Six steps to regret-proof your life
1. Get beyond denial.
As long as you're thinking, "That shouldn't have happened or I shouldn't have done that," you're locked in a struggle against reality. Many people pour years of energy into useless "shouldn't haves." The angry ones endlessly repeat that their ex-spouses shouldn't have left them, their parents shouldn't have overfed them, or their bosses shouldn't have made them wear uncomfortable chipmunk costumes in 90-degree heat. Even drearier are the sad ones, who forever drone some version of "If only." If only they'd married Sebastian, or gotten that promotion, or heeded the label's advice not to operate heavy machinery, they would be happy campers instead of les misérables.
I call this unproductive regret. People use it to avoid scary or difficult action; instead of telling the story of the past in a useful way, they use it as their excuse for staying wretched. If you're prone to unproductive regret, please hear this: Everyone agrees with you. That thing you regret? It really, really, really shouldn't have happened. But. It. Did. If you enjoy being miserable, by all means, continue to rail against this fact. If you'd rather be happy, prune the "shouldn't haves" from your mental story, and move on to…
2. Separate regret's basic ingredients.
Of the four basic emotions—sad, mad, glad, and scared—regret is a mixture of the first two. Your particular situation may involve enormous sadness and a little anger ("My father died before I ever met him. Damn cruel fate!") or enormous anger with a side of sadness ("Why, why, why did I get a haircut from a stylist who was actively smoking a bong?"). Whatever the proportions, some regretters feel sadness but resist feeling anger; others acknowledge outrage but not sorrow. Denying either component will get you stuck in bitter, unproductive regret.
Considering anger and sadness separately makes both more useful. Right now, think of something you regret. With that something in mind, finish this sentence: "I'm sad that __________." Repeat until you run out of sad things related to that particular regret. For example, if your regret is contracting Lyme disease, you might say, "I'm sad that I feel awful." "I'm sad I can no longer ride my pogo stick." "I'm sad that the woods don't feel safe to me anymore."
When you've fully itemized your sadness, make another list, beginning each sentence with the phrase, "I'm angry at ________." For example, "I'm angry at my body for being sick." "I'm angry at God for creating ticks." "I'm angry at the entire town of Lyme, Connecticut, for which this $#@* disease was named." Write down all the causes for your rage, even if they're irrational.
Once you have a clear list of your sorrows and outrages, you can move on to step 3, where you'll work both angles to transform unproductive regret into the productive kind. This is extraordinarily useful but also profoundly uncomfortable because the only way out of painful emotion is through.
3. Grieve what is irrevocably lost.
Sorrow is a natural reaction to losing anything significant: a dream, a possession, an opportunity. Productive grief passes through you in waves, which feel horrific, but which steadily erode your sadness. The crushing mountain of sorrow eventually becomes a boulder on your back, then a rock in your pocket, then a pebble in your shoe, then nothing at all—not because circumstances change but because you become strong enough to handle reality with ease.
You're finished grieving when you see someone gaining what you regret losing and feel only joy for them—maybe even secret gratitude that circumstances forced you to enlarge your own capacity for joy (this is how I feel about people who don't have a kid with Down syndrome). If your sadness stops evaporating, if a certain amount of it just isn't budging, simply grieving may not be enough. Regret is telling you to seek out a part of whatever you've lost.
4. Reclaim the essence of your dreams.
You can't change the fact that you binged your way up to 300 pounds, or lost a winning lottery ticket, or spent decades in celibacy rather than celebration. But you can reclaim the essential experiences you missed: loving your own healthy body, enjoying abundance, feeling glorious passion. In this moment, resolve that you'll find ways to reclaim the essence of anything you can't stop grieving.
Jenny's big regret was that one disastrous gymnastics meet had tanked her chances to make the Olympic team. When I asked her what she would've gotten from the Olympics, she said, "Pride, excitement, world-class competition, attention." Once she'd articulated these essentials, Jenny found herself gravitating toward a job in television, which provided all of them. Now, she says, her life is so exciting that she virtually never thinks about the Olympics. Instead of sidelining her, regret became just one more springboard.
I've been coaching long enough to brazenly promise that if you decide to reclaim the essence of anything you regret losing, you'll find it—often sooner than you think, in ways you would never have expected.
5. Analyze your anger.
The anger component of regret is every bit as important and useful as your sadness. Anger is a bear, but if you pay attention, you'll hear it roaring useful instructions about how you should steer your future. Don't fear it, run from it, tranquilize it, try to kill it. Just leave the kids with a sitter, team up with a sympathetic friend, spouse, therapist, or journal, and let your angry animal self bellow its messages. There will be a lot of meaningless sound and fury, but there will also be information about exactly what needs to change in your present and future so that you'll stop suffering from old regrets and create new ones. Basically, your anger will roar out this next instruction…
6. Learn to lean loveward.
When I saw A Chorus Line, I wondered if it's literally true that "I can't regret what I did for love." So I did a little thought experiment. I recalled all my significant regrets, and sure enough, I found that none of them followed a choice based purely on love. All were the consequence of fear-based decisions. In the cases where my motivations were a mix of love and fear, it was always the fear-based component that left me fretful and regretful.
For example, I'll be up most of tonight, having spent the daylight hours eating pudding in reaction to writer's block, which is a species of fear. I predict that tomorrow I'll regret this—I've spent many, many sleepless nights fearing this or that, and no good ever came of it. But I've also lost a lot of sleep for love. I've stayed up communing with friends, rocking sick babies, avoiding celibacy. And I really can't regret any choice that brought me one moment of love. Do your own thought experiment, and I suspect you'll come to similar conclusions. (Let's face it, a song that catchy just can't be all wrong.)
By Martha Beck
As long as you're thinking, "That shouldn't have happened or I shouldn't have done that," you're locked in a struggle against reality. Many people pour years of energy into useless "shouldn't haves." The angry ones endlessly repeat that their ex-spouses shouldn't have left them, their parents shouldn't have overfed them, or their bosses shouldn't have made them wear uncomfortable chipmunk costumes in 90-degree heat. Even drearier are the sad ones, who forever drone some version of "If only." If only they'd married Sebastian, or gotten that promotion, or heeded the label's advice not to operate heavy machinery, they would be happy campers instead of les misérables.
I call this unproductive regret. People use it to avoid scary or difficult action; instead of telling the story of the past in a useful way, they use it as their excuse for staying wretched. If you're prone to unproductive regret, please hear this: Everyone agrees with you. That thing you regret? It really, really, really shouldn't have happened. But. It. Did. If you enjoy being miserable, by all means, continue to rail against this fact. If you'd rather be happy, prune the "shouldn't haves" from your mental story, and move on to…
2. Separate regret's basic ingredients.
Of the four basic emotions—sad, mad, glad, and scared—regret is a mixture of the first two. Your particular situation may involve enormous sadness and a little anger ("My father died before I ever met him. Damn cruel fate!") or enormous anger with a side of sadness ("Why, why, why did I get a haircut from a stylist who was actively smoking a bong?"). Whatever the proportions, some regretters feel sadness but resist feeling anger; others acknowledge outrage but not sorrow. Denying either component will get you stuck in bitter, unproductive regret.
Considering anger and sadness separately makes both more useful. Right now, think of something you regret. With that something in mind, finish this sentence: "I'm sad that __________." Repeat until you run out of sad things related to that particular regret. For example, if your regret is contracting Lyme disease, you might say, "I'm sad that I feel awful." "I'm sad I can no longer ride my pogo stick." "I'm sad that the woods don't feel safe to me anymore."
When you've fully itemized your sadness, make another list, beginning each sentence with the phrase, "I'm angry at ________." For example, "I'm angry at my body for being sick." "I'm angry at God for creating ticks." "I'm angry at the entire town of Lyme, Connecticut, for which this $#@* disease was named." Write down all the causes for your rage, even if they're irrational.
Once you have a clear list of your sorrows and outrages, you can move on to step 3, where you'll work both angles to transform unproductive regret into the productive kind. This is extraordinarily useful but also profoundly uncomfortable because the only way out of painful emotion is through.
3. Grieve what is irrevocably lost.
Sorrow is a natural reaction to losing anything significant: a dream, a possession, an opportunity. Productive grief passes through you in waves, which feel horrific, but which steadily erode your sadness. The crushing mountain of sorrow eventually becomes a boulder on your back, then a rock in your pocket, then a pebble in your shoe, then nothing at all—not because circumstances change but because you become strong enough to handle reality with ease.
You're finished grieving when you see someone gaining what you regret losing and feel only joy for them—maybe even secret gratitude that circumstances forced you to enlarge your own capacity for joy (this is how I feel about people who don't have a kid with Down syndrome). If your sadness stops evaporating, if a certain amount of it just isn't budging, simply grieving may not be enough. Regret is telling you to seek out a part of whatever you've lost.
4. Reclaim the essence of your dreams.
You can't change the fact that you binged your way up to 300 pounds, or lost a winning lottery ticket, or spent decades in celibacy rather than celebration. But you can reclaim the essential experiences you missed: loving your own healthy body, enjoying abundance, feeling glorious passion. In this moment, resolve that you'll find ways to reclaim the essence of anything you can't stop grieving.
Jenny's big regret was that one disastrous gymnastics meet had tanked her chances to make the Olympic team. When I asked her what she would've gotten from the Olympics, she said, "Pride, excitement, world-class competition, attention." Once she'd articulated these essentials, Jenny found herself gravitating toward a job in television, which provided all of them. Now, she says, her life is so exciting that she virtually never thinks about the Olympics. Instead of sidelining her, regret became just one more springboard.
I've been coaching long enough to brazenly promise that if you decide to reclaim the essence of anything you regret losing, you'll find it—often sooner than you think, in ways you would never have expected.
5. Analyze your anger.
The anger component of regret is every bit as important and useful as your sadness. Anger is a bear, but if you pay attention, you'll hear it roaring useful instructions about how you should steer your future. Don't fear it, run from it, tranquilize it, try to kill it. Just leave the kids with a sitter, team up with a sympathetic friend, spouse, therapist, or journal, and let your angry animal self bellow its messages. There will be a lot of meaningless sound and fury, but there will also be information about exactly what needs to change in your present and future so that you'll stop suffering from old regrets and create new ones. Basically, your anger will roar out this next instruction…
6. Learn to lean loveward.
When I saw A Chorus Line, I wondered if it's literally true that "I can't regret what I did for love." So I did a little thought experiment. I recalled all my significant regrets, and sure enough, I found that none of them followed a choice based purely on love. All were the consequence of fear-based decisions. In the cases where my motivations were a mix of love and fear, it was always the fear-based component that left me fretful and regretful.
For example, I'll be up most of tonight, having spent the daylight hours eating pudding in reaction to writer's block, which is a species of fear. I predict that tomorrow I'll regret this—I've spent many, many sleepless nights fearing this or that, and no good ever came of it. But I've also lost a lot of sleep for love. I've stayed up communing with friends, rocking sick babies, avoiding celibacy. And I really can't regret any choice that brought me one moment of love. Do your own thought experiment, and I suspect you'll come to similar conclusions. (Let's face it, a song that catchy just can't be all wrong.)
By Martha Beck
Canary Reduce Cancer Risk Breast
Eat the canary allegedly gives the body essential fatty acid omega-3, anti-oxidant, and phytosterol , substances that reduce the risk of breast cancer, so the results of a study presented Tuesday (21 / 4) at the Annual Meeting To-100 2009 Asocial for Cancer Research United States.
Phytosterol (which also called plant sterol) is a group of steroid alcohol, a natural phytochemical found in the plant.
Phytosterol-shaped with the aroma of white powder that is not typical sting does not dissolve in water and soluble in alcohol. Oxygen has many benefits, for example, as a food additive in order to lower the cholesterol level, and on drugs and cosmetics.
Elaine Hardman, professor in the field of adjuvant drugs in the "Marshall University School of Medicine," said, although studies conducted on laboratory animals and not human, people must consider that advice to eat more canary.
" Canary better than cake, fresh fruit, or potato chips when you need a snack," said Hardman.
Hardman and colleagues examine the mice were given food that they eat the same as the estimated portion of the human, two canary ons per day. A separate group of rats were given food that is monitored.
Standard examination showed the consumption of light canary down the breast tumor, the number of gland tumor and tumor size.
" Rat this laboratory specifically have 100 percent of the tumor in five months; consumption canary prevent tumor growth until at least three weekends," said Hardman.
Molecular analysis showed, increased consumption of fatty acid omega-3 to give a donation to the decrease in the tumor, but some other parts of the walnut tree also gave donations.
"With the hand-mixed food, you see the many mechanisms when dealing with all the food," said Hardman. "It is clear that the walnut tree to give donations for healthy food so that it can reduce breast cancer."
bird flu
What is bird flu?
Everybody's had the flu at some time in their lives, with its familiar symptoms: aches, chills, fatigue and cough. So why is the "bird flu" making so many headlines?
The deadly virus H5N1 is a strain of influenza normally found only in chickens, turkeys and a variety of other birds. In certain countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Egypt and Turkey, this H5N1 virus has spread to a handful of humans. To date, of the 218 people who have been infected by bird flu, more than half have died. The victims are believed to have contracted bird flu after coming in contact with feces, blood or mucus of infected birds.
At the moment, there is not conclusive evidence that the virus can spread from one human to another. However, this could soon change because the bird flu virus mutates so rapidly. If a mutated strain were able to spread from human to human—an occurrence some medical experts say is inevitable—this highly contagious flu could travel around the globe in a matter of days, infecting every city in every country on the planet
Everybody's had the flu at some time in their lives, with its familiar symptoms: aches, chills, fatigue and cough. So why is the "bird flu" making so many headlines?
The deadly virus H5N1 is a strain of influenza normally found only in chickens, turkeys and a variety of other birds. In certain countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Egypt and Turkey, this H5N1 virus has spread to a handful of humans. To date, of the 218 people who have been infected by bird flu, more than half have died. The victims are believed to have contracted bird flu after coming in contact with feces, blood or mucus of infected birds.
At the moment, there is not conclusive evidence that the virus can spread from one human to another. However, this could soon change because the bird flu virus mutates so rapidly. If a mutated strain were able to spread from human to human—an occurrence some medical experts say is inevitable—this highly contagious flu could travel around the globe in a matter of days, infecting every city in every country on the planet
How does bird flu differ from seasonal flu?
According to Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert from the University of Minnesota, understanding the different kinds of influenza viruses can help explain why bird flu is so potentially deadly.
"There really are, in a sense, three different kinds of influenza viruses," he says. "There is that which naturally lives in wild birds. That virus doesn't really hurt us very often."
The second type of influenza, called seasonal flu, is the one most know. Though it is common, this flu virus kills 36,000 people a year, Dr. Osterholm says.
The third kind of influenza virus is the one that has many people extremely worried. It is a flu virus that has mutated from affecting only birds to one that can infect both birds and humans. "That's when we see a pandemic, or a worldwide epidemic," Dr. Osterholm says. "And that's what we worry about."
Why does a flu virus mutate? "When that virus lives inside a bird, it's uniquely made to live inside the cell of a bird," Dr. Osterholm explains. However, "the influenza virus is one of the sloppiest, most indiscreet, most promiscuous viruses we know. It basically doesn't know how to reproduce itself very well, and it makes mistakes all the time. That's called a mutation. Some of those mutations will actually survive, and when they survive, they actually get closer and closer to allowing it to get inside a human cell. Imagine the chicken virus is a key and the chicken cell is the lock. It gets in easily. The human cell is the lock. The chicken key doesn't work well in it. Over time, the mutations change that key just enough so now it readily gets inside a human cell. That's what we're worried about."
According to Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert from the University of Minnesota, understanding the different kinds of influenza viruses can help explain why bird flu is so potentially deadly.
"There really are, in a sense, three different kinds of influenza viruses," he says. "There is that which naturally lives in wild birds. That virus doesn't really hurt us very often."
The second type of influenza, called seasonal flu, is the one most know. Though it is common, this flu virus kills 36,000 people a year, Dr. Osterholm says.
The third kind of influenza virus is the one that has many people extremely worried. It is a flu virus that has mutated from affecting only birds to one that can infect both birds and humans. "That's when we see a pandemic, or a worldwide epidemic," Dr. Osterholm says. "And that's what we worry about."
Why does a flu virus mutate? "When that virus lives inside a bird, it's uniquely made to live inside the cell of a bird," Dr. Osterholm explains. However, "the influenza virus is one of the sloppiest, most indiscreet, most promiscuous viruses we know. It basically doesn't know how to reproduce itself very well, and it makes mistakes all the time. That's called a mutation. Some of those mutations will actually survive, and when they survive, they actually get closer and closer to allowing it to get inside a human cell. Imagine the chicken virus is a key and the chicken cell is the lock. It gets in easily. The human cell is the lock. The chicken key doesn't work well in it. Over time, the mutations change that key just enough so now it readily gets inside a human cell. That's what we're worried about."
