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How do you start to accept and make peace with all you lost?

hotmilk

Newcomer
Money, time. Years Ive spent at home. No college experience. Not going out with friends much as a teen. finishing school late
 
Regret and the tyranny of the "if only" is a colossal waste of energy. It's a form of self abuse . It's never too late to learn, connect, and explore. Letting go of past thinking makes room for the new to come in. Think of small ways you can start allowing the new into the present and go from there.
 
Regret and the tyranny of the "if only" is a colossal waste of energy. It's a form of self abuse .
Agree! And to which I would add that it is also a distraction - created by your TMS brain in order to keep you stuck.

As @Cactusflower says, you have the power to choose. Choose to not be distracted by thoughts that get you nowhere.

A replacement for these thoughts might be to accept that being human means experiencing regret - but that you can choose to set regret aside and spend your energy visualizing a different future.

Also, as Nicole Sachs reminds us every week, always remember to practice patience and kindness for yourself.
 
Check out this podcast from Nicole Sachs (from June, 2000), where she brings in Kristen Neff's work at 31:25. Just starting there and listening to the last roughly 7 minutes is powerful stuff...

The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs, LCSW / Self Limiting Beliefs and The Self Compassion to Correct Them (audioboom.com)

She says that basically everything she learned about self-compassion comes from her study of Dr. Neff's work. That's an extraordinary statement. And, one that is probably way way too humble, because Nicole Sachs is such a great person to turn to for ideas/practices on self-compassion.
The way she describes self-limiting beliefs is so easy to grasp and so helpful for me.
 
Allow yourself to feel sad and grieve the loss of those things. If you don't, the grief will likely manifest as symptoms, one way or another. In your grief you are also hopefully envisioning a different future for yourself. I found I couldn't really feel much of my sadness over the decades of being sick, because I never knew if it would come to an end. So, I have had a lot of grieving to do. It's not something you just move through once. But something you may revisit from time to time. But I also feel I'll have a much richer, meaningful life, for having allowed myself to do that. If I glossed over the hell I've been through, I'd be much less likely to fight hard to have something better.
 
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