If Only I

Sometimes in our journey through life, we make mistakes or wished things in the past had been different. Is this something helpful or harmful? Is there something else we can do? (Please note: This is a lecture, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

How many times in the course of our lives do you think we've used the phrase,

If only I?

Sometimes they're silly,

Like if only I had purchased Amazon stock when it first came out.

But sometimes they're more tragic.

If only I'd stayed in school and not dropped out.

If only I hadn't run that stop sign and killed that other person.

If only I had told my mom before she died that I loved her.

If only I hadn't drunk too much at the work party and had a one-night stand and that ended my marriage.

There are so many times we have the tendency to use these words,

If only I.

But in today's podcast,

I want to talk about how this isn't really helpful and can be harmful in our journey towards finding happiness and peace in our lives.

In my own professional journey of helping others improve their lives,

This is probably one of the hardest things I have found that I need to do to help people because people really resist not using,

If only I.

And there may be a tendency to think,

Well,

Some people don't have to use that phrase because their lives have been perfect.

And of course we know immediately that isn't true.

We can all use the phrase,

If only I.

Any of us can.

The problem with it is,

Is it helpful,

Is it useful in making our lives better or does it have a tendency to keep us stuck and just keep ruminating on the past,

Which can't be changed because the past is just that,

The past.

It is what it is and it can't be changed.

So if we say,

In any circumstances,

If only I,

We're really fighting reality.

It's like saying,

If only there weren't gravity in the past.

I mean,

It's silly.

There's always been gravity.

There always will be gravity.

But it's the same thing when we say,

If only I,

Because the past is the past.

That's what happened.

It's saying that,

If only I,

Causes us to basically renounce our journey.

Because you see,

We're all on a journey of life and sometimes we make good choices and sometimes we make choices that don't turn out very well.

And I'm not necessarily saying that we need to condone our behavior.

Sometimes we do some really horrific things.

It's more,

What's useful,

What's helpful?

Is it really useful if we've done some heinous crime in the past that others,

And including ourselves,

Would say,

That was despicable behavior?

I mean,

We're all capable of doing things that can be really hurtful towards others or ourselves.

So shaming ourselves or saying you're a horrible person only does one thing.

It reinforces our self-loathing.

And when we self-loathe,

We're going to stay stuck.

And when we stay stuck,

There's a tendency to keep repeating what we've done in the past instead of learning from it.

I mean,

I don't know if you know the statistics for people that go to prison,

But I believe about 80% of them return.

That's a high return rate.

Why would that be?

Well,

If you've ever known anyone who's gone to prison,

There's a lot of self-judgment and there's a lot of judgment towards them from others.

So I believe what gets created in these situations is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The person keeps hearing in their head over and over again that their behavior,

Or perhaps even they,

Are horrible,

Despicable people.

And other people may share that sentiment with them and say it to their face.

We all know examples of this,

That people get shamed throughout their lives for something that they did.

We tend not to be very forgiving when others do heinous acts.

But the problem is,

It doesn't create healing.

It doesn't create a stance of moving forward.

What it does is create stories of self-loathing,

And that self-loathing creates doing that behavior again,

Because they're hearing in their head,

I'm a horrible person.

And what do horrible people do?

Horrible things.

Now I know these are extreme cases,

But nonetheless,

Haven't we done that?

Or we've done something that we haven't liked?

I mean,

Let's use something very simple.

Perhaps on the weekends we eat too many sweets,

And that adds up over time.

And now we put on an extra 50 pounds,

And we look in the mirror and we say horrible things to ourselves.

And maybe other people comment about that extra 50 pounds we have.

Well,

You don't look as good as you used to.

What happened to you?

And those tapes run in our head.

Now we can say,

If only I hadn't eaten those candy bars on the weekends,

Or whatever it may have been,

To put on the extra 50 pounds.

If only I had exercised more when I was younger.

If only I had kept going for walks at the end of my day,

Instead of starting to have some beers and wines instead.

So if only I really is a vicious cycle that's so unhelpful.

So what can we do instead?

Well,

First,

We really have to remember that if only I is in the past.

And guess what?

The past is in the past.

It cannot be changed.

Period.

That we can reinterpret the past by how we look at it,

Or we cannot even spend too much time there by not reflecting on it.

That can be helpful,

Particularly if it's negative.

If it's negative,

Is it helpful for us to keep reflecting on it?

Or is it better for us to stay today?

What do I want to do today to improve my life,

To make things better?

Whatever choices have been made,

Have been made.

If I didn't finish high school or college,

Then I haven't.

Maybe I want to go back.

I can do that today.

But I can't go back and take the courses that I never took.

That can't be changed.

But what I can change is my behavior today.

The first thing to start with changing our behavior today is stop saying,

If only I.

Well,

Dr.

Puff,

That just kicks up in my head.

What can I say instead?

And here's what we can say instead.

We can say,

What can I learn from this?

Let me repeat that.

What can I learn from this?

That's a very good phrase if we're stuck in the past that we can say,

Because that has the sense of we can learn from it.

We can grow from it.

We can move forward.

We're not stuck in the past.

And it can also be a real sense of empowerment,

Because that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for things that if they do need to change because of the past,

That we feel empowered to make that change.

Let me use an example.

Let's say when we were younger,

We fell in love.

And because of that love,

We ended up getting pregnant.

And because of the pregnancy,

We ended up getting married.

And then we had to get a job.

So we had to drop out of college and get a job so that we could support our family and ourselves.

But the job we were able to get without a college degree isn't the best job for us.

And we don't like our jobs.

Now,

If we keep saying,

If only I were going to come home at the end of the day,

Be exhausted,

Not be willing to make changes.

But instead,

If we're more positive,

We focus on the present moment,

Then we can say,

Oh,

I'm not crazy about this job.

So what are some small changes I can do to start improving my life?

Perhaps I'll sign up for a college course or an online course and go back to school slowly and work towards getting my degree so that I can get a different job that I would enjoy and might even make more money for our family.

That's far more positive.

But if we keep saying in our heads,

If only I,

When the evening comes or the weekends come when we need to study,

What will happen is we're going to feel deflated.

We're going to feel unmotivated because in our heads we've been beaten up with all the mistakes we made in the past,

If only I.

If we stay positive,

If we focus on,

Well,

Today's a new day,

I can take this class that I'm really excited to learn about and moving forward,

Making small steps to improve our lives,

Then that's what will happen.

See,

The problem with only I,

It's incredibly discouraging and it doesn't motivate us to make change.

But if we really be careful not to use that phrase and instead if we do need to focus on the past,

We can say,

What can we learn from this?

And then slowly working towards just living in the present moment and saying,

What today would improve my life?

Now again,

The way we're going to do this is twofold.

One we're going to really stay away from,

If only I.

And the second thing,

We do want to stay away from people that may bring up our past and kind of say,

Well,

You in the past did this and that makes you bad.

We want to stay away from people like that.

That's not helpful.

We already have to deal with our own self-criticism.

Exposing ourselves to people that bring up our past in a way to criticize us isn't helpful either.

So,

Setting up boundaries with people like that,

Or at least just leaving,

Particularly when it's a family member,

Just leave or hang up the phone when they talk that way towards us.

It's about setting boundaries,

Boundaries towards others and boundaries towards our own self-talk that we allow kindness in,

Not criticism.

And I want to end with a story that really illustrates this,

And I'm hopeful that it can be encouraging for all of us.

It is about a client that I used to see many years ago,

So I'm going to change parts of the story.

But listen to how this person transformed their lives.

Let's say his name was Michael and he grew up in Sacramento,

California.

Well,

When he was in college,

He came home for the weekend,

As he often did,

And he got together with his buddies,

And they went driving and they went drinking,

Because they were bored and they were in university,

And it was just fun getting out with their friends.

Well,

One night he was out late with one of his best friends,

And he was driving and they went for a ride.

And because Michael had been drinking too much,

He ended up crashing the car.

It rolled.

His friend got thrown from the car and died instantly.

And Michael ended up breaking his back,

And he never was able to walk again,

And has been in a wheelchair all his life.

Now,

This is tragic on so many different levels.

He felt guilty for killing his best friend.

He loved to run,

And now he couldn't run anymore.

And of course,

Just all that comes with being in a wheelchair was very challenging for him.

So when I started working with Michael,

I really focused on him stop saying,

If only I hadn't been drinking and killed my friend,

And if only I wasn't in this wheelchair,

And all the stories he had in his head.

And instead,

We really did focus on what could he do with his life now.

Of course,

He really loved to run,

But there's other ways he could get involved in racing,

And that was with his wheelchair.

The one year I ran in the LA Marathon,

It started off with all the people in wheelchairs went first,

And they were fast.

So Michael got involved in racing and really loved it.

And he was able to get a job that really satisfied his needs,

Because he was able to finish university,

To his credit.

And he was able to keep moving forward.

He found love.

He found a family.

He really was able to make his life meaningful.

Now he did have to set up some boundaries with people that really didn't like him anymore,

But he learned to do that,

And he learned to stop saying,

If only I.

In his case,

He really found that his life could be beautiful no matter what happened in the past.

He did learn from it.

He doesn't,

Of course,

Drink and drive ever again.

And he really moved forward,

And now he helps so many others who have gone through similar circumstances to help improve their lives.

And I could give a lot more intense stories if I needed to,

Because there's so many people in life that have had horrific things happen to them,

Or more importantly in today's podcast,

Horrific things that they did or didn't do in their past.

But guess what?

We can still have all beautiful lives.

The past is the past.

It's there for us to learn from.

But we don't want to stay stuck there.

Instead,

We want to say,

I'm going to have a beautiful life today,

And I'm going to do that by focusing in on the here and now.

And if I do get thoughts about the past,

I'll simply say,

What can I learn from that?

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

My son won't give up blaming me for injustices he feels from the past. Its so true what you say but I suppose we need to grow up before we can be open to these good lessons. He is 34 though.

Right here right now!!!.. very interesting topic thanks 🙏

Excellent suggestions. Set those boundaries! 💜

This talk was absolutely inspiring and invaluable for me. Thank you so much 🙏🌸✨

Thank you 🙏🏻 very inspiring talk with helpful tips 💕

Very helpful. Thank you!

Thank you very much 🙏

Lately I find myself in this mode of thinking, have been struggling on how to stop this needless behavior. This is jus what I needed. Thank u Dr Puff🥰☮️🕉

I’ve been saying “if only” a lot over the past year because of a situation and couldn’t seem to find a way through. It is destroying me. listening to this today has suggested a different path and while it will take time to stop beating myself up, this is certainly a very helpful tool. Thank you.