Lost Hours, Zero Regrets: How Scanning Breath Helped Me Recover from a Major Mistake

Using the scanning breath, I have hit a new landmark in getting rid of my emotional baggage and avoiding having regrets. I lost hours of work and I didn’t feel regret about it. Here’s the story.

About a week and a half ago, I was editing a lot of small audio files. They were each about four or five seconds long. They each took about one minute to make. I spent three hours making them. Then I made a shocking discovery. None of my files were saved!

I was stunned. What had gone wrong? Then I looked at the settings on the software. It took me a minute to find the problem. There was a small button with tiny words beside it. It was not turned on. That was my problem!

Then a funny thing happened. I thought, “I should be angry at myself now.” In the past my emotional baggage would have ignited a bomb inside me. But this was followed by another feeling: “I don’t need to be angry at myself now. And even if I get angry, nothing will change.”

I was really amazed at my reaction. Even just a few years ago, my emotional baggage would have pushed me to feel really bad about a situation like that. I would have told stories and complained about my mistake to my friends for at least a couple of weeks. I would have increased my emotional baggage.

This time, however, I just confirmed the mistake, and then got on with remaking the files. It was just so easy. I did not have to get upset, use my energy, or beat myself up for fifteen minutes. There were no regrets. I knew the error and I learned.

This new reaction freed up so much energy that I actually did not need much time to remake the files correctly. On top of that, my quick recovery inspired me to work harder. I finished the project ahead of schedule!

The scanning breath has helped me reduce my attachments. I no longer feel attachments that make me complain or feel sorry for myself. I no longer feel the urge to find a way to blame someone else. Through the scanning breath, I can see my old habits. I can see how I used to hunt for a way to shift the blame to others. It was a pointless use of energy. It was fueled by self righteousness, but it did little to make anything better.

My emotional baggage used to compel me to deflect responsibility from myself. It was the scanning breath that taught me how to scan my memories; slowly I reduced my attachment to those memories and to my sense of self righteousness. In this way, the scanning breath is teaching me how to see things clearly; to see things for what they were, and for what they are.