Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Anyway, for this week’s post, I wanted to discuss the phenomena of coulda, woulda, shoulda. I’m sure it\’s something we’ve all caught ourselves doing from time to time, and you may well be very aware of it when others are engaging in it. However, I feel it’s worth unpacking a little bit as there are further insights that can help us become fully resolved with the actuality of what happened, as opposed to the dreamscape of what ‘might’ have been.

The first thing to perhaps ask ourselves, is ‘did we try to make the best decision given all of the information that was available to us’? If we did, what’s the sweat? That we didn’t have full information? Who ever does? If that’s your pre-requisite for making a decision, you’re going to be stuck in analysis paralysis your whole life, and life is either going to pass you by, or squash you.

However, that’s all well and good to say, but it doesn’t necessarily change the way we feel about it. Chances are, it’s because you’re clinging onto something unrelated. Maybe you’re clinging onto the idea that you should be perfect. If so, why is that? It’s impossible to be perfect. Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, Gandhi, Mandela, Luther-King weren’t perfect, why the bloody hell should you be? It’s an insane standard to hold yourself accountable to (or indeed other people). Maybe your self esteem is such that any excuse will suffice to fund that self destructive viewpoint, and you are clinging too hard to doing brilliant things, rather than simply being as brilliant as you can be, in all of your gloriously flawed humanity?

Or maybe this situation is triggering other unresolved events of the past which mean that it’s not actually this situation that is really affecting you, it\’s the stirred up memory of the past situation(s) that is unsettling you. In which case, there’s just no point feeding this latter situation with energy. Better to channel the emotion into fueling the desire, energy, and intent to healing and resolving those past situations. To learning from them. And sometimes, the biggest lesson is to surrender to the machinations of the past, to allow you to feel liberated in the present. If you don’t know how to do that, then come and find out about the other things we offer, because we can most certainly help you with that, and indeed the self esteem issues and self destructive tendencies mentioned above.

Now what if we didn’t make the decision based on all the information we had at the time? That’s a very different kettle of fish, and something worth delving deeper into. Because then it’s a case of, ‘you knew what to do, but you didn’t do it anyway’. The first thing to realise is that we ALL do it! It’s part of being human. It may of course still be a result of self esteem issues as per the above. It may be that past events were clouding your judgement in the moment, because you haven’t processed them, and you’re letting them skew your judgement. For whilst history is a great teacher, no two situations are ever the same. And even if they were, you are at a different stage of evolution/life which means that all options should always be on the table. If a non-clouded view of the situation suggests a particular course of action, then that’s the pathway, otherwise we are making a non-rational, non-intuitive decision, and there’s rarely justification for ignoring both the rational mind, and the intuitive heart.

Was your suboptimal decision actually grounded in fear? I don’t know how many decisions, big and small, get made each day by people all over the world because of fear, but it must be tens of billions. It’s really not helpful. In fact, I would say its a bona fide individual and collective disaster. A life, and a world, governed by fear based decision making is a rotten one. Full stop. The end. If you’re faced by actual confirmed danger, then great. That’s what fear is there for. But how many times in your life does that actually happen? Unless you live in a warzone, it’s very, very seldom. You are locking yourself in a prison of your own making and it’s going to ruin your life, day in, day out. And the worst thing is, it feeds on itself. The more you habituate fear based decision making, the more you default to it. So rather than regret it, why not find ways to make sure you make more positive choices in the future? Is there someone you can buddy up with to be more accountable to?

Perhaps related to this, was there a need to prove yourself wrapped up in the decision making process? If there was, again, that’s likely to end up proving just as ugly and distorting as making fear based decisions. The only thing that’s sustainable and truly adorable is you being your most authentic self, not your try hard, everyone-look-at-me-and see-how-worthy-I-am-as-a human-being self. Even if you’d have succeeded in that particular endeavour, it would have just taken you further away from your true self, and your true heart’s desires. It may have impressed others, but it would have left you feeling empty and hollow at the soul level, even if it left you feeling puffed up at the ego level.

Or perhaps it was unresolved wounds that caused you to cycle once more through an old and painfully familiar pattern of behaviour? If that’s the case, it should already be clear to you that you need to get to the root of why that is still infecting your life, rather than letting it spoil the fruits of your present reality.

Maybe there was a dichotomy between head and heart? Maybe your heart really wanted to zig left, when your head wanted to zag right. I’m going to assume that it was your head that was wrong, because your true heart’s signals (rather than your emotive, passionate signals that have their origin elsewhere) are never wrong. And you never regret following them.

Whatever the reason, there is one simple conclusion; you made the decision you did because of your relative state of development at the time you made it.

The more developed you are, the fewer mistakes you make. So actually, the biggest mistake we ever make is not committing to developing ourselves. The second biggest mistake we make is saying ‘when this happens, then I’ll develop’. That is not likely to have a happy ending!

Now there is another possibility. What if you simply took a risk and it didn’t pan out? In which case, there’s no coulda, woulda, shoulda, because you knowingly took the risk, you accepted the odds, it didn’t work, and you find yourself simply dusting yourself down with minimal wistfulness and regret, and nothing but gratitude for what you learned.

Come what may, if you want to learn how to heal your wounds, and critically, understand how to transcend the unreliability of fear, conditioning, the agonies of low self esteem and the distortion of old woundings and instead embrace the reliability of deep intuitive truth signals from your heart and your soul, then we suggest you take a deep dive journey of some description. We’ve got one called Limitless Living which is an absolute revelation in every way you could possibly conceive, and perhaps other schools have something as well.

But please know, you ain’t going to learn it from a book, or a podcast. This requires immersion. It requires transformation. And it requires an expert guide. I would of course be honoured and delighted to play that role for you, as I’m sure many others would too. Whoever you decide, I encourage you, nay urge you, to make a positive decision for the sake of the rest of your (potentially) glorious life, and for the sake of all the people you care most deeply about.

The choice is yours.

With love and zero remorse 

Will & The Team xxxx