Transcript

Regrets · Infinitely Precious

0:00
Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
0:12
James: Hello, beloved. It's me, and it's another time to get together for me to share some thoughts with you and see if they resonate with you. And if they do, great. And if they don't, well, sorry about that. Maybe next week or maybe last week.
0:35
I want to begin, as I always do, by reminding you that you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. That is a simple truth I have come to believe in my life, about everyone, that you are a gift, that your life is a gift, and that the opportunity to share that life with the world is also a gift. Today, I thought about sharing about regret. And regret, we often think of as the things that we've done in the past that, that we wish we hadn't or choices we made that we wish we hadn't or choices we wish we had made but we didn't. And so it's, drawing us back into the past.
1:32
But what I wanna talk to you about today is the present. In this very moment, you may be creating, by the choices you are making now or choosing not to make now, by the things you say or do, the way you engage the world, you may very well be in creating those things that somewhere down the road you may regret. Somewhere down the road you may regret. The regrets are always in the past, but we create the things that we regret, the relationships, the choices in the present. So I wonder what it would look like if you and I entered into every moment of our lives with an awareness that we wanna make the best choice about this moment we possibly can.
2:29
That rather than put off things we feel like ought to be done into the future, that we do those things now. If there is someone you wish to tell that you love, don't wait. Don't wait and perhaps regret not getting a chance to because something happened. You can engage in the best possible way in this moment. Catch your breath.
3:07
Here we are right now. And throughout the day, even after this video is over, and you've had time to either just completely forget it, regret wasting your time watching it maybe, or whatever, you will have time moment by moment by moment to choose how you'll engage that moment, what you will say to those that you love. You don't have to say things you will later regret. Catch your breath. If you're upset, if you're feeling reactive, if you feel tense and tight, slow down for just a moment.
3:47
Pause for just a moment so that instead of saying that thing you will regret, you don't say that thing you will regret. You let it go. You let it go. You're not in that reactive place. Fear often drives us to that place.
4:09
Pain drives us to that place. Something that triggers something from our past drives us into that place. Wake up to the moment you find yourself in. Attend to your breathing. Attend to, the weather outside, to the person you're with, to the choice that you're making right now about how you're spending your time.
4:41
I was briefly scanning. I didn't read the article about people and at the end of their lives, what are the things they most regret. I chose not to read all the things, because the way, I don't need to shape, any additional regrets I may not already know about. But oftentimes, it's having spent time on things that turned out to be frivolous choices. Now you can't always know at the moment that you're doing them that they are, but sometimes you can.
5:19
Maybe you're working so hard because you want to create a great life for the people around you or for yourself, and you don't really catch time to spend time with the actual people for whom you're creating that life, even yourself. You don't take time to slow down in the morning and maybe enjoy that cup of coffee or tea or glass of water or juice. Just really let it, sit on your palate and enjoy it as you're sitting present in the moment. So much of life blows by us when we're not paying attention. And I'm just inviting you to rather to look than to look back on these moments, by myself as well, rather than look back on these moments with some kind of regret, about things not done or things done that can't be undone, Instead, engage this moment.
6:25
What can you do now? And if you're carrying a regret from the past, is there anything you can do about it now? And if you can, do something. Do it now. Don't wait so that it continues to hang over you.
6:41
And if, if there's nothing that can be done about it, let it go, and instead live in this moment. Sometimes whenever we reach various points in our lives, we let the regrets of what happened in the past or the things that didn't happen in the past shape this moment. This is a new moment. This is a fresh moment. Do the things, say the things, think the things, engage in a way now so that if you have a future, when you have a future, when you're in the future, you won't look back on this moment and say, wow.
7:26
I wish I hadn't wasted my time that way, or I wish I hadn't said those words that way, or I wish I had actually engaged in some way, or I wish I hadn't engaged. I wish I had realized I needed some time to rest. These are all choices. Every moment is ripe and rich, filled with choices, and you get to cultivate this moment because this is the moment you have. You don't have the things that you're living in regret about.
8:00
They're gone. They're done. You can either do something about them now or you can't. And if you can't do anything to change, I can't regret. There's no point in regretting that I never went to medical school.
8:16
First of all, I would never have done all very well, but if I regret it now, I have two choices. Either let it go or do whatever is necessary to go back to medical school. It seems kinda late at this point in my life. There may be other things, bigger things, littler things in your life that you may wish that you had done. Can you let that go?
8:38
Or is it possible that you can do some modified form of what you're regretting right now? But this is the moment you have. You get to shape the future by the choices you make now. Will those choices be ones that you will look back on and be, thankful for? Or will they be ones that you look back on and regret?
9:06
Be careful with the moment you're in, the time you're given, and invest yourself well. Give yourself to the moment and to others the best you can. And then, hopefully, you will find the meaning, how meaningful your life is. So remember, you are infinitely precious, unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. And until the next time, I see you.
9:40
I wish you all the best.