Dealing with Regret
Regret- a powerful weapon
I was watching The Agents of Shield last evening and in Season 4, A.I.D.A, the cybernetic robot, who wants to be a real person and feel real human feelings, creates a whole new world called the Framework and traps her enemies in it.
It is impossible for these people (who are the heroes of the show) to escape this virtual world. Why? Because AIDA has created the world based on the regrets of each one of the characters. She gives them a world where they do not regret that one thing which they regret in real life. That’s all.
And they live out their life completely differently. Of course, they create a dystopian world, which is ruled by AIDA herself, because that is what she wants, but that is just to create drama in the episode.
This made me realize that regret can be such a powerful thing. It can be a motivator and also a very big block. In fact, working with Ridhima Dua, the Best NLP Coach I have realized that so many of the clients I meet seem to be motivated by nothing more than a regret in their lives
“I don’t want to make the same mistakes as my parents”
“I wish I had handled it differently”
“I wish..”
NLP coach talks about ‘Away from’ Meta pattern situation
Not only modern, dystopian drama, but old fairy tales are all based on correcting a regret. Remember the evil witch of Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Where she takes away the Little Mermaid’s beautiful singing voice to overcome her regret of not having legs and being a part of her Prince’s world. Only for there to regret making that deal with the Sea-witch, when she cannot speak to her Prince at all. Or the regret that Belle in Beauty and the Beast goes through of not living in an enriched, educated world. The regret she has, that her love for roses got her father captured by the Beast.
This is something called “away from” Meta Pattern. And you can imagine that a sizable number of us are motivated to get away from an unresourceful situation as many as those are motivated by working towards a resourceful situation. Learning Meta pattern from Best NLP Coach is the best way to understand this situation.
Conclusion
How does one deal with regret, then, when it is something most of us feel, and many of us are stuck in. As NLP Coach Ridhima says “Emotions are not unresourceful at all times. Every emotion serves a purpose and can be resourceful”. However, if you are stuck in it, not able to move forward, then it is an emotion that you can work with.
We will talk a bit about the structure of regret: How do you do regret? You can see your regret in pictures, you can hear it in the words spoken, you can feel it anchored in things and smells and tastes, and the feelings that they bring in. We can deal with each type of regret in a different way.
Here we are going to discuss regret that comes as a self-talk. A dialogue you have with yourself that brings you down.
Disclaimer: not all humans process emotions in a similar way. Here is ‘one’ way to deal with it.
