Dealing with Regrets

Santosha

If you used a magic wand to freeze life at this very moment, what do you hope your life’s path would look like? Perhaps we hope to see a row of achievements on our path, large enough to block out the failures. Or all the good we have done far outgrowing the bad. A wholistic view that doesn’t show the shadows or the weeds in-between. A view that is pulled far enough away to blur out the regretful bits, perhaps.

Well, yoga would like us to consider a different view: A beautifully craggy, multi-colored path of mistakes and love, of embarrassments and joy, of regrets and forgiveness.

Yoga challenges us to make our coulda/woulda/shouldas just as visible as our wins. They need to be there because life always circles back and if they are hidden or invisible, we would simply trip on them again the second time around.  

Yoga cautions us to worry less about the uneven ruts and lumps. We were never meant to grind our path down to smooth perfection.  That isn’t our job.  And it certainly isn’t the job of any other humans in our life.  Your job is to find your path, be guided back to your path, and be thankful for your beautifully imperfect/perfect path. Yoga calls this santosha.   

The path of a worthy life looks like it’s been well lived on, wrinkles and all. So let’s journey on. Live on. And look back at our regrets not through rose colored glasses, but through santosha.

Until next time,

Laura