The reality is we are all going to face many ‘turning points’ in our lives.
We’re all going to face moments where we can choose to go left or right - where we can say yes to the date or no. Take the job or quit the job. Have the baby or not. Times in our lives where we know we are shutting down a potential path of life in favor of another.
There are going to be times in our lives where we have to take steps with regards to our health, about our financial future, about our education, about our work life and about our relationships where we have very little information around what the future holds, what the actual options we have are and what the outcomes of our actions are going to be - and we have to make a choice anyway. Where there’s no time to slow down, to do more research or to take in more information. Where we don’t have the awareness or capacity to make a different choice or to look for alternative options for one reason or another.
We are all going to face times in our lives where we just DO what our ‘programming’ tells us to do - where we follow a set path, do what others expect of us, do what we believe we ‘have’ to do to be ‘right’ or ‘good’, and in this we don’t actually check in with ourselves, our intuition or our own feelings.
There are going to be times in life where we have an intuition, a feeling, a pull that we should or shouldn’t do something - and we’re not going to listen. We’re going to follow fear, patterning, expectation or we’re going to walk in a way that we think will make others happy/get us less judgement vs. doing what we KNOW in our hearts we actually want to do.
With this, we’re then all going to get to a place in life where we look back and wonder ‘what if.’
Where we ponder what would have happened if we had made the alternate choice - not taken the job. Said no to the proposal. Not had the child. Taken the trip.
There are going to be times in life where, through experience, we come into the awareness of many options and choices that we ‘could’ have made, and we’re going to wonder what would have happened had we done what we know NOW we ‘could’ have done back then, but didn’t really know back then existed.
There will be times when we look back on the choices we made when we had little to no information about what was going to happen to us based on those choices - and we’re going to regret what we did. We’re going to see or feel that doing something different would have been better - and we’re going to feel like we failed ourselves or did something wrong choosing what we’d chosen.
There will be times, especially when we’re suffering and in pain, where we look back on the choices we made up to this point, and really feel like we did the wrong thing. That we should have known better, that we could have known better, where we regret following the expectations and beliefs of others and where we feel like our conditioning held us back from being able to make what would have been better choices.
There will be times when we look at the life we have, where we look at the mess, the pain, the chaos, the lack of fulfillment and the general lack of having what we want and we think that if we had just done something differently ‘back then’ everything would be better now.
This is totally normal.
All of this is totally normal.
Even if we’re happy, even if we’re relatively content in where we are and what we have - it’s still totally normal to wonder what our lives would have been like had we walked another path.
Today I want to talk about how we can process the reality of this, so that this very natural curiosity and ‘what if’ game doesn’t turn into a weapon we use against ourselves - because at the end of the day, we need to realize that in all circumstances we have always done the best we could with what we actually had and knew at the time.
So how do we hold the reality that life really COULD have been different if we’d done something different, and how do we not go into a state of self blame and shame when we feel the pain of our current choices and really WISH we had done something else?
Let’s explore that today.
It’s Normal To Wonder
First things first - it’s fully and completely normal to wonder ‘what if’ - even if our lives are going well and we’re generally happy with where we are and how things are working out.
It’s normal and totally ok to wonder what would have happened if you’d never had children - even if you LOVE your kids and can’t imagine your life without them.
It’s totally normal to wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t married who you did - even if you deeply love your partner.
It’s totally normal to wonder what would have happened had you chosen a different career path or if you’d gone down another educational route.
There is nothing shameful about wondering ‘what if’ and I want you to know that if you’re feeling any sense that you’re betraying those you love or that this wondering is a sign that you made a wrong choice - I want you to know that neither is true.
It’s just being human.
Next, I want you to know that it’s totally normal and natural to wonder what your life could have been if you had been raised in different circumstances.
If you’d had parents who had supported you in ways your actual caregivers didn’t. If you had been given opportunities you weren’t given. If you’d NOT be harmed the way you’ve been harmed. If you hadn’t gotten sick or been born sick. If you’d been born in a different time or country or into a different economic status.
It’s totally normal to WISH that you had been born into different circumstances or to resent the circumstances that you have lived through, especially if they caused you harm and you KNOW that you would have had a better, easier, more joyful life if things had been different.
I want you to know that you’re allowed to be upset about what happened to you, what choices were made FOR you that you had no control over and impacted your life and to resent the people and places that had power over you and the outcomes you’ve experienced in your life.
You’re allowed to be upset about what you’ve been through.
Many people use these two circumstances - wondering what would have been or wishing they had been given a different life plan - as a weapon against themselves. Many people see this as something that they need to feel guilt over OR they see their circumstances as something they’re not allowed to be upset about/blame themselves for the outcomes that happened DUE to circumstances that were outside of their control.
Especially if we have faced hardship, trauma, illness, harm or lack of provision and safety.
The reality is, all of these things are going to have a profound impact on the lives we eventually lead - on our current realities, on the choices we would have made, on the patterns we may now have, on the ways that we may cope, numb and stimulate ourselves, on the pain we may now feel in our current reality and so on - and many people look at THEMSELVES as being the ‘cause’ of this pain/bad habits rather than being able to see that it was their circumstances that played a MASSIVE role in what options they had available to them.
So if this is you, if you have a lot of pain in your life right now I want you to know, it’s ok to be upset about where you came from, what happened to you and how it impacted you.
You’re allowed to be upset at your caregivers, your body, at God.
You’re allowed to wish that things had been different and to wish that those differences would have given you a better life.
This is actually a HUGE part of the healing path many of us need to walk - seeing that we are where we are not because WE made choices that messed up our lives, but because we were born into circumstances that had a massive impact on us.
So again, I want to validate for you - it’s totally and completely ok to wonder what life would have been like if you had been given more support, resources, help, love and safety.
Please let yourself be upset about what happened to you, so that you can stop turning all of your pain in on yourself, blaming yourself for all the problems that are occurring in your life now.
This process doesn’t have to mean that you’re ‘giving up’ or surrendering to the idea that you have no power or control to make things better moving forward, or that you are totally helpless now due to circumstances - you are an adult and there is room for you to make choices and changes from here that WILL help you feel better - but if you are blaming yourself for things that were not your choice and not your fault, you’re likely never going to find your actual power or be able to actually move forward in your life in a healthy and productive way.
So let yourself wonder. Let yourself be upset. Let yourself grieve and validate yourself.
It’s normal to wonder, especially when we’re in pain - so please let that comfort you.
When In Pain, Don’t Let Fantasy Drive You Insane
Lastly again, when we are in a lot of pain, when we are in situations in our current life that really DO hurt and don’t feel good again, it’s fully and completely normal to dive into fantasy and wonder what would have happened if we had made different choices.
It’s normal to think that if we had just taken the other job, done something different with our health, said yes to the proposal, had the kids, not had the kids that THIS would have led to a kind of perfect life where all of the pain and problems we’re currently experiencing wouldn't exist.
Many times when we are facing deeply challenging and painful circumstances in life, there is a deep instinct to blame ourselves for the pain we’re in - as this is that childhood coping mechanism coming out to try to save us. The childhood brain truly believes that if we can make all the pain we’re experiencing our fault, if we can blame ourselves for it enough and if we can pin-point where WE went wrong that made the pain happen that in THIS we are going to be able to ESCAPE the pain.
But the truth is, this isn’t how pain management works. We are never going to be able to blame, shame or guilt ourselves enough to make our current circumstances different, or to take the pain we’re in away.
This can be really difficult to wrap the mind around however, because again, it’s a deep childhood program that most of us have been running for a LONG time.
With this, we may not even recognize that this is what we’re doing when we fantasize about having made a different choice.
When we are sitting and wondering what could have happened if we’d taken a different path, oftentimes what we are actually doing is slipping into a fantasy world - one that doesn’t actually exist.
We are convincing ourselves that there was a perfect path we COULD have taken, a right choices we COULD have made or a correct step we should have followed that would have led to the PERFECT life and the PERFECT outcomes and that would have saved us from the pain we’re in now.
This isn’t reality.
The truth is, no matter WHAT choices we’ve made in life, there would be things about those choices that we don’t like. There would have been challenges we didn’t see coming. There would have been pain. There would have been struggle.
There was no choice you could have made in your past that would have led you to a perfect life, free of pain and free of struggle.
There is no reality that exists where you made a right choice and your life would have come together in all the right ways and every ounce of struggle that you have now would have been erased.
As much as we may want to believe that this is possible, as much as we may want to convince ourselves that this alternate reality could have saved us from everything we’re feeling now - this just isn’t true.
You can’t possibly know what would have happened if you’d made a different choice.
You can’t know that you would be in a perfectly happy, stable relationship now had you done something different. That you would have had your dream career. That you would have prevented any illness that you’ve faced.
There’s no guarantee that had you made the alternative choice that all of the stuff you’re going through now wouldn’t have existed.
This slipping into fantasy of the perfect life you would have lived if you’d done something else is a sneaky way that we blame ourselves for the pain we’re in.
And it’s out of sync with reality.
So I really want you to consider this - you DON’T actually know what would have happened if you’d made a different choice, and no matter what there would have been struggles, hardships, challenges and things that would have come up to cause you pain.
There’s no RIGHT choice in life - only the choice we are capable of making.
You did what you did because at the time it was what you were capable of doing - and even if you’d been able to do something else, there’s no guarantee that it would have been astronomically better.
EVERY choice would have come with it’s pain - so please let yourself off the hook that there was a ‘right choice’ that you simply neglected to make that is the reason you now suffer.
This isn’t reality.
That’s your childhood self trying to find a way to blame you, thinking it’s going to take your pain away.
Can you have COMPASSION for the pain that you’re in, and know that no matter what choice you could have made, there would have been struggle?
How does it feel to know that there was never a PERFECT choice to make, and that you did the best you could with what you had at the time?
THAT is truth.
Let’s sit with that.
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Let’s take a break here and come back next week for Part Two!
<3
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