후회스러운 과거 지우기
영어 이야기
woulda-coulda-shoulda
(과거의 일) 되뇌어야 봐야 쓸데없음
내가 존경하는 사람은 대정치가나, 종교인 그리고 문학인이 아니다
(물론 그런 직업을 가진 사람 가운데 '거의 완전에 가까운 삶'을 산 사람도 있겠지만)
"내 결정에 후회가 없다,"고 자신있게 말할 수 있는 사람이
바로 내 존경의 대상 인물이다
I don't live my life that wayㅡI'm not a 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' kind of person.
나는 그런 식으로 살지 않는다
다시 말해서 나는 꼭 했어야 했는데 안 했다, 해야할 것을 하지 않았도
할 수 있었던 것을 하지 않았다는 (후회스러운) 말을 하는 종류의 사람이 아니다
더 쉽게 풀이하면 이렇다.
영어 문법의 '가정법 과거 완료'의 문장을 만들면서 풀이한다
You SHOULD have taken my advice not to sail
당신은 항해하지 말아야 한다는 내 충고를 들었어야 했다 (그러나 듣지 않았다)
(Acts / 사도행전 27:21)
(바울이 로마서 항해하기전 백부장에게 폭풍을 예언하면서
항해하지 않았으면 좋겠다고 했던 조언)
I WOULD have liked to keep him with me,
나는 그가 나와 함께 있게 하고 싶었으나 (그러지 않았음)
(바울이 오네시모를 데리고 있고 싶었다는 말씀)
(Philemon / 빌레몬서 1:13)
It COULD have been sold for more than a year’s wages
그것이 일년의 수입 보다 더 비싸게 팔릴 수 있었다
(예수에게 비싼 향유를 부은 여인을 비난하면서 했던 말)
(Mark / 마가복음 14:5)
위의 세 성경말씀의 공통점은 과거에 했어야 했는데
그렇지 않았다는 '후회스러운' 표현이다
그런 문장을 만들기 위해 필요한
would, could 그리고 should (might 는 쓰지 않았다)
그 뒤에 have 과거분사를 썼는데
have 를 빨리 발음하면서 a 발음만 했고
그 결과 woulda, coulda, shoulda 를
hyphen 으로 연결해 woulda-coulda-shoulda 라를 감탄사를 만들었다
우리는 후회할 일을 많이 저지르는데
그것은 우리의 결심으로 이뤄지지 어려울 때가 많다
That WOULDA-COULDA-SHOULDA emotion apparently registers on your brain
그런 후회스러운 정서를 당신의 뇌에 당신의 뇌에 등록되어있다
그래서 내가 며칠 전에 읽었던 글 (Youe wise brain) 에서도 ~
You can still try to improve them, but without adding negative reactions of tension,
WOULDA-COULDA-SHOULDA, recrimination, and contraction.
당신이 그것들 (mindful and peaceful situations) 개선할 수 있으나
긴장의 부정적 반응 '후회로운 과거의 가책' 비난 그리고 축소등을
(당신의 뇌에) 더하지 않아햐 한다
(Psychology Today, May 1, 2023)
I tried to avoid WOULDA-COULDA-SHOULDA emotion in my brain
but it was almost impossible to get it.
나는 쓸데없는 후회로운 과거를 내 뇌에서 없애려고 노력했으나
그렇게 되기가 거의 불가능했다.
She COULD have
“The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions:
could have (coulda), should have (shoulda) and would have (woulda)
That "would-a, could-a, should-a" emotion apparently registers on your brain
I mean, I don't live my life that way. I'm not a "shoulda, woulda, coulda" kind of guy.
Rick Hanson Ph.D.
Your Wise Brain
MINDFULNESS
A Practice to Remain Present
Can you stay mindful and peaceful when your thoughts and life get bumpy?
Posted May 1, 2023
Reviewed by Devon Frye
It also lets you accept your inner experiences and outer circumstances as they are.
You can still try to improve them, but without adding negative reactions of tension, woulda-coulda-shoulda, recrimination, and contraction.
KEY POINTS
Stay mindful and at peace with the ever-changing stream of consciousness.
Stay present and have self-compassion for what may be painful.
Practice will help you open to your experience, remain present, and accept a changing world.
Stay in touch with the sensations of breathing while letting all experiences flow through awareness.
Dmitry Schemelev/Unsplash
Dmitry Schemelev/Unsplash
I believe that there are five key things we can do inside ourselves to be happier, stronger, wiser, and more loving:
1) drop the stone;
2) remain present;
3) learn as you go;
4) “us” all “thems”;
and 5) be amazed.
A previous article explored the first of these: how to lay down the burdens of useless worry, resentment, and self-criticism.
In this one, I’ll focus on how to stay mindful and at peace with the ever-changing stream of consciousness and with the inevitable ups and downs of the body and the world—even with changes that are understandably heart-aching and alarming.
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Mindfulness
By mindfulness, I mean sustained present-moment awareness.
This quality of remaining present can be directed at both the inner world and the outer one, and it can both narrow its focus and open wide.
You are aware of sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings, sensations and desires, all passing through awareness without resisting or chasing anything.
It’s like sitting on the banks of a river—the stream of consciousness—watching all sorts of strange and interesting things carried along without hopping on board any one of them.
To support this mindfulness, it helps to keep intending to stay present and to have self-compassion for what may be painful.
While being mindful, you can also take action inside your mind and in the outer world; mindfulness is not in conflict with helping yourself grow from your experiences or with trying to make the world a better place.
In the pie chart of internal causes that make people miserable, two of the largest slices are rumination—lost in thought, spinning in worries and regrets and grievances—and resisting what is.
The stability of mindfulness stops rumination like a circuit breaker.
It also lets you accept your inner experiences and outer circumstances as they are.
You can still try to improve them, but without adding negative reactions of tension, woulda-coulda-shoulda, recrimination, and contraction.
☆ What is the meaning of Coulda Woulda Shoulda?
dismissiveness or disappointment
Phrase. woulda, coulda, shoulda. An expression of dismissiveness or disappointment concerning a statement, question, explanation, course of action, or occurrence involving hypothetical possibilities, uncertain facts, or missed opportunities. ☆
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Time Passing
Life is like a rope of time passing through your hands. When you add negative reactions to life, that’s like squeezing the rope and burning your fingers. If you resist other people or the fact that you're stuck in an airport, and your flight is late, or that you have poor Wi-Fi or whatever it might be, you can get yourself wound up, making things worse.
Events and experiences may be unfortunate or painful, but that itself is not suffering. It is our aversion, our resistance, to events and experiences that create friction and, thus, suffering.
Similarly, if you try to hold onto pleasurable experiences, that is futile and painful as well. Any moment of experience is utterly impermanent—so trying to cling to any experience is both a frustrating and a doomed strategy for lasting happiness.
THE BASICS
What Is Mindfulness?
Find a mindfulness-based counsellor
Even most of physical reality is continually changing, from the quicksilver quivering of quantum foam to the slow waltzes of galaxies over billions of years. People come, and people go, all the more precious for their inevitable passing. Sometimes you’re up, and sometimes you’re down.
In the metaphor of the “eight worldly winds” from Tibet, there will be gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and scandal, and pleasure and pain. If you let them flow, you can ride the waves of life with gratitude and grace and without drowning.
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The Practice
One of the great lessons for me in young adulthood was the necessity of feeling my feelings. In effect, I had been numb below the head, and I needed to wake down—as Saniel Bonder puts it—not just wake up.
As you steady in present-moment awareness, you can better tolerate painful feelings since you’re not so identified with them or overwhelmed by them. Yes, sometimes we need to step away from what’s too much to bear, and that’s OK. I needed to pour out my own bucket of tears one spoonful at a time. But it will gradually get easier, and your own bucket will eventually empty.
In particular, try to disengage from recurring or complicated thoughts since that’s where we usually get stuck. If you focus on the body sensations and the feelings of whatever upsets you and have a sense of letting them go—perhaps in rhythm with exhaling and relaxing—they usually release within minutes or less. They may come back, but as you repeatedly associate troubling psychological material with an untroubled field of awareness and gently encourage it to flow through you and out of you—it will probably ease somewhat, and perhaps entirely.
MINDFULNESS ESSENTIAL READS
Intrusive Thoughts: Don't Stare at the Pink Elephant
Living in Every Breath, Every Cup of Tea
One way to help yourself in all this is to take a bird’s-eye view of your thoughts and feelings and to be aware of your body as a whole. This tends to activate neural networks on the sides of your brain that support the sense of letting things be as they are without adding a lot of mental chatter and me-myself-and-I to them. Meanwhile, neural activity decreases in the midline neural cortices that enable rumination and resisting the present by getting caught up in the future and the past.
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A Simple Practice
For a few breaths or longer, try the simple practice below. It will help you open to your experience, let it flow, and accept a changing world. You can do this as part of a meditation or in everyday life while you’re in a meeting, stuck in traffic, or watching the news.
Focus on the sensations of one or more breaths from beginning to end. Sensations around your nose or mouth, in your diaphragm, and in the rising and falling of the rib cage.
Stay aware of the feeling of breathing as other sensations move through awareness, staying aware of breathing as sounds change around you and as thoughts and feelings come and go.
Stay in touch with the sensations of breathing while letting all experiences flow through awareness.
Get a sense of your body as a whole as you breathe. If your attention focuses on just one part of it, keep widening your awareness to include the whole body. Relax and abide as a whole body breathing. Thoughts and feelings pass through awareness without pushing them away or following them as you rest in the sense of your whole body.
If you like, open to any nagging concerns or pushed away emotions in the back of your mind and let them come forward, letting them flow as they will through awareness, accepting them with compassion for yourself. Let tension flow out of your body, letting thoughts and feelings come and go in the open space of awareness—perhaps uncovering more sensitive or younger material such as hurt beneath the anger, and letting this flow as well.
When you want, return to a simple sense of being present as a body breathing, at ease.