Regretting the Past

This article is about my personal experience of Living Now instead of regretting or mourning the past.  My cancer diagnosis just like any serious diagnoses immediately had me thinking about why me?  Was it something I did wrong in the past? Was it how I lived my life in pursuit of higher positions and more responsibility?  Was I not living my life the way I was supposed to? Was God mad at me? What did I do wrong?  Why was I being punished?  All these questions and more controlled my life.  I was in a deep depression thinking about the past while processing the new normal and my diagnosis.  Physically the cancer was keeping me from eating and causing severe pains.  Mentally and emotionally the diagnosis and depression were not helping me go to the many appointments and tests that are done after the diagnosis.  My 6 months to live diagnosis seemed to be optimistic, there was no way that I would live that long.  I was not helping my body try to fight the cancer by living in the past.  Every appointment and test were more bad news.  There was not any positive news.  I am a control freak, and I did not have any control over my health, emotions, or mind. Finally, I realized that I could not change the past and I needed to concentrate on fighting the cancer day by day.  Mentally and emotionally, I became stronger giving up the control to God and depending on Him to take care of me.  At that time many weeks after diagnosis my outlook became positive and helped me to live day to day with my cancer.  My cancer still affects my health and everyday life; however, I realized that depression and regretting the past was not helping me fight cancer.

I started fully appreciate the moments of today. I soaked in as much of today as I possibly could – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the emotions, the triumph, and the sorrow.  These are in our daily lives, but we often forget to take them in and truly appreciate them. I had to let the past go and chose to Live Now instead.

Exercise: Allow yourself to feel.

It may seem better in the moment to avoid experiencing your emotions, but they exist whether you are paying attention to them or not. If you ignore your feelings, the stress will only increase and maybe delay your recovery. When you allow yourself to feel what you feel, you will find that even intense and disturbing feelings will pass, the initial distress will start to ease, and some aspects of life will even return to normal.