An extraordinary truth
“To regret one’s experience is to deny one’s existence.” OSCAR WILDE
I’m about to introduce you to an extraordinary truth about life, so make yourself comfortable, relax, take a deep breath and be prepared for a surprise.
I’m going to challenge the way you’ve probably always thought about a great many things. Some of you will initially resist this challenge. You may at first think, as I did, that what I’m going to tell you can’t be true. Perhaps you’ll think you now have the evidence to get your own back. You’ll think I’m the one who’s crazy.
Since the benefits of understanding and using this truth are so great I’ll do my best, as I always have, to convince you.
THE EASY BIT
The way we think, feel and act in a particular situation is determined by three things:
- Our attitudes or ways of thinking, including our beliefs
- Our personality, which in this book means our unconscious programming
- Our abilities, including our knowledge
There’s also our mood or ‘state of mind’, which can vary from day to day or moment to moment. But our mood is determined by the interaction between our recent circumstances and our attitudes, personality and abilities so these three are still the prime determinants.
- A man whose attitudes include the belief that men don’t cook is unlikely to want to sign up for a cooking course
- Those of us whose personality (unconscious programming) includes a fear of heights would feel pretty uncomfortable perched on a ledge several storeys up
- Someone who has strong abilities as a tennis player is likely to play a better game of tennis than someone who hasn’t
So far, there’s nothing surprising about any of this.
Our attitudes, personality and abilities overlap and influence each other. So in practice our thoughts, feelings and actions result from a complex interaction between our attitudes, personality and abilities, together with our mood and circumstances at the time.
LIFE HISTORY
What determines our attitudes, personality and abilities? They’re the cumulative result of all our past experiences, including our conscious and unconscious thoughts, the choices we’ve made along the way and our genetic or inherited traits. We call all this our life history.
The man who believes that men don’t cook probably developed his belief as a result of past experiences, including perhaps the views of at least one of his parents and his past conscious or unconscious thoughts based on the things he’s seen or heard.
Those of us who have a fear of heights probably acquired it as a result of childhood experiences, together with the unconscious thoughts that resulted from those experiences and perhaps some inherited traits.
Our abilities as a tennis player depend on how often we’ve played, how motivated we were at the time and our coordination skills, which may in turn have been determined by childhood experiences and inherited traits.
The development of our attitudes, personality and abilities continues throughout our lives as a result of new thoughts and experiences. Your attitudes or beliefs now are hopefully slightly different from an hour ago or from a time before you started reading this book.
The way we think, feel and act in a
particular situation is determined by
who we are at that moment (attitudes,
personality and abilities), which is in
turn determined by our life history
up to that moment.
If this is so why are we often disappointed by our thoughts, feelings or actions or think they should have been different?
If through nervousness or lack of ability or poor preparation I’ve performed badly in a job interview, why might I be annoyed or disappointed with myself? Clearly if I am, it’s because my performance fell short of my hopes or expectations.
But what I did was determined by my attitudes, personality and abilities at the time, which in turn were determined by my life history up to that moment. So wasn’t I just doing my best given my attitudes, etc., and my mood and circumstances at the time? In other words, given my life history up to that moment?
If I’d known how to do better or how not to be nervous or had the foresight to be more prepared, I’d have done it. But I didn’t know. So I was being the best I knew how to be at that moment.
MAKING CHOICES
You might agree in my example that I may not have known how to control my nervousness or do anything about my lack of ability, at least at the time, but surely I had a choice about my degree of preparation. So isn’t it reasonable to think poorly of myself or be disappointed with myself for not being more prepared?
What if I went out socialising with my friends the night before rather than prepare for the interview?
Well, here’s the surprise I promised you. When I chose to go out with my friends, I was doing my best given my attitudes or ways of thinking at the time. And those attitudes were determined by my life history up to that moment. In fact:
We’ve always been doing our best at
any moment, given our attitudes,
personality and abilities at the time
and hence given our life history
up to that moment.
The question is not whether we make choices, because we surely do. The question is: why do we make the choices we make? The answer is always because of who we are (attitudes, personality, abilities) at that moment, which in turn is determined by our life history up to that moment.
Why do two people make a different choice in the same circumstances? Because they have different attitudes, etc. as a result of different life histories up to that moment.
Why does the same person make a different choice at different times in the same circumstances? Because their attitudes, or perhaps their resulting mood, are different at those different times, which in turn can only be explained by their recent experiences up to the moment when they made the different choice.
Why are some of you feeling a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that we’ve always been doing our best, given our attitudes, etc. at the time, while others are perfectly happy with the idea? Because we all have different attitudes, etc. as a result of our different life histories.
You may be thinking the idea that we’ve always been doing our best, given our attitudes, etc. at the time sounds like a cop-out. You may already be thinking about issues such as responsibility, accountability, cruelty, selfishness and crime. We’ll deal with all of these.
Hopefully what I’m going to tell you, which by the time we’ve finished will form part of your life history, will be sufficient to make you all comfortable, irrespective of what you may be thinking right now. For example, I’ll be saying:
We’re absolutely still responsible
for our actions.
I’ll also be saying that understanding we’ve always been doing our best, given who we were at the time, only has value if at the same time we take responsibility for our past, present and future actions, particularly if we’ve hurt or harmed others by our actions.
FREE WILL
Free will is the ability to make choices that aren’t determined by our history. There’s a school of philosophy called determinism, which claims everything that happens is determined by everything that’s happened before. In determinist philosophy there’s no such thing as free will.
Modern science, specifically the science of quantum mechanics, provides evidence to suggest that random or at least unpredictable events are occurring all the time. This means those events aren’t determined by what’s happened before. Perhaps our intuitive thoughts are to some extent random or unpredictable.
This suggests the future couldn’t be predicted even if we had a complete understanding of how the human mind works. But this still leaves open the question of whether we have free will.
There are some who believe the human mind ceases to be determined when we’re connected to our spiritual or higher self. This suggests we can freely choose to move towards a higher purpose but, when we choose otherwise, our thoughts, feelings and actions are determined by our history. We won’t be exploring spiritual ideas in this book. This is a subject for another time. But it doesn’t change the notion that we’ve always been doing our best at any moment, given who we are at the time.
When I first stumbled on this idea I realised how powerful it could be in the context of pacceptance. At first I found it hard to believe. So I consulted academics in the fields of philosophy, psychology and neuro-science who all told me the idea I’d stumbled on was undoubtedly true.
Since then I’ve yet to meet a philosopher, psychologist or neuro-scientist with an understanding of the subject who believes otherwise. In other words:
All those who understand the subject
of determinism and free will believe
the human mind is determined. This
means the choices we make in any
given circumstances are determined
by who we are at that moment, which
in turn is determined by our life history
up to that moment.
You can search for Bertrand Russell or Albert Einstein on the internet together with the word ‘determinism’ and see for yourself.
So when I chose to go out with my friends instead of preparing for my interview, that choice was determined by who I was at that moment (attitudes, personality and abilities), together with my mood and circumstances, which was in turn determined by my life history up to that moment.
I’ve met few people who realise the practical significance of this truth as relatively few are familiar with the concept of ‘accepting what is’ and most have never heard of pacceptance. You may already be able to see the significance in the context of pacceptance. In short, subject to what I’m going to say about responsibility, it can eliminate regret and self-blame from our lives. I’ll explain this shortly.
Here’s the ultimate argument about free will. Even if free will does play a role in the choices we make, it seems reasonable to suppose we’d use it as best we can to satisfy our needs or wants or our perception of other people’s needs or wants, at the time. And those needs, wants and perceptions are themselves determined by our attitudes, personality and abilities at the time.
So we still come back to these three as being the determinants of what we think, feel and do, together with our mood and circumstances, and these three determinants can only be a product of our life history up to this moment.
From now on, for the sake of brevity, I’ll summarise the phrase ‘attitudes, personality and abilities’ with the word ‘awareness’. In our language, this word usually means what we’re focusing on or conscious of. For the purpose of this book, I’ve borrowed the word and expanded its meaning to include everything that makes us who we are at the moment.
DOING OUR BEST OR DOING THE ONLY THING WE COULD HAVE DONE?
I’m saying we’ve always been doing our best at any moment given our awareness at the time. The truth is:
We’ve always done the only thing we
could have done at any moment, given
our awareness at the time.
For us to have done something different we’d have needed a different awareness at that moment. And in order to have a different awareness we’d have needed a different life history up to that moment, however small that difference might be.
When I chose to go out with my friends the evening before my interview, that was the only choice I could have made at that moment, given my awareness at the time, and hence given my life history up to that moment.
I’ll mainly use the expression ‘we’ve always done our best at any moment, given our awareness at the time’ but if you prefer you could replace it with ‘we’ve always done the only thing we could have done at any moment, given our awareness at the time’.
Most of the time I’ll mention both as I’ve found that some prefer the more positive sounding version (doing our best) and others the more accurate version (the only thing we could have done). Both are true.
CASE STUDY
Nelson had a successful career in a large multinational company. He’d risen rapidly and adapted well to the increasing responsibility that came with each promotion … until a month before I met him.
He’d taken his eye off the ball and made a costly mistake. The setback, for which he blamed himself entirely, and the resulting negative feedback from senior management had unnerved him and damaged his confidence.
When I explained to him that he’d always done his best with the awareness he had at the time and that the mistake he’d made was the only thing he could have done at that moment, he was able to let go of his regret and self-blame.
He understood he was still responsible. We’ll come back to this case when we look at the difference between responsibility and self-blame later in this chapter.
EXPECTATIONS
It’s good to have high expectations of ourselves. In fact, high expectations usually have a beneficial effect on our performance. But when our performance doesn’t match our expectations, is there any reason to think we ‘should’ have done better, if in fact we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) given our awareness at the time?
If we had perfect foresight through a complete understanding of how we’d behave at a particular moment in a particular situation, our expectations would always match our performance. We don’t have this foresight and life might be rather dull if we did, but does this give us reason to think it was our expectations that were right while our performance was somehow wrong?
It’s not that we couldn’t have done better given our abilities. But something would have had to be different. If I’d been more positive about my interview or better prepared or less worried about the outcome, I may well have done better. But this would have meant being a different person at that moment with a different awareness, which in turn would have required a different life history up to that moment.
If the experience helps me to realise
how I could have done better, my life
history and awareness have now
changed and I can do better next time.
THE UNHELPFUL ‘SHOULD’
Even if we didn’t have any particular hopes or expectations about something we did, the same argument still applies. Looking back at the things we’ve done, is there any reason to think we should have done better?
Telling ourselves we should have done something different makes sense if we’re just pointing out where we went wrong or what we’d need to have done differently in order to get a better result. Thinking about this will help us do better next time.
But it makes little sense if we use the word ‘should’ in a regretful, self-blaming way if we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) given who we were at that moment.
CASE STUDY
I described Mary in the last chapter. You may recall she’d been depressed for several years. The initial source of her depression was an unwanted teenage pregnancy. Her parents had persuaded her to give up her child for adoption.
Over the ensuing years she’d developed a sense of loss fuelled by regret and self-blame around becoming pregnant and giving up her child and a belief that she’d been an ‘inadequate mother’.
Her regret, self-blame, low esteem and consequent depression had resulted in her avoiding forming any lasting relationship.
When Mary learned that she’d always been doing her best (the only thing she could have done) given her awareness at the time and hence given her life history up to each moment, her sense of regret and self-blame dissolved.
Her depression soon lifted with the help of ‘accepting her feelings and choosing her actions’ as described in the last chapter.
WE’RE STILL RESPONSIBLE
You may be concerned that this way of thinking seems like a cop-out. But eliminating regret and self-blame doesn’t mean diminishing our responsibility.
We alone control our actions, we alone
can choose them and we alone have the
power, and can use that power, to act
responsibly now and in the future.
We chose the actions we took and will continue to choose the actions we take in future. We are and always will be responsible for our actions. No one else can take that responsibility away from us except perhaps when we were very young. Far from diminishing our sense of responsibility we’ll be talking about the importance of developing it.
But we need to recognise that the value of acknowledging our responsibility for past events lies only in the influence this has on the future. After all, what’s done is done and cannot be changed. And we now know it couldn’t have been different. But if I’ve behaved irresponsibly in the past and, being aware of this, I choose to continue to behave this way in the future then I believe this is indeed a cop-out and for me the principle of doing my best ceases to have any value.
If we take responsibility for our past actions but at the same time understand we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) with the awareness we had at the time, we can stop blaming ourselves and focus instead on what we need to do to make amends and change the way we behave in the future.
Self-blame involves thinking our past
actions should have been different,
which is a nonsense because they
couldn’t have been different, given
our awareness at the time. Taking
responsibility for our past actions
focuses on what we need to do
differently now and in the future, such
as making amends or changing
our behaviour.
Self-blame involves statements or thoughts such as:
- ‘I should/shouldn’t have …’ (in a regretful/self-blaming way)
- ‘If only I had/hadn’t …’
Such thoughts have no value, are unproductive and above all make no sense, first because we cannot undo the past and second because we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) given our awareness at the time.
Taking responsibility, on the other hand, involves statements or thoughts such as:
- ‘What I did was wrong or ineffective so I need to act differently in future’
- ‘I’m responsible for what I did so what can I do to make amends, such as apologise, commit to behave differently in future or accept whatever penalties or other consequences result from the actions I took?’
Such thoughts are valuable, productive and, unlike self-blame, make sense.
If we’re using the principle of doing our
best to eliminate regret and self-blame
we also need to take responsibility for
what we did and, where applicable,
commit to change our behaviour in the
future and make amends for the past.
CASE STUDY
You’ll recall from earlier in this chapter that when Nelson understood his costly mistake was the only thing he could have done with the awareness he had at the time, he let go of regret and self-blame.
He was still responsible for what happened. But he could now see that the value of recognising that responsibility lay only in how it impacted his attitudes and behaviour now and in the future, such as taking action to ensure it couldn’t happen again.
Since Nelson was a capable contributor in his work environment, taking responsibility sat a lot more easily with him than blaming himself for the past. His sense of self-worth was restored and he once again became highly motivated.
Given that our actions were determined by our awareness at the time, are we not responsible for the way our awareness has developed? Yes we are. No one else can take that responsibility away from us, again except perhaps when we were very young.
But blaming ourselves for our faults and weaknesses implies we chose them. The fact is we don’t consciously choose our characteristics. They develop as a consequence of our thoughts and experiences and the choices we make along the way.
There’s no sense putting ourselves down because of the past thoughts, feelings and actions that have determined how our awareness developed, if again we were only doing our best (the only thing we could have done) at each moment.
Once again, the value of taking responsibility for how our awareness developed lies in what we choose to do now and in the future to change it, to avoid repeating past mistakes and, where appropriate, make amends.
CASE STUDY
Nicola had a major regret about not having continued her education beyond school. She’d chosen instead to work to earn money to fund her social life and an expensive hobby. Soon after this decision she married and started a family. When I met her she felt she’d missed her chance of developing a fulfilling career.
When Nicola learned and understood that the decision not to continue her education was the only decision she could have taken with the awareness she had at the time, she was able to let go of her regret.
She was still responsible for her decision but the value of recognising this lay only in the impact it had on her current and future decisions.
Having let go of regret and self-blame she was now able to take greater control of her life. She enrolled in an Open University degree and later obtained the qualification needed to launch herself on her chosen career.
NOT NECESSARILY OUR BEST EFFORT OR BEST USE OF OUR ABILITIES
If I think I’ve:
- Made a bad choice
- Made a mess of a relationship
- Missed an opportunity because I was lacking in confidence
- Had an accident through carelessness
I was doing my best (the only thing I could have done) given my awareness at the time. So there’s no reason to chastise myself or feel disappointed with myself. Rather I can learn from the experience and resolve to do better next time.
Doing our best doesn’t necessarily mean making our greatest effort or doing things to the best of our ability. It may just mean doing whatever we believe appropriate to satisfy our needs or wants or the needs or wants of others at the time.
And one person’s idea of the best or most appropriate thing to do may be quite different from another’s. This again depends on our attitudes at the time.
But we were doing our best given our abilities and attitudes at that moment and those attitudes were determined by our life history up to that moment.
If we have conflicting needs or wants we’ll tend to favour the one that seems most significant at the time. If I think I ought to be painting the house but I’m feeling lazy, I may choose to watch TV. Looking back I was doing my best in the light of my conflicting needs or wants and my attitudes, however unproductive, at that moment.
AND SO TO PACCEPTANCE
Understanding we were doing our best or doing the only thing we could have done, given our awareness at the time, is a powerful alternative justification for paccepting our past actions.
We can paccept the things we’ve
done or haven’t done not just because
there’s no point wishing things were
already different but also because we
were doing our best (the only thing we
could have done) at that moment, given
our awareness at the time.
So we can avoid perpetuating any regret, disappointment or self-blame we may experience when our actions fall short of our expectations.
The pacceptance process introduced in Chapter 1 now becomes:
- Notice whenever we’re regretting or blaming ourselves for something we’ve just done, or did or didn’t do a while ago
- Understand we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) given our awareness at the time
- Drop the regret or self-blaming thought
- Refocus on what we can do, if anything, to improve the future, such as rectifying the situation, making amends or taking action to ensure it doesn’t happen again
CASE STUDY
Stephen was addicted to drugs. He’d been through rehab several times and each time had relapsed. His parents had paid a great deal for these failed attempts.
When I met him his self-esteem was low. He felt worthless and a failure. His failed attempts to come off drugs also had a lot to do with his anger towards his parents.
There was a great deal we needed to work through to resolve his anger and give him the strength to beat his addiction. The tools we used are outlined in this book.
But before he could forgive his parents for whatever he blamed them for and build his own sense of power we needed to deal with his low self-esteem. His breakthrough began with learning that at every moment in his challenging life he’d done his best (the only thing he could have done) with the awareness he had at the time.
No one had explained this to Stephen before. As with most of my clients who hear it for the first time I can recall the look on his face as he took it in and realised both the truth and the power of what he was hearing.
Even before I mentioned it, he understood the implications not only to his own sense of regret and self-worth but also to his attitude towards his parents (we’ll cover this later).
He let go of his regret and self-blame around his past behaviour. He quickly understood the difference between self-blame and responsibility and that responsibility was only relevant to the choices he made from now on.
He began taking responsibility for his past and future actions. From that moment Stephen’s self-esteem began to rise and his attitudes began to change. We’ll follow his case through several chapters of this book.
IMPROVING THE FUTURE
Understanding we were doing our best (the only thing we could have done) at any moment, given our awareness at the time, helps us to recognise that something has to change in our awareness if we want to do better next time. Sometimes this happens automatically as a result of experience. But it’s more likely to happen if we recognise we need to make a conscious decision to change.
CASE STUDY
The first time I forgot to turn off my mobile phone in a meeting was also the last time it happened (with one or two exceptions in one-to-one meetings in around ten years). I was presenting to a large meeting at the time and it was an important one.
When it rang to my initial embarrassment, in the few seconds it took me to turn it off I accepted my initial feeling of embarrassment, paccepted what had happened (I immediately knew that when I left it on I’d been doing my best given my awareness at the time, so I couldn’t possibly have turned it off on that occasion) and resolved that every time I walked into a meeting from then on, I’d turn it off.
That resolution was the change in awareness that resulted in my not leaving it on again. Without that resolution it would probably have happened again and again until I finally got the message and resolved to change my behaviour or until I learned automatically from the repeated negative experience and developed a habit of turning it off.
As we discussed in the first chapter, pacceptance removes dissatisfaction and empowers us to make changes to improve the future. We now have a more powerful justification for pacceptance whenever self-blame is involved and an effective tool for enabling us to focus on what we need to do to change what we do in the future.
ELIMINATING GUILT
As well as there being no place for regret once we’ve mastered pacceptance, particularly if we resolve to learn from our mistakes and take responsibility for our actions, there’s also no reason to feel guilty about something we’ve done that’s unintentionally hurt others.
If we’ve unwittingly let others down or hurt them when we were only doing our best (the only thing we could have done), we should acknowledge our responsibility but there’s no need to blame ourselves.
If we had good intentions but were lacking in ability or awareness at the time we can resolve to do better in future. But there’s no point hitting ourselves over the head for our past unintentional errors.
CASE STUDY
Jo had a good job and a loving family. But for the past several years he’d suffered constant regret and guilt about a bad investment that had lost a great deal of money. He felt guilty because of the significant impact on his family’s standard of living.
He felt doubly bad because he’d been advised by a friend not to go ahead and had instead listened to others who he knew had something to gain from his making the investment.
He learned about pacceptance as I’ve described in Chapter 1. This helped but didn’t immediately eliminate his regret and guilt. He still felt he ‘shouldn’t’ have done what he did and so blamed himself.
Then he learned that when he made the investment he was doing his best with the awareness he had at that time. Indeed making the investment was the only thing he could possibly have done with the awareness he had at that moment. And the awareness he had was determined by his life history up to that time, including all the advice he’d received.
Jo was now able to fully paccept what had happened. He naturally still would have ‘preferred’ it hadn’t happened but now that he understood there was no way it couldn’t have happened his regret and guilt were completely resolved.
He still acknowledged responsibility for his past actions, but understood this was only relevant to the choices he made from now on.
WHAT IF WE’VE KNOWINGLY HURT OTHERS?
What if we’ve knowingly behaved in a cruel, unduly selfish, hurtful or otherwise unfair way towards others? First, as always, we need to take responsibility (acknowledge our past errors, make amends wherever we can and resolve not to act this way again).
Second, it’s reasonable to feel remorse for past actions that we knew to be unfair at the time. But if we take responsibility for what we’ve done we can forgive ourselves or ask others for forgiveness and so work through any remorse we may justifiably be feeling.
Understanding that we’ve always been doing our best is no excuse for continuing to behave in unduly selfish, inconsiderate or hurtful ways in the future. On the contrary, letting go of self-blame and recognising that our past actions were determined by our awareness at the time gives us a better chance to change our attitudes and behaviour in the future if we’ve been behaving inappropriately in the past.
If we’re not prepared to take
responsibility and change our attitudes
and behaviour in the future then the
principle of doing our best has no value.
PAST NOT PRESENT
Applying the principle of doing our best to our thoughts and actions only works in the past not the present. I’d never say to myself: ‘I’m being irresponsible, selfish or inconsiderate right now but I’m only doing my best with the awareness I have at this moment.’ Such a thought would be misleading, unhelpful and unproductive.
If we try to apply the principle to our attitudes or actions in the present it’s no longer valid since, as soon as we say it or think it, our awareness immediately changes.
As soon as I say to myself, ‘I’m being selfish right now,’ I can choose to stop being selfish if I want to.
By contrast it can be useful to apply it to our feelings in the present since these are not usually within our immediate control. It would be perfectly reasonable to say or think, ‘I’m feeling anxious and that’s the only thing I could be feeling with the awareness I have right now.’
CAN IT REALLY BE TRUE?
The idea that we’ve always been doing our best, or the only thing we could have done, at every moment will for most be an unfamiliar concept.
We’ve been told or told ourselves so often that we could and should have done better, that the suggestion ‘we’ve always done our best’ or ‘the only thing we could have done’ may have raised a few doubts or questions, let alone eyebrows.
What if looking back on something we’ve done, we can see how we could have done better? Were we then doing our best?
If we’d been aware of how to do better at the time we’d have done it so we were doing our best with the knowledge and insights we had then. Is it reasonable to chastise ourselves or be disappointed with ourselves for not having had greater insight at the time? I don’t believe so.
We might have more insight now because the circumstances are different – more experience, more time to think, etc. Why should we have had that insight then?
CASE STUDY
Sonia blamed herself for the break-up of her marriage. She had constantly pressured her husband into being somebody he wasn’t. When she married she’d harboured expectations about a lifestyle that her husband simply couldn’t meet.
Now that she’d had time to reflect, she realised how unfair she’d been and felt a strong sense of guilt about how she’d behaved. She knew he’d adored her and had tried to meet her expectations. She now believed that if she hadn’t been so demanding, their marriage could have been a success.
When she learned that she’d always been doing her best, given her awareness at the time, and that indeed she’d always done the only thing she could have done given that awareness, she was able to let go of her regret, guilt and self-blame.
She understood she was still responsible but that this only impacted her choices about the future.
Both she and her husband had moved on by the time I met Sonia. But she at least felt she could benefit from her new awareness, not just by letting go of her regret and self-blame, but also in choosing different ways to behave in her current relationship.
If we’ve had an argument with someone and think we should have avoided it or handled it better, why should we? We handled it as well as we were able to with our awareness at the time. But we can learn from the experience and choose to act differently in future.
What if we’ve made a mess of something because we didn’t make enough effort?
Quite probably we considered at the time that the effort we were making was sufficient. Or we were prepared to take a risk that it might not be. If, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know we were mistaken, we were still doing what we considered appropriate at the time.
Again, we can learn from the experience and choose to make more effort next time.
Exercise
Think about something you’ve done, or haven’t done, that you regret. See if you can identify the attitudes, unconscious programming or abilities that influenced your actions at the time. (We don’t normally need to do this … it’s just for this exercise.)
Acknowledge that you were only doing whatever seemed appropriate, or whatever you were able to do, with the awareness you had at that moment. See it as part of the process by which we learn and become wiser.
Choose to paccept your past action or inaction on the grounds that you did the only thing you could have done with the awareness you had at the time. Let go of any regret. If appropriate, resolve to act differently in future.
What if we’ve behaved in a self-destructive way, such as abusing alcohol or drugs or over-eating when we want to lose weight?
We may not have been aware at the time of the consequences of our behaviour, or the benefits of changing it. If we were aware that we were behaving in a self-destructive way, we may not have had the motivation or the ability to change our behaviour at that time.
Perhaps we weren’t aware we had the power, and could harness that power, to make a more productive choice. If we’d had that motivation, ability and awareness, we’d have stopped then.
CASE STUDY
When Stephen learned that his slide into drug taking, and the relapses following his times in rehab, had been the only thing he could have done with the awareness he had at the time, he was able to let go of his regret and self-blame.
Instead of diminishing his sense of responsibility, it increased it. (He also let go of blaming his parents for reasons we’ll come to later.) He readily acknowledged responsibility for his past actions and, more importantly, for the future. After all, he had no one left to ‘blame’.
All he needed then was some new thinking to enhance his self-worth (we’ll cover this in Chapter 6, ‘We are who we are’) and some powerful tools to take control of his life (which we’ll cover in Chapter 7, ‘A powerful you’).
His new sense of responsibility for determining his future ensured he succeeded in grasping these tools and putting them into practice to build a new life.
What if I’m still not convinced?
Ask yourself the questions on the left below. See if you can come up with your own answers. My suggested answers are on the right.
If you’re still not convinced, go back and re-read the section in this chapter headed ‘Free will’.
MORE ON THE FUTURE
Even though we were doing our best, what we’ve done in the past doesn’t need to be what we’ll do in the future. Doing our best only means our best at that moment, given our awareness at the time.
A small change in attitude or
ability, arising from our own thoughts
or experiences, or from the advice or
encouragement of others, can make
all the difference to what we
do in the future.
That doesn’t mean we weren’t doing our best before. It means our awareness has changed, so our best now is different from our best before.
But something has to happen to change our awareness. Besides receiving advice from others, from books and so on, we gain ideas from our own thoughts and experiences. So rather than saying, ‘I should have done better,’ we can say, ‘I would have done better if I had … so I’ll do better if I think this way or act this way next time.’
Won’t our thoughts, feelings and actions continue to be determined by our awareness at the time? Yes they will. Does this mean we have no control over our future? Not at all.
We always have the freedom to choose, subject to any genuine constraints in our circumstances or abilities, providing we’re aware that we have that choice. If we’ve limited ourselves in some way in the past, it’s because we didn’t have this awareness at the time. Even if we were aware we had a choice, we didn’t have the awareness to be able to choose a different option.
But this doesn’t need to be so in future.
We all have the potential to live an
enjoyable, satisfying and productive life,
get whatever we want out of life and
contribute to others.
All we have to do is develop more productive ways of thinking or acting in the future, as we become aware that we’ve been limiting ourselves in the past. The more we expand our awareness, the less limited we become and the greater our freedom to choose an increasingly satisfying and productive life.
While we’ll continue to do our best with the awareness we have at the time, our awareness can change dramatically in a short time. Becoming aware of this process, through reading a book such as this, is itself a change in awareness.
Life becomes like riding a surfboard. We can’t always direct the wave, but as our awareness grows we can gain more control of how we ride the wave. And the more control we gain the more exciting life becomes.
CASE STUDY
Harry was disappointed with his life. He felt he’d missed out on opportunities for a better career and relationship.
Through our work together, he learned he could take control of his life, be who he wanted to be and do the things he wanted to do. But still he held back, because he feared that if he now took control, he’d regret having wasted most of his life by not taking control earlier.
Then he learned he couldn’t possibly have done it earlier, given his awareness at the time. In order for that to have happened something, however small, would have had to be different in his life history.
Even to have sought my help earlier, something different would need to have happened for him to gain the awareness to do so at an earlier time.
This understanding resolved his final barrier, allowing him to totally paccept the past and start taking action to change the future.
A COMFORTABLE TRUTH?
For many this will be the first time you’ve come across the idea that we live in a largely determined world. Does this sit comfortably with you? Perhaps you initially thought there might be something negative about it. There’s nothing negative and a huge amount that’s positive in ways that will continue to unfold through this book.
It shouldn’t be so surprising to hear that what we think, feel and do in any given circumstances is determined by who we are at that moment.
We’re only applying this principle to the past. The past cannot be changed anyway, so this shouldn’t be so challenging. Yes, what we do in the future will also be determined by our awareness at the time, but the only way we’re using this aspect of the determinist idea is to understand that if we want to change what we do in the future we need to change our awareness.
And we’re still saying we’re absolutely responsible for our past, present and future actions, though regarding our past actions this only has implications for what we do now and in the future.
If you haven’t yet fully grasped or accepted the idea, how about this for a suggestion? From what you’ve read so far, I hope you’ll at least acknowledge that what we think, feel and do in any given circumstances is largely determined by who we are at the time.
Let’s say it’s 90 per cent or more determined and 10 per cent or less free will. Perhaps you’ll concede it’s 99 per cent or more determined and 1 per cent or less free will. Most people have spent their lives thinking and behaving as though it’s the other way around. So to redress the balance, how about focusing on the determined part for a while?
The rest of this book assumes it’s fully determined. So my challenge to you as you continue through the book, is to try to think and behave as though this were true. What have you got to lose? You’ll have to trust me for now when I tell you that you have a great deal to gain.
DAY BY DAY
Understanding and adopting this way of thinking has an immediate impact on our lives. The examples I’ve given so far have focused largely on removing regret, guilt and self-blame about past events. It’s also highly beneficial in dealing with day-to-day events.
When I started, I found myself using this way of thinking several times a day. It gradually became more automatic and after a while the negative thoughts just stopped arising. Practising pacceptance gradually changes our automatic ways of thinking. Here are some more examples:
- I realise I’ve left something at home that I need for a presentation. If a self-blaming or regretful thought enters my mind (it rarely does any more), I replace it with ‘I did the only thing I could have done, so I couldn’t possibly have remembered the item on this occasion.’ That takes about a second. I briefly consider whether this is a ‘one-off’ or a pattern in my life. That may take another second. If it’s a pattern I want to break, I decide what I need to do to break it, then commit to taking that action. (We’ll talk more about this in Chapter 7.) If it isn’t a pattern, I simply deal with the current oversight as best I can.
- I momentarily feel bad about misjudging something, perhaps while driving, causing irritation to another driver, perhaps not leaving enough time for something I need to do. I immediately acknowledge I did the only thing I could possibly have done and so let go of any momentary regret or self-blame. If it’s a pattern in my life I briefly think about whether there’s anything I need to change to avoid making the same mistake again.
- Any other upset, careless act or other irritation that occurs during the day that I’d once have blamed myself for, I now deal with in the same way.
- A thought enters my mind about a past mistake, such as a missed opportunity. Again, I dismiss it in the same way, using the same reasoning, and refocus on whether there’s anything I need to do to make amends or avoid repeating the mistake.
I used to look back at my life and think I’d wasted various opportunities. I don’t any more. I know with certainty the past couldn’t have been different as I’ve always done my best (the only thing I could have done).
But as we’ll see, the future is wide open. The future is unlimited. The future can be amazing, as indeed have been the past twenty or more years of my life since I adopted the ways of thinking and acting outlined in this book.
Exercise
Start practising right now. Whenever you have a self-blaming thought, recognise you were doing your best (or the only thing you could have done, if this works better for you).
Drop the self-blaming thought, acknowledge your responsibility and refocus on what you can do, if anything, to improve the future, if this is relevant and appropriate.
You’ll have several opportunities to practise every day. If you’ve dropped something, forgotten something, mislaid something, or said something you’d prefer to have said differently, you were in every case doing your best (the only thing you could have done).
Apply it also to any regrets or guilt you may have about past events.
If you have a negative thought that doesn’t involve self-blame, for now use the pacceptance rationale we developed in the first chapter. At the same time continue to accept any uncomfortable feelings.
So far we’ve only been applying the idea of doing our best to ourselves. It won’t surprise you to hear that if it applies to us, it applies to others as well. In a later chapter, I’ll be suggesting:
There’s no basis for blaming others
when they’ve annoyed, hurt or frustrated
us, as they were doing their best (the
only thing they could have done) with
the awareness they had at the time.
Indeed there’s no basis for thinking
in a blaming way that they should
have acted differently.
If you’ve been resisting what I’ve been telling you in this chapter, it’s quite possibly because you sensed this was coming.
To allay your concerns, I’ll still be saying that others are absolutely responsible for their past, present and future actions. And we can if we wish choose not to apply the principle of doing our best to acts of cruelty, undue selfishness or otherwise knowingly treating others unfairly. Nevertheless, it’s going to be more challenging applying it to others than to ourselves.
To give you a chance to get used to the idea and practise on yourself, we’re going to keep talking about ourselves for a chapter or two, before turning to how we view others. If in the meantime you want to go ahead and start applying it to others, be my guest.
Action summary
This chapter:
- Whenever you have a negative thought about something you’ve done or haven’t done, understand you were doing your best (or the only thing you could have done) given your awareness at the time and hence given your life history up to that moment
- Paccept it for that reason and refocus on what you can do, if anything, to improve the future, such as not repeating it if it’s a pattern you want to change
- Think about any regrets you may have, or guilt you may be harbouring about actions that have unintentionally hurt others, and apply the same thinking
- Acknowledge responsibility for your past actions, while letting go of any regret or self-blame. Understand that taking responsibility only has relevance to what you do now and in the future. Consider whether there are any actions you can take to make up for any inappropriate or ineffective actions you’ve taken in the past, such as apologising, making amends or committing to change your behaviour in the future
- Acknowledge your responsibility for future actions, including making the most of any opportunities for personal change, such as those offered by this book, for the benefit of yourself and others
Prior chapters:
- ‘Accept for now’ any uncomfortable feelings (fully experience and accept them)
- Paccept what is (our circumstances) at every opportunity
- Stop worrying
- ‘Accept the feeling, choose the action’ to resolve recurring feelings, unproductive habits and self-limitations
- If an uncomfortable feeling keeps recurring when you’ve fully accepted it, try letting it go
- Observe non-pacceptance in others (TV, etc.) and consider how you’d now think and act in their circumstances