The End of The Line...And Everything Before The Last Stop
Let me tell you a story. I had this great aunt (my Grandmother's sister) named Ginette who passed away several years ago. Sitting with her cigarette and a deck of cards she began to tell me that I should regret nothing in my life. To an 18 year old this was philosophical and inspiring on it's own but the story she began to tell me about what brought her to that realization was nothing other than profound.
A prostitute, an addict, a mother, wife and sister, a victim of circumstance and yet a conqueror of difficulty, Ginette experienced more than what life offered on the surface. She was abused as a young child which led her into difficult relationships and the sex trade in Montreal and over the years became a well known member of AA and a key speaker in prisons all around Canada. To me she was my awesome great aunt Ginette who had a Garfield suction cup stuffed animal in the window of her car. She was the woman who would come to visit my family and tell hilarious jokes. And at the age of 18 for me she became a role model and a wise woman.
'Never regret anything in your life'
She had wisdom in her words and she saw into my heart. I held guilt for being in the hospital as a teenager which worried my parents dearly. I had shame over being gay. I had shame over taking money to buy Marijuana. I also had remorse for being a bit manipulative towards others in times of worry. Through my own pain I became an enemy to myself.
I'm not sure if you noticed but in the above paragraph, in the eighth sentence, I put my aunts wise words into actualization. My Own Pain. I didn't see the wisdom in her words entirely until I began to work on myself as a person. There is so much programming that goes into us as we create who we are. Sometimes we can undo this programming and sometimes it is so deep that it seems like an impossible feat to see past it. But looking outside the box 10 years later I realized that maybe the programming isn't exactly the full issue. Maybe it's the computer itself. Maybe, in order to regret nothing, I had to take the keyboard, disk drive and processor into my own hands. Maybe I had to own the way I was thinking about things, the actions that I have done and the way I made people (including myself) feel. There is something to be said for this. To truly not regret something we have to make peace with it - whatever that is. When we see things as they are and not as we bias them to be, for better or worse, we can hold a greater understand of the truth and when we own it then it becomes ours and we can shift it.
Now for the practical: We cannot feel better in an instant although we can get better over time. We have to see ourselves as whole and unbroken for the illusion of brokenness is what we have done to ourselves. Nobody can fragment who we are and nobody can fix us. We are entirely powerful beings who spend our lives waiting to feel empowered but in actuality it is a process of realization rather than the attainment of strength.
I want you to do this: Tell yourself everyday that you are the change. You are the love you are looking for, the peace you are seeking and the repair to any damage you have caused or any damage that has been done to you. Tell yourself you are a not a victim of what has happened in your life but a conqueror who has gotten through it. That you are not a manipulative person but that circumstances brought you to manipulate and that those circumstances are in the past. Tell yourself that just for today you are no longer an addict but instead someone who will speak of addiction and how it shaped them to help others.
Believe for yourself that you are that special piece of divinity on earth running the unique programs that you do because God or the Universe knew that you are the only one who could be all of this and live.
'Never regret anything in your life. At the end of your life say you did it your way.'
-Aunt Ginette.
Let me tell you a story. I had this great aunt (my Grandmother's sister) named Ginette who passed away several years ago. Sitting with her cigarette and a deck of cards she began to tell me that I should regret nothing in my life. To an 18 year old this was philosophical and inspiring on it's own but the story she began to tell me about what brought her to that realization was nothing other than profound.
A prostitute, an addict, a mother, wife and sister, a victim of circumstance and yet a conqueror of difficulty, Ginette experienced more than what life offered on the surface. She was abused as a young child which led her into difficult relationships and the sex trade in Montreal and over the years became a well known member of AA and a key speaker in prisons all around Canada. To me she was my awesome great aunt Ginette who had a Garfield suction cup stuffed animal in the window of her car. She was the woman who would come to visit my family and tell hilarious jokes. And at the age of 18 for me she became a role model and a wise woman.
'Never regret anything in your life'
She had wisdom in her words and she saw into my heart. I held guilt for being in the hospital as a teenager which worried my parents dearly. I had shame over being gay. I had shame over taking money to buy Marijuana. I also had remorse for being a bit manipulative towards others in times of worry. Through my own pain I became an enemy to myself.
I'm not sure if you noticed but in the above paragraph, in the eighth sentence, I put my aunts wise words into actualization. My Own Pain. I didn't see the wisdom in her words entirely until I began to work on myself as a person. There is so much programming that goes into us as we create who we are. Sometimes we can undo this programming and sometimes it is so deep that it seems like an impossible feat to see past it. But looking outside the box 10 years later I realized that maybe the programming isn't exactly the full issue. Maybe it's the computer itself. Maybe, in order to regret nothing, I had to take the keyboard, disk drive and processor into my own hands. Maybe I had to own the way I was thinking about things, the actions that I have done and the way I made people (including myself) feel. There is something to be said for this. To truly not regret something we have to make peace with it - whatever that is. When we see things as they are and not as we bias them to be, for better or worse, we can hold a greater understand of the truth and when we own it then it becomes ours and we can shift it.
Now for the practical: We cannot feel better in an instant although we can get better over time. We have to see ourselves as whole and unbroken for the illusion of brokenness is what we have done to ourselves. Nobody can fragment who we are and nobody can fix us. We are entirely powerful beings who spend our lives waiting to feel empowered but in actuality it is a process of realization rather than the attainment of strength.
I want you to do this: Tell yourself everyday that you are the change. You are the love you are looking for, the peace you are seeking and the repair to any damage you have caused or any damage that has been done to you. Tell yourself you are a not a victim of what has happened in your life but a conqueror who has gotten through it. That you are not a manipulative person but that circumstances brought you to manipulate and that those circumstances are in the past. Tell yourself that just for today you are no longer an addict but instead someone who will speak of addiction and how it shaped them to help others.
Believe for yourself that you are that special piece of divinity on earth running the unique programs that you do because God or the Universe knew that you are the only one who could be all of this and live.
'Never regret anything in your life. At the end of your life say you did it your way.'
-Aunt Ginette.
