make it through today.

We would all love a problem free life, to be human is to experience pain and suffering though. The ability to know we are alive, to experience a story we call ” my life” is a beautiful thing at times and at other times can be the most horrible thing.

Life is a gamble, a roll of the dice, a poker hand, some people are dealt a bad hand, some get a bad roll of the dice. We feel in control of our lives but many things are out of our control, I would say all is out of our control but will leave that for another post. We don’t pick our parents, our genetics, the thoughts and ideas we are exposed to at a young age, definitely not the mental and physical abuse that some are exposed to.

Some people’s lives turn out great, many people’s lives don’t, and when they don’t turn out great, sadness and depression can overwhelm us. As humans we can’t avoid pain because that comes from the body but we can avoid suffering, well at least try to manage the suffering. Pain is for the body what suffering is for the mind, suffering is painful thoughts that we go over and over again in our minds.

When thoughts of giving up start creeping in especially when giving up means ending our lives, we must really take time to breathe and tell ourselves ” my only goal at this point in my life is to get through today”. When our lives start falling apart, focusing on things we can’t control is wasted mental energy. When everything starts going wrong we need to get back to basics, we need to set an achievable goal, a goal that is just to get through today. Get through breakfast, lunch and dinner, do everything that is required in that day to the best out our ability then climb into bed and remember to tell ourselves that we can’t possibly know what tomorrow will bring and it doesn’t matter because we made it through today, we succeeded.

When we wake up we must set our selves the goal again of just making it through the day. Life doesn’t owe us anything, life unfolds how it wants to not how our ego wants it to, we must surrender to what is and just flow with it, we also must remember that nothing in life is permanent, even the bad times. At times when things aren’t going well we must just keep our head down and ride out the storm, if we get stuck in our thoughts of why this or that happened, or why it shouldn’t be this way, it can get dangerous when our thoughts start to get dangerous.

The foundation of our lives should be solid and by solid I mean being able to live simply, to master the basics of being happy with what we have, to be grateful for what we have, after that is mastered then we can branch out into achieving more and more knowing that if it ever fails we can retreat back to the foundation of simplicity and not be crushed by unfortunate circumstances.

When the bad times and sad times appear, never feel like a failure, never feel guilty, never feel you are doing life wrong, if you view God as the essence of all things and all reality then everything is always as it should be at all times. Hard times are given to us to grow stronger and develop wisdom, they are also there to show us that we shouldn’t put our happiness into things that are impermanent. We are here to experience all the beauty and all the horror life has to offer, when things are going great our dreams and plans get bigger and bigger and that’s ok, but when things are going wrong we need to realise and understand that it’s ok too and that we must take a step back and focus on what we can control, that all we must do is make it through today and deal with tomorrow when it comes.

You are stronger than you think, you can make it through today and that’s all that is required of you when life isn’t working out, save the bigger goals and dreams for when life starts looking brighter again, and it will. No one can say when, but bad times are the best times to practice mindfulness because that’s all we can do, be here and now, just make it through the hour, the afternoon, the day, that’s all you need to do, don’t be tricked into thoughts of doing things that you can’t reverse such as suicide, I’ll leave it at that, you’ve got this, I know you do.

Thanks for reading,

Simon Coleman.