How Not To Live In The Past

I received an email last week from a reader asking how she could stop regretting her life and be happy. Regret is a sign that we are living in the past, stuck in what was, what wasn't, what might have been. Some regrets are small. We feel bad that we forgot to send someone a birthday card. Other regrets are bigger. We wish we had spent more time working on a past relationship gone bad. The first question to ask yourself is: Is there some action I can take today to change the situation? In the case of the forgotten birthday, we could still send a card. After all, there is a whole line of Belated Birthday Wishes. As for the past relationship, there may be nothing you can do to change the outcome. And so you have to find a way to make peace with that regret and let it go. Shifting our focus to the Now, the Present Moment, is the easiest way to move from that place of regret. Connecting with our breath and just breathing can calm us into the present moment. If we are consciously breathing, following our breath inside and then out, we are no longer anywhere except here. And in the Here and the Now, there is no past, there is no future. There is no regret. I suggested to my reader that, every time she found herself "living in the past" or feeling some kind of regret, to immediately notice it, acknowledge it, and shift her focus to something right here, right now, in the present moment. Maybe it is watching the birds, or playing with the dog, or smelling some spices in the kitchen. Engaging our senses moves us out of our heads where we get stuck in our old thoughts and patterns. Saying thank you for something or someone in our present life can immediately shift us into the Now. Perhaps it's time to write a letter to your past....acknowledge it, thank it, grieve it, so you can let it go. Then burn the letter, releasing it to the fire and the air. The more we can "train" ourselves to shift out of the past and into the present, the less often we will feel regret.