I imagine most people have at some point heard someone say that ‘hindsight is 20/20’ after an event that typically left someone feeling a certain level of guilt, shame, remorse or desire that whatever unfolded would have ended with a different result. The phrase denotes a sense that once we experience the outplay of a life event that may have resulted in something we did not necessarily want to happen (like an accident or mistake), it is easy to look back in time, so to speak, and understand all the factors and decisions that led up to that negative experience occurring, hence the 20/20 perfect vision connotation.
But I have noticed a repetitive pattern, and thus a correlation between the times that I have had these ‘hindsight is 20/20’ moments, where I felt awful about something that happened and that I was responsible for, and my initial negative emotional reactions to someone or a previously unforeseen circumstance that life presented to me. It’s as if these reactions that were based on things like doubt, fear of judgment from others, lack of self-worth or low confidence set off a chain reaction (pun intended) of events that culminated in my having those ‘could have, should have, and would have’ moments as an end result.
What if, instead of always looking back and wishing we had made different choices, we focused a bit more on responding to life’s situations rather than reacting to them as if we can’t handle what is being presented to us to learn and grow from. By responding, I mean that we can use our innate ability to simply feel what is happening from an energetic standpoint and perhaps what factors have contributed to ourselves and others acting in the way they are, and then answering the call to move ourselves in a harmonious way with what is needed in that moment, no more and no less. In this way, we can use our amazing ability to observe the truth of what is being presented to us to learn and evolve with, and that is exactly what I am proposing as our foresight vision being 20/20.
The dictionary definition that I found for foresight is:
the ability to predict what will happen or be needed in the future – Lexico.com (1).
Now, I am not saying that everyone needs to be Nostradamus here and predict the future (although I do feel we all have had instances of feeling and knowing what was about to happen, as in a friend calling on the phone right after they popped into your mind), but that we definitely can all feel what is needed in a given situation and begin to let go of the emotionally and eventual physically damaging practice of looking back on life’s events or mistakes in a regretful way that ignores the possibility that what unfolded in that instance was exactly what we needed as a reflection of where we were at in our own personal development, and offered a great lesson that we could utilise and pass on to others for the rest of our lives.
I know for myself that every time I went over in my head something yucky that happened in my life – as if I could somehow change the past outcome with sheer willpower and repeated thoughts – it only resulted in a lot of stress, was exhausting, and did not help or change anything. For to truly value all that life presents for us, as being held by a divine love that is guiding us back to a more soulful way, is quite liberating indeed. It’s in these lived experiences where true wisdom is born.
By Michael Goodhart, Aircraft Technician, B.A. Psychology, Lover of Nature and being playful with life, North Carolina, USA
References:
- Lexico Dictionaries | English. (2019). foresight | Definition of foresight in English by Lexico Dictionaries. [online] Available at: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/foresight [Accessed 18 May 2019].
Further reading:
Soul Magic – divine magic at play
Taking it personally – reaction versus response
Responding to the Call
Words on Serge Benhayon 
Michael what you have shared in this sentence is life changing
‘as if I could somehow change the past outcome with sheer willpower and repeated thoughts – it only resulted in a lot of stress, was exhausting, and did not help or change anything.’
It’s life changing if we can move on from those past outcomes by understanding that it is all a trap to keep humanity in the delay of not evolving, because always harping back to a situation, event etc., is as you say exhausting, but more than that it’s totally distracting us deliberately from what we should be doing which is getting on with getting out of here.
I have often wondered Michael where thoughts come from that take us back to something that happened in the past, that we then mull over again if only we could have done things differently. Today I have a greater understanding that we are given our thoughts, they come through us and depending on what energy we have aligned to will depend on the quality of thoughts that we have. So for example the thoughts that entered my body as I was waking up were thoughts given to me from the consciousness of the astral plane as they were negative and derogatory. So by feeling what was happening, I got up and walked which changed the angle of my body which supported me to change the alignment back to my soul. I know when I’m aligned to my soul I do not have any negative thoughts at all.
Nothing ever changes what we have done ✅ in the past but by being open and transparent with the understanding that this was only an energy that we were aligned to and now we can align to the Love 💓 we all innately are and reimprint with Love 💓 All our past indiscretions and feed them NO energy and thus this level of transparency allows us to live in the future.
I liked the final line about true wisdom being born from our life experiences, so true, and even mix-ups and challenges we would not look favourably on, or wish we didn’t experience, actually can be a rich ground for developing wisdom. This was also a great line for me “the possibility that what unfolded in that instance was exactly what we needed as a reflection of where we were at in our own personal development’, it cuts the judgement and brings in acceptance and the learning of where we are at and what’s needed next. We can be so hard on ourselves which gets in the way of the learning process.
Melinda is it possible that we also have to complete something in this life that was not completed in a previous life? So that when we reincarnate again we do so with a much clearer body on our elocutionary track back to God and the universe?
Mary it may be possible that we are offered many things to complete, ie., to return to love and our Soul with, if not completely return our whole life to Soul.
When we using our vision we only a small part of the 22 / 20 so using our clairsentience first and our other senses then our vision we can not be fooled and thus get the wisdom that is required for every situation.
Now it’s 2020 we should all have great vision 🙂
Absoulutely, amazing awareness and adjusting through alignment all-be-it the Truth from our Essences, Inner-most-heart, Esoteric or Soul all being Absoulutely the same returns our full vision of all our senses.
There’s a lot of self in wallowing in past mistakes, it’s what we do when we want to punish ourselves, to keep the illusion going that we are useless, bad or whatever self abuse we run with. Instead of revisiting those moments and engaging with the embarrassment or self discrimination how about we bring some understanding to the situation and look at where we were and how those moments came to pass, and then finally letting them go. The thoughts and emotions happened but we do not have to keep reliving them. Bringing understanding and some kindness to those moments will go a long way for us to accept what we have done and move on.
Absoulutely Julie and when we become totally transparent the deed’s of the past that did not serve humanity can be turned around simply by nominating and feeling the ill energy we were in when it happened.
3 years later gregbarnes888, I have come to understand that the energy that passes through us is not ours to own, whether it is astral or soul. So the energy of anger, misery, sadness, is coming through us. If we attach ourselves to that energy then that is what we become. I have finally come to the understanding that the hurts that I took on as a child were not my hurts but the hurts that were given to me by the astral plane that I willingly accepted so that I didn’t have to claim myself as the divine being I am.
When we ponder on any of our past poor decisions and try to dissect to be able to point the wagging finger at its true origin, are we missed a golden opportunity of the learning opportunity that is being offered for ourselves and the reflection to those around us?
That loaded pointing finger has three pointing back at us, and we will one day recognise the huge part we play in everything we do and how to undo all those ill decisions.
If there’s a choice about a situation ahead of me (invited to go somewhere etc.) I have two options 1. Connect, observe and listen to my body 2. try and mentally work out the best choice which then is easily sidelined by doubt or needing constant justification to hold onto. I now know which one is simpler.
We all innately know how life can be and what is asked from us, to live in God’s Atma and to truly connect to this amazing divinity that is equally in our body we cannot but live what is before us. Looking back to beat ourselves up and get frustrated etc. can only have a chance when we ignore where we are coming from, and what surrounds us all of the time.
For many of us and I count myself as one of the many I had no idea that I live in God’s atma, we have been lied to on so many levels when it comes to our understanding of God. We have been so warped by the lies and the disinformation that we have lost all sense of who or what God is. Coming back to knowing that God is the space all around us it is the air we breathe and that we are held in the immensity that is his love. I have also discovered that I have to work really hard not to be in and with the energy of God which is very draining; if I am not in the energy and flow of God then I am choosing the lies and the corruption of everything that is not God. Is it any wonder then that the world is so exhausted?
True wisdom is living what we know from the body – but this is so much easier said than done, especially when we have such an arrogant mind that just wants to lead the show without considering the body. This is then a work in progress to allow the body to lead with the mind and not the mind over the body.
Henrietta by playing dumb, we can say we do not know, which gives us our excuse to wreck our bodies, so that the wisdom our bodies holds is not expressed.
Indulgence in by-gones serves us not, but to learn from our mistakes and to front foot it from there is the best remedy for all involved.
Michael, these are some very wise words indeed and perfect in timing for me to read: “What if, instead of always looking back and wishing we had made different choices, we focused a bit more on responding to life’s situations rather than reacting to them as if we can’t handle what is being presented to us to learn and grow from.”
It is also supportive to know that the discarnate beings in the Astral plane are constantly goading us to react because in the reaction they have access to our life force. There is so much that we have as a collective chosen to forget because it is more comfortable for us not to know that we are dictated to by the consciousness that makes up the Astral plane, rather than our soul. The two energies are as oil and water they do not mix. One energy supports us back to the path of evolution. The other energy distracts us away from the path of evolution, it can never stop evolution but its energy does make it a very meandering process.
I think also that when we are not letting go of our past mistakes we cannot truly be ready to deal with what is coming towards us next. When we totally let go we do not lace the new situation with our past experience and can freely choose to do things differently.
Holding onto things and going over in our heads is a recipe for ill mental health. By engaging in these thoughts we are constantly denigrating ourselves and long term that is not healthy.
And staying present with what we are doing or conscious presence lets us be connected to our essences and eliminates those things we can hold onto.
Deepening our energetic awareness brings 20/20 understanding.
You can’t change the past and to continually re-visit it wishing it was different holds everything in the present moment at a stand-still, it’s holding love at bay. Letting go and surrendering to what is allows for the healing of the past and the present moment to be of ‘Love’.
I agree with what Michael and you are saying Christine
“You can’t change the past and to continually re-visit it wishing it was different holds everything in the present moment at a stand-still, it’s holding love at bay. Letting go and surrendering to what is allows for the healing of the past and the present moment to be of ‘Love’.”
I know that when we surrender to our soul the one soul then the game changes completely the problem with humans is that we want to control our surroundings as we don’t like the feeling of not having any control and so we play mind games with ourselves which keeps us away from what we want most which is the love we crave. It doesn’t make any sense does it? Because what are we in control of?
We all have a responsibility to hold the integrity of words, and thus have to share that it is the energetic truth as we have lost the true meaning of so many key words and words hold us in our essences when we use them in their true meaning!
We could say that the ability to discern energy (what is love and what is not) strengthens our foresight in a way that helps us to pre-empt what comes next so we don’t have to rely on our hindsight to get us out of the mess we blindly walked into. For example, if I know that I am not connected to love then I can already feel a disharmony in my body, so naturally it follows that my movements will be disharmonious and this will result in discord should I not come back to love and move in the harmony of this. Sounds easy enough but where most of us stumble is how to move with true settlement when you are surrounded by disharmony because there is a constant group pull to submerge ourselves in the mass discord. Hence why we rely on hindsight to show us where we tripped up after the event has occurred and not before.
I totally agree with you about the group energy that pulls at us all relentlessly to submerge ourselves in the mass discord. The energy cannot bear one person to be out of alignment to the group discord and those that start to extract themselves from the discord find themselves targeted and under greater pressure to concede and go back to the group.
There are also times when what is needed comes through us! We find out what is required at the same time as others when our mouth expresses truth.
I love this Steve – it is like the advice we give another is something that can apply very well to ourselves. Hence true wisdom is not just delivering pearls but actually living them in practical life!
I get a sense that the regret is knowing we abdicated responsibility and feeling the consequences of that impact on others as well as ourselves. Considering the movements that we made before the ‘event’ itself is a way to start to understand how nothing ‘just happens’. There are decisions made, sometimes long before, the event itself and give it space or influence others to collude or conspire to make it happen. Taking this level of responsibility for my own behaviour and movements has freed up my understanding about how and why things happened or keep happening. If we are prepared to invest in change, there is always a set of unsubtle clues left behind.
Change brings change and repetition brings repetition and the beauty of this is that we can simply look at what’s happening around us and see if things are changing or not. Things should be changing all the time if we’re truly refining our quality, our relationships should be deepening and our lives should be becoming more purposeful and if they’re not, then brilliant that’s just a sign that we need to bring in more change.
We can use our past to inform our present but to be tied to it is like pulling blocks of concrete around.
There’s nothing worse than having that cringe feeling years after something occurred. It’s far more healthy to have no regrets in that moment by asking ourselves some simple questions as to why we have done what we did and taking responsibility for what took place. Then these embarrassing moments no longer have a hold over us and cannot hold us to ransom.
Julie what I can now see clearly is it is not us in the first place, we are set up to have these cringe worthy experiences, which you say holds us in the limbo of the past, so we just keep going round the same race track completely distracted and not going anywhere. To get off the race track is to own up to the experience so that we can move on cleanly and not be so caught in the game the astral are playing with us.
We all have the ability to read situations but this can be affected by our lifestyle and our daily choices.
Great point Alexandre, we are incredibly sensitive, but how much do we honour this and also cultivate this? Something challenging to do in a world that is geared to shut down the sensitivity by offering lifestyle choices and daily choices that keep us distracted from our own wisdom.
Talking of foresight and in taking the ‘sight’ part of this what was really noticeable for me yesterday and today is just how sore my eyes are and the reading is how I am looking at life instead of receiving it allowing myself just to be with me.
Deepening our intuition is a necessary evolutionary step, and is us simply reading what is there to appreciate of another as our first port of call.
When we approach something that can appear to be a disaster as an opportunity it allows us to grow from the experience – thereby totally debasing the need for blame and self bashing. We allow ourselves to see what the lesson is that we need to learn and embrace the moment.
Thus we are responding to any given situation and our evolution is confirmed.
What happens when we use hindsight as a moment of expansion, learning by our mistakes and moving on?
Everything in life is a simple lesson just some are easier on our bodies than others.
We deepen in our awareness and embrace our learning without identifications.
Responding rather than reacting to situations – feels a more empowering way to live. Spotting and nominating more of my reactions to myself these days is enabling me to react less
Fantastic blog Michael, you really expose the fallacies of giving ourselves a hard time with our thinking and going over things – ‘if I could somehow change the past outcome with sheer willpower and repeated thoughts’. Rather if we consider what life presents to us and how we can respond and learn from us and see it’s invitation to expand and be more who we are; this is a completely different paradigm and far more deeply enriching.
I’ve recently found out I made a huge mistake with big and unpleasant financial consequences. It’s painful to feel but this blog reminds me what I need to focus on at times like this. Thank you.
Judgement imprisons us in a perpetual cell of ‘should of’s’ and ‘could of’s’ – constantly berating ourselves. The Soul looks at life simply from ‘how to evolve’. No matter how many times we fell in that hole the chance to feel, read and understand is always at hand. Thanks Michael!
I know that since attending the workshops and presentation of Universal Medicine I have a completely different way of looking at life. There is something momentous happening right now that before Universal Medicine would have me is an absolute spin of feeling insecure and what the heck is going to happen to me now, how will I survive, make ends meet etc. But from all that I have learnt these past 13 years have come together so that actually I’m not spinning out, I’m very upbeat about the future there is no insecurity because what cannot be taken away from me is my connection to the universe and that to me is all that matters. Imagine if all humanity decided to access the God the universe in such a way, this would demolish insecurity over night. It is the need/ want to be secure that gets in the way of relinquishing everything up to God in the way that Jesus did over 2,000 years ago.
Luke 22:42 And he said, “Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me; however not my will, but yours be done.”
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
So many live as if we’re balanced precariously on a perch but we’re an intrinsic part of The Universe, there’s nowhere to fall, we are a rock solid part of All That There Is.
Great wisdom here in the art and science of making a mis-take. After all our mis-takes are just that…a take in one of scenes of life which we can learn from and have another go.
Andrew I love the lightness of that ‘have another go’, brilliant.
Instead of looking at a situation and feeling awkward about the outcome and how we did or didn’t deal with something it’s more helpful and healing to get to our responsibility and where we have contributed. The other day I was in reaction about something and when I was talking to someone he said the words ‘That was cold’ referring to someone’s actions towards me and at that moment I thought there’s something being reflected to me. So I went away and looked at things from every angle, consulted with family members to get to the bottom of the feeling I had. The realisation came when I had been that cold and unloving in my twenties and had equally contributed in the same way. It was simple and the feeling lifted. It works when we trace our steps backwards and can take responsibility for having acted in an unloving way towards others, then we get to understand how we have contributed to the rot that we now find as our everyday.
This stood out to me today ‘that we definitely can all feel what is needed in a given situation’. That we know! But we don’t always bring, express and do what is needed. Which shows on a large scale how, as humanity, we are holding back. I feel its high time to address the ways I hold back and where I hold back in life!
Michael, great points raised here for us to ponder on. I know I have found that the more I am prepared to honestly look at situations when they arise, the more clearly I see my part in what has eventuated. What’s more, these days I am also understanding that when things crop up, I am actually being gifted a wonderful opportunity to also learn more about myself and from there, I have the opportunity to make changes that can lead to very different outcomes when the next issue arises.
How true Helen, being honest and expressing in the present moment, is a great opportunity to know the love that is being shown us and “to learn more about myself”. It immediately stops the ‘if only’ reaction of what we could have done in any given situation.
Mary I like how you have deepened the conversation by reminding us just how much we are loved by giving us the opportunity to learn more about how we react. When we react we are after all letting a poison into our bodies which if allowed to accumulate by, not dealing with the reaction, bring on illness and disease.
What a gorgeous invitation to shift our relationship with mistakes away from shame, guilt and regret to an openness to learn and an acceptance that our purpose is to be students of life ready and willing to grow and learn in every moment.
We must have pictures, beliefs and ideals about how life is supposed to be to react so strongly to events and mistakes. It’s a great topic Michael as I am still working through reactions, once they begin they cloud the opportunity to respond as you’re suggesting, which is an openness and allowance to receive whatever is occurring, and a trust in ourselves to feel it all, read, respond and learn.
‘I know for myself that every time I went over in my head something yucky that happened in my life – as if I could somehow change the past outcome with sheer willpower and repeated thoughts – it only resulted in a lot of stress, was exhausting, and did not help or change anything.’ We can tie ourselves up in knots, feel massive regret and a lot of sadness if we approach life in this way. Speaking for myself too, I have experienced this and have not enjoyed it. Knowing no other way, I was stuck in a rut and pushed those feelings down, not knowing what else to do with them – each one compacting on the last. It wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon that I began to appreciate these so called negative events as opportunities to clear those hurts and feel the liberation you talk of Michael.
You raise a great point here Michelle about how when something challenging or unexpected happens in our life, like making what we consider a mistake, we tend to compartmentalise it and not want to feel what this event is bringing up for us. But if we can take the pressure off ourselves to not be so perfect, and simply view the circumstances as opportunities to learn something more deeply about ourselves and grow from it, it becomes easier to move forward and allow ourselves the space to see what is needed from that point onward.
Beautifully said Michael. When I have allowed myself to feel the sadness, or whatever the issue is that has come up, I have discovered that it really doesn’t feel as bad as all that because in the rawness there is an honesty and the beauty of feeling fragile – there is certainly a grace in it if we allow it and definitely an opportunity to nominate what has hurt, why and to take responsibility for it.
Does this process of continuing to beat ourselves up, become a bit like Ourobores, the snake that eats its own tail? It becomes an endless cycle that never ends until we choose to stop.
Beating ourselves up is an indulgence that we can ill afford. It is a delay tactic we use that prevents us from growing and learning from an incident.
I have never heard of this particular phrase with the 20/20 bit ‘hindsight is 20/20’ but have heard of hindsight and 20/20 vision. The key to what you share here is the difference between responding or reaction. The way I see responding to be, is for me to get self out of the way (reaction) take a step back from whatever the situation is and then the response needed will come. I don’t always live this! But am working at making this, responding, my normal rather than reacting.
Response usually contains little or no emotion whereas reactions are chockers with emotion and as emotion nearly always leads to even more emotion, responding is definitely the way to go.
Emotional out plays are a sure sign we are living with an expectation or belief and these both end up with us being in comparison, letting go of comparison in any form will always be evolutionary.
I was talking to someone recently and they suggested that to look at something in the past with regret or remorse is self-defeating but rather focus on what is needed right now and move from there. And this makes sense to me because so often we spend so much time in regret we do not appreciate all that is now before us.
When we look back with either regret, remorse, anger, bitterness or any other similar emotion it is because we are looking back through the narrow slits of our human eyes.. The silly thing is that often what we are looking back and judging as a ‘negative’ event or period in our lives actually held a lot of potential evolution but by viewing it through our ‘human eyes we fail to see it as it truly was. Our ‘human eyes’ look at things based on our very limited and biased pictures and ideas about how things should be, whereas our soul sees everything as spherical and so has a 360 lens through which to view life. The soul can easily see that there is nothing that is outside of life, it is all the one glorious activity with the sole purpose of leading us back to God.
Regret and remorse bring with it the ‘if only…..’. This truly is a waste of time and feeling emotional about something we can do nothing about. When viewed as a learning opportunity, so that we never repeat such a mistake we can grow in emotional maturity.
Feeling what is needed is far simpler than looking back in regret. If I do look back these days I feel into the energy that created the situation in the first place. Then there is no emotion but an opportunity to be honest and take responsibly for my side of the event.
Great learning in this. Thank you Leigh. To ‘look back’ and review situations without judgement or criticism but a willingness to learn makes the world of difference – and will make the world a very different place.
What I can really appreciate after reading this is that I do not have any regrets. None. That is amazing, what I can appreciate is how I have been able instead to take responsibility for my life and choices and learn and grow from this. It hasn’t always been this way there were times in my life I did regret but now I have a better understanding of life, me, love, choices, responsibility and energy a lot has healed.
It’s not uncommon for us to use a past so-called mistake to punish ourselves with, even years after it occurred, instead of learning from it and letting ourselves off the hook.
Life on Earth is an opportunity to learn and there is much truth in the saying ‘We learn by our mistakes’.
‘We learn by our mistakes’, for me the word ‘mistakes’ is not truthful as it implies that we have done something ‘wrong’ and as there is no truth in either right or wrong then the sentence does not feel true to me. It would be much truer to say ‘We learn from our opportunities to evolve’
When we have these moments of hindsight for something we chose to do that has gone terribly wrong, how often do we have a knee jerk reaction to think of who we can blame? Is this not a tried and tested tool of politicians and governments?
I wonder what constitutes ‘terribly wrong’? Terribly wrong for one person might be incredible for another, for example I have heard people who have had terrible accidents refer to their accidents as absolute gifts. Again it seems that how we view life (through our beliefs, conditioning, personal experiences, ideas about how things should be) determines our experience of life.
I agree Alexis. Different people with a similar illness will have a different take on it – and life. Some will return to the ‘same old’ way of doing things, once better, that may have contributed to their getting the disease in the first place. Another will use that disease as a learning opportunity to grow and evolve.
‘..but that we definitely can all feel what is needed in a given situation and begin to let go of the emotionally and eventual physically damaging practice of looking back on life’s events or mistakes in a regretful way that ignores the possibility that what unfolded in that instance was exactly what we needed as a reflection of where we were at in our own personal development, and offered a great lesson that we could utilise and pass on to others for the rest of our lives.’ It certainly feels like most of us feel regret when events unfold in a negative way, but what we are not appreciating is that those events unfolded precisely because we needed that learning. Once the lesson is learned we can be hard on ourselves for not getting it sooner, but in the context of lifetimes and in the context that we are here to learn about such things, we can soon turn that regret into the appreciation that things constellated in just such a way to teach us what we had yet to master. When perceived from this angle we can also appreciate just how held and supported we are, even in the face of challenging situations.
“When perceived from this angle we can also appreciate just how held and supported we are, even in the face of challenging situations”. Michelle we’re such a long way from remembering that there is nothing but love but the truth of the matter is that all matter energetically is love but we see things with our conditioned human eyes and our minds interpret them to fit into our pre-rehearsed perceptions of the world but none of this is true. And so as you say Michelle we see ‘challenging situations’ as just that and often fail to feel the love that is inherent within them.