errors, regrets, anxiety & acceptance

acceptance is not the disappearance of regret. anxiety does not vanish because i have learned to sit with it. and errors, past and future, remain part of (my) life. what changes (slowly, in my case), is not life itself, but my relationship to it.

if i am able to be in the moment, aware of who i am (including all my faults, scars and my ‘incomplete wholeness’), then regrets become part of my story rather than something holding me back in the past.

i can accept that i have taken paths that caused suffering, to myself or to others. i can take responsibility without making those choices my identity.

i made mistakes. i am not my mistakes.

nor do i need to expect perfection from my future self. i will almost certainly make choices that, one day, i will see differently. that does not absolve me from responsibility.

my task is not to eliminate anxiety, but to stop letting it become my master. not to erase regret, but to let regret deepen compassion, for others and for myself, instead of self-condemnation (just why did i do that?). not to avoid every future error, but to remain awake while making them, learning from them, repairing what can be repaired, and continuing to walk.

my responsibility is not to guarantee outcomes, never perfect ones, not even ‘good’ ones. my responsibility is to cultivate awareness. to practise being present. to meet each moment with as much honesty, openness and attention as i am capable of. outcomes are never entirely mine. attention is.

perhaps the paths i did not take (that i won’t take) would have been happier. or they would simply have brought different sorrows. there is no way of knowing. there are infinitely many caminos de la vida. i have only ever walked one. and i will walk this one until the end.

acceptance does not require me to stop imagining the other paths not taken. it simply reminds me that imagination cannot become a substitute for living this life.

acceptance is not life without regrets, anxiety or errors. it is walking with them. awake. this is ultimately where yoyu begins. not only as generosity towards other souls, but as spaciousness towards my own. not self-indulgence. not excuse. simply the willingness to remain open. to feel. to receive. to offer. to live fully.

here and now.