At least one time in our lives we all have said something to someone in haste, anger or because we were anxious. Maybe it was meant to be a joke, albeit distasteful, or maybe it was a means of verbally lashing out. Some people walk away feeling justified, but just as many walk away with regret, then reshaping that moment into self-loathing… they come to think, “How could I possibly have said that?”
Fully immersed in an emotional reaction, not thinking or fully perceiving the situation before us, we often say or do things that we later regret. But it is not just that one event, when we said something that we wish we hadn’t; it is also how we carry that event as a burden on our backs for hours, days, even years.
So, what to do? Yes, it is common to ‘slip up’ verbally, but is this really unavoidable behavior? Sadhguru helps us understand how to transform these negatives into positives.
Sadhguru: “The choice is always before you: to respond consciously to the present; or to react compulsively to it. There is a vast difference.
If terrible things have happened to you, you ought to have grown wise. If the worst possible events have befallen you, you should be the wisest of the lot. But instead of growing wise, most people become wounded. In a state of conscious response, it is possible to use every life situation—however ugly—as an opportunity for growth. But if you habitually think, “I am the way I am because of someone else”, you are using life situations merely as an opportunity for self-destruction or stagnation.
I once heard a moving account of a woman who used one of the most horrific life situations to transform herself into a beautiful being. In the beginning of the Second World War, a bunch of Nazi soldiers broke into a house in Austria. They took the adults away separately, and the two children, a thirteen-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy—were taken to a railway station. As they waited along with other children for the train to arrive, the boys started a game. Oblivious to what lay in store, they started playing, as children are wont to do.
A cargo train arrived, and the soldiers started packing everyone into it. Once they were in, the little girl noticed that her brother had forgotten to bring his shoes. It was an Austrian winter, a bitter one. Without shoes, you could lose your feet. The girl lost her temper. She shook her kid brother, boxed his ears, and abused him. “You idiot! Don’t we have enough trouble on our hands? We don’t know where our parents are, we don’t know where we’re going! And now you go and lose your shoes? What am I supposed to do with you?”
At the next station, they boys and girls were separated. And that is the last that the brother and sister ever saw of each other.
About three and a half years later, the girl came out of the concentration camp. She discovered she was the only alive in her family. Everyone else had vanished, including her brother. All that remained was the memory of the harsh words she had uttered the last time she had seen him alive.
That was when she made a life-changing decision: “It doesn’t matter who I meet, I will never speak to them in a manner that I regret later, because this meeting could be my last.” She could have spent her life in defeat and remorse, but she made this simple decision, which transformed her life phenomenally. She went on to live a rich and fulfilled life.
The most horrific things in life can be a source of nourishment if you accept, “I am responsible for the way I am now.” It is possible to transform the greatest adversity into a stepping-stone for personal growth. If you take one hundred percent responsibility for the way you are now, a brighter tomorrow is a possibility. But if you take no responsibility for the present—if you blame your parents, your friend, your husband, your girlfriend, your colleagues for the way you are—you have forsaken your future even before it comes.”
–excerpt (page 56-58) from Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy by Sadhguru (available on Amazon and Isha Shoppe)
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