Our Wisdom Years by Charles Garfield

Author:Charles Garfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Central Recovery Press, LLC
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Beyond Regrets and Recrimination: What’s the Rest of the Story?

When regrets over dreams abandoned or left undone burden us, forgiveness can be particularly freeing. From inside our minds, the punishing stories we may tell ourselves—that we’re failures, that we’re lazy, and we don’t have what it takes—seem fair and justified, so familiar that we hardly notice their cruelty. The judgments ring true. The harsh criticism and attacks seem earned. We talk to ourselves in ways we’d never allow someone else to talk to a person we loved. And it can be tremendously healing to offer ourselves the gift of acceptance—Yes, what happened is a part of my story that’s brought me pain—and forgiveness—There’s more to me and my story than that. I can let the pain and self-punishment go. In learning to hold the space between those opposites, we can refocus and begin to see and breathe life into the hopeful, nuanced human who lives inside the cruel caricatures we’ve sometimes held of ourselves.

Carl, the computer analyst in our life-review group, had been full of self-recrimination as he talked about his failure to open the bookstore he had dreamed of, referring to himself as timid and gutless and a disappointment to himself and the people who believed in him. But what was the rest of the story? I suggested that he might try accessing it by writing a note to himself from his Wise Self, who could see a broader picture. What would a wise, kind friend say to make the story more complete? How would that friend comfort and encourage him? What gifts had his choices in the past given him that could feed his dream now?

Talking over what he might say, we came up with statements like: “Carl, you are a good person who did the best he could with what he had to work with at the time—including the present. You are a cautious, methodical man who has a talent for making well-considered choices about how to invest his time and energy. This talent takes the form of starting small and testing the situation to see how it goes.” We began enumerating the steps Carl had taken toward his dream. “You’ve experimented in many ways, starting a book group at temple, researching what it might take to start your own store. Your steadiness has allowed you to put aside a nest egg that could help you launch a small business. Maybe you’ll try a ‘pop-up’ somewhere to test the waters. Waiting until now to try has given you reserves and ideas and experience you didn’t have before. Your desire is stronger than it’s ever been.”

And we spoke to the real sense of possibility Carl had always kept alive below the self-criticism: “Many successful people begin their heart’s desire later in life, when they are actually more ready to move ahead with concrete plans. You are one of those people. You have been preparing yourself to take this risk. You’ve built the security you need and you have never let your dream die.

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