A Broken Computer Taught Me About Emotional Recycling

This morning, while cleaning up my space, I came across a small computer that's been gathering dust in the corner. It's broken now, completely unusable, destined for disposal. But the moment I picked it up, something unexpected happened. A flash of regret shot through me like a stick of fire running straight through the center of my body—not along my spine, but right through my core. It ignited like a firework, bright and intense, reaching out into different parts of my body before settling into that familiar awareness of regret.

That broken piece of technology represented so much more than just hardware. When I first got that computer, my internal truth was simple yet grandiose: if only I had this computer, I could build a web-based internet business that would generate wealthy income, keeping us comfortable and secure into the future. It was perhaps a bit cocky and arrogant, certainly full of ignorance, but also brimming with hope.

Now, I should clarify—I didn't actually promise my wife that getting this computer would lead to business success and lots of money. I might have implied it, I might not have. I honestly can't remember. But that was my honest, true feeling inside. And thinking of that broken computer transformed it into something much heavier: a broken promise, an inability to come through as it were.

When Logic Meets Emotion

Here's where things get interesting. My rational side kicked in immediately, reminding me that I'm not dead, that I'm still able to work on building that business and fulfilling whatever promise I made to myself or implied to others. That's the logical truth of the situation.

But my emotional side? It was feeling very sad and regretful that this beautiful vision never materialized. I was attached to the outcome, attached to the promise, attached to the feelings themselves.

What I've discovered through years of inner work is that knowing things logically does little—and perhaps even nothing—to eliminate emotional pain. They seem to operate almost independently of each other. I've heard people talk about using thinking to work on feelings, but I've found it's not really a two-way street. It's more like 99% feeling influences thinking, and only 1% thinking influences feeling. Working on the feeling side is far more efficient.

The Discovery of Emotional Recycling

As I sat with these feelings about the computer, applying my scanning breath technique, something remarkable happened. Instead of taking the usual 15 minutes to process, it took only 3 to 5 minutes. The higher degree of focus made all the difference. When you can focus intensely on the feeling itself, you can dispense with these problems much more quickly.

Think of the breath like water washing over these feelings. It's not denying them or pushing them away—quite the opposite. You experience the feelings again in much greater depth and intensity, and through the breath, they become washed clean.

But here's the most fascinating part: that feeling of regret about the computer became a funnel into other experiences. You see, I don't think regret feelings get recycled—I think all our feelings get recycled. That's why we feel them again and again. If you can access the core feeling and get to its center, you can work outward to all the different events they're attached to.

Through that computer regret, I accessed other instances where I felt the same type of remorse. I felt regret when I got a teaching job and didn't become the great educator I'd hoped to become. I felt regret when I worked at a climbing camp, made a mistake, and felt I couldn't achieve the level of quality I really hoped for. We use the same feeling for different experiences across our entire lives.

The Paradox of Progress

Perhaps the most puzzling example of this emotional recycling is the regret I feel about time with my sons. Even though I know—logically and factually—that I've spent much more high-quality contact time with them than my father did with me, I nevertheless feel a twinge of regret that I couldn't have had even more time together.

This type of regret is usually illogical. It's emotional and not actually based on the facts of the situation. Why do we feel regret even when we've done better than the generation before us? Honestly, I don't know. Becoming aware of feelings doesn't tell me much about where they come from or why they originate there.

I've learned that asking "how" is a good question when dealing with emotions. Asking "why" is often futile.

The Long Game of Healing

These feelings of regret are like vast reservoirs that take a long time to drain. You can't simply empty them in 15 minutes. I've been working on many of these same feelings over and over again. I think I've more or less dealt with one, I move on, only to discover weeks or months later that more remains. I have to go deeper yet to extract more of that feeling.

But here's the encouraging part: each time I return to work on these emotional patterns, the feeling is thinner, not as strong. I can tell that my past work has had an effect. It's like chipping away at a mountain—slow work, but with visible progress.

Beyond "Letting Go"

People often talk about "letting go" of negative emotions, but I think that phrase is inadequate. With respect to my computer, I wasn't relieved to get rid of it or to release the promise it represented. In fact, the promise continues inside me in some form. The painful part was facing it and recognizing those feelings.

In fact, I haven't even gotten rid of the computer yet. It's still sitting around here somewhere.

"Letting go" is a nice phrase we use because we don't have a better one, but I think the scanning breath does something different—it washes these feelings where we don't let go of them. Letting go sort of implies you still want something, that you still have the attachment. But once you work through a feeling properly, you don't actually let go. The feeling evaporates into nothingness and simply disappears.

There's no more sensation of holding onto something, and then that something just disappears. There's no letting go required.

The Ongoing Journey

That broken computer taught me something profound about how we process regret and emotional pain. Our feelings recycle through different experiences, using the same emotional patterns across various life events. Logic has little power to dissolve these feelings, but focused attention combined with breathwork can wash them clean.

The work isn't quick or easy. These are vast reservoirs that require patience and persistence. But each time we dive deeper, the feelings become thinner, more manageable.

And sometimes, the very thing that triggers our deepest regret—that broken computer gathering dust—becomes the key that unlocks healing across multiple areas of our lives.

The promise continues. The work continues. And gradually, one breath at a time, the feelings that once burned like fire simply evaporate into nothingness.