Affirmators! Week 8 : Letting Go

[Affirmators! are cards with positive affirmations written on them. My friend John sent me a deck of them and I've been drawing one from the deck each Sunday. I hang it on my bathroom mirror to keep it in the front of my mind and try to work on that topic through the week. That's what this Affirmators! post series is about.]

Last week, the card was "Love" and it gave examples of the many "splendors of love". I didn't understand how that really related to love, but from the examples on the card, it sounded like I was supposed to notice little things that bring up good feelings. Not necessary things that make me happy--but rather actions or circumstances that make me feel happy.

I liked writing about it, but I honestly didn't think about it the rest of the week. My days are mostly the same as far as actions that I do, so there isn't a lot to look for. However, writing about it last week and choosing three "splendors" was nice.

This week's affirmation is:

Letting Go

I don't dwell on bad things that happened. I let things go because I have enough heavy things to carry around... and also, grudges aren't a great look.

Fortunately, this one doesn't really speak to me in a big way. I'm not one to hold grudges if someone wrongs me in some way--if they apologize and acknowledge that they were in the wrong, I won't even think of it again. However, if someone betrays me in some way and doesn't acknowledge that it happened or that they were wrong, then I have a very hard time letting it go.

Something I always try to keep in mind when someone does or says something hurtful is to look at what their intentions were or might have been. I've done things with great intentions and it may have backfired for whatever reason--so I would hope that people would look at my intentions and forgive me. (It's hard to explain this without an example, and I can't think of a good example at the moment.)

I asked Jerry if he thinks I hold grudges and he said no, but that I have a hard time letting go of something that I regret doing or not doing. He used the example of my friend Sarah, who passed away from melanoma in 2014. I really regret not going to visit her. I went one time to the hospital to see her, but I really wish that I'd spent much more time with her, especially as she was dying.

I think about it often, even though there isn't anything I can do about it now. I did form a friendship with her mom, however, which has been nice. Also, it was because of that regret over Sarah that "I chose to be jerk #1" when my friend Spencer was dying of brain cancer--here is a post explaining that! It was also the reason that I chose to visit my Aunt Jo recently when she was dying. So I definitely learned from the regret over not seeing Sarah, but I still carry that guilt around

There are other things that I wish I'd done differently in my life and I would love to be able to "let go" but regret is something that is really hard to let go of. I think it's because you can't change it--what's done is done and no matter how much you wish for a do-over, you can't really get one.

I think this is something I could definitely try to work on--but like I wrote on the Affirmators! post about "Joy", it's like telling a pitcher to throw strikes. Of course I don't want to feel regret, but it's either something you feel or don't feel and it's hard to change it. I think that the most important thing is to learn from it and do things differently in similar situations (like I did with Sarah).

This kind of sounds like a downer of a post! Thankfully, I am not thinking of regrets right now--it usually happens when I'm feeling depressed. But the next time I start to think about something I regret, I'm going to try to think of a lesson that I learned or could learn from it. That's a good takeaway from this card!