Live NOW and Leave the Regrets Behind



“You think you’ve bought my love like a toy
You better watch your stuff, my pride and joy
You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone
You better not play with love until you know what you’re doing
You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Bell & James, You Never Know What You’ve Got (1978)

The older I get the more I realize that it’s really true: You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. We rarely take time to appreciate the youthful glow our faces radiate or the youthful enthusiasm that spills forth from our souls when we are young adults. But as soon as we start losing these youthful treasures, reality hits and we find ourselves desperately trying to hold on to them or to reclaim them.

The same is often true when we think about the people we love and the importance of our relationships. Addictive thinking stripped many of us of having good relationships with ourselves and thus with others. Self-rejection left us being really uncomfortable in our own skin and many of us seemingly wasted away our youth loathing ourselves instead of appreciating all the good we had to offer the world around us. That same self-rejection alienated us from the people around us. We never felt “good enough” to be loved by any of them—even when they sincerely offered us love.

Well, it’s time we started letting go of the regrets and realizing what we all have: VALUE. Every one of us has God-given value. We are all lovable and we all have purpose. So we need to wake-up and start appreciating what we’ve got RIGHT NOW!

The more I’ve come to love and accept myself just as I am, the more comfortable and natural I have become in simply being me and not caring about what other people think of me. This has allowed me to better live in the moment. Being more comfortable with me has also allowed me to be more comfortable with others. That level of comfort has placed me in the present moment so I enjoy each moment—and those I share each moment with—100 percent more than I used to do when I was so self-conscious about not being “good enough.”

Everyone is good enough and we can all chose to believe we are. We can also choose to believe that the people in our lives—family, friends, lovers—are good enough, too. Being good enough isn’t about outside things. It’s all about the inside things. Being good enough isn’t about the car you drive or the neighborhood you live in; it isn’t about the job you have or how much money you make; and it isn’t about how many awards or trophies you’ve earned. Being good enough isn’t about past failures or bad behavior either. Being good enough is all about the person inside of you RIGHT NOW. It’s all about the unique beautiful person inside of everyone RIGHT NOW—and nothing else.

So I am learning to love myself—and everyone—for who’s inside RIGHT NOW. And I’m consciously doing it NOW ‘cause I know what I’ve got NOW. And I don’t want to be looking back anymore and regretting the fact that “you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” I NOW know what I’ve got-- and I'm loving it!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more