Regretting Regrets!!! ;(

Life is not a smooth road, There are enough bumps and pits for one to fall in.Once fallen in its entirely up to us to sit and moan about it or get up, brush ourselves, learn something and move on.This is what I had pondered about after reading Oksana's article 'Cringe Benefits'.It brought back some of my not so fond memories, harsh lessons of life and even though some of them makes me laugh, some (like she wrote) still makes me 'twinge' with humiliation. But these incidents incidents has helped me become a better and a braver person, and trust me even though I would really like to erase some of them, deep inside I know that they have brought out the best in me.

Based on the article 'Cringe benefits' by Oksana (given below).

Cringe Benefits

OKSANA TASHAKOVA

Friday, September 14, 2012

                             

Not all of life’s downsides are to be regretted — live and learn from these FOUR major life lessons

     

We all have them — moments where we wished the earth would open up and swallow us. Embarrassing moments, crushing moments. Some are stories we can easily share with others, and laugh at ourselves about. Others, when we recall them, can still make us twinge in humiliation, as you would when tonguing a sore tooth that you just can’t seem to leave alone. The thing is, both kinds are life lessons that contribute to who we are and what we do differently today.

The First universal lesson? Regret and the “What if?” moments, wherein we didn’t step up and do something, when we allowed our insecurities to suppress our abilities, when we did not allow our light to shine. All of us have had a moment like that, if not several, when we settled for behind-the-scenes, to be in the background, remain spectator rather than actor.

Didn’t try for a part in the school play you knew you’d be great at? Turned down a job offer because it was too good for you? Skipped asking that person out for a date or volunteer to head a project? Did not step up in defense of someone who was right?

Regret is a perpetual toothache, but the life lesson is a valuable one: life is too short to not grab opportunities and be your best self.

A second ‘cringe’ moment Newman talks about is an adolescent’s 
nightmare. She tells the story of 
putting on her mother’s makeup before a school dance and walking on stage with her face completely covered in hives: an allergic reaction.

All of us have had such embarrassing or humiliating moments. Schoolchildren can be the meanest of God’s creatures as we all well know, and 
adolescence the most self-conscious of all life stages. The life lesson here is that they provide you with the opportunity to be brave about your humanity and fallibility, and you learn who your real friends are.

Newman didn’t have to go to that dance, but she did. She points out that the guy that laughed with her instead of at her was her friend. And she was able to join in the laughter rather than crying in a corner. Your humanity and embarrassing stories are what will help others empathise with you, like you, and connect with you later on. They make you the kind of down-to-earth person that people want to be around and they become part of 
your self-identity.

A final life lesson moment Newman talks about is when we say the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Again, everyone has had this experience — when you put your foot in the mouth, and don’t know how to backpedal, smooth it over or make it right. You make a joke about something that turns out to be wildly inappropriate to the listeners. Your son comes home after a humiliating school experience and you pat him on the knee and say, “Everything will be alright.”

She holds forth about how easy it is to think back on things we’ve said and angst over them until we end up rewriting history in our minds, avoiding the person we’ve let down or offended, or otherwise pretending that it never happened. This might work for you in some cases, but remember that your words are going to fail you often in life; the better habit is to begin using other forms of communication to rectify such a situation.

If you didn’t know what to say when your friend told you she had cancer, you can head over to her house with frozen casseroles for her family to heat up when she’s sick from chemotherapy, or find out when her next doctor’s appointment is, and drive her there and then take her to lunch afterwards.

There are a thousand ways to 
communicate right intentions, when you’ve said the wrong thing. Don’t let these opportunities pass you by because you’re still cringing. Step forward and you can soothe yourself and others.

Every ‘cringe’ moment offers you the opportunity to reverse it and shine.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

Oksana is a life coach based 
in Dubai; she is an expert in stress management, addictions and phobias, relationships, 
communication skills and 
emotional pain management.

Visit her: www.design
lifecoach.com or email her: 
oksana.designlife@gmail.com