Every retreat I mention about guarding against doing something that will then give you regret and then give you self-hatred. Really to avoid regret and self-hatred, you need to work on the Four Great Efforts. Especially the first one: Prevention. Trying to prevent doing a thing that will later give regret and self-hatred.
Example, all of a sudden you find yourself full of regret and self-hatred. You need to figure out what you did. What did you actually do? You go back in time and you consider what was it that you did or didn't do which now gives you regret for not doing or doing something. So after it's all over you have to think about what you did wrong. Like the first stage of the four stages of developing mindfulness and understanding.
Sometimes people will warn you. Like your parents probably warned you about certain things growing up.
When I give this talk in the retreat, I'm giving a warning to everybody. I'm advising everybody about a certain way of life that will actually help them to avoid regret and self-hatred. Some people will take the warning, and they go, "Oh, that's right, that makes sense!". And then they will do what they were advised and then they will never have the regret and self-hatred.
Other people don't take the warning, then they don't do what they are advised and then might have regret and self-hatred later. So, listening to people who are wiser than you with advice, this can often help with prevention.
You do need to figure out if you can trust the person. For a lot of you here, you are at least in your third retreat so you obviously have some trust in me or Rosemary or you simply wouldn't be here, right? You have some trust and when you come into the interviews, we give you some advice, and by and large, most of you do what we advise. You take it on trust, you go, "Okay, they helped me before, I'll see if the new advice will help me now". That's helpful, that can help you avoid regret and self-hatred.
Being careful on a second aspect with regret and self-hatred: Being careful about offering something which you might not be able to fulfill. This is a common problem in some people, "Oh, yes, yes, I'll do that job, I'll help, I'll do this, whatever". But later they don't do it, because really they don't have the availability or something happened where they couldn't do it. So trying to be more careful with what you offer to do can also help.
Because when you offer to do something and then you don't do it, that doesn't feel good. You've let somebody down. Not only the other person but you actually let yourself down. Now, some circumstances actually interfere with this, that's a different matter, we are not talking about. I'm talking about simply saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be with that, I'll come around tomorrow and help you move your furniture". And then, you know, you forget about it, you do something else instead and you could have helped -- that's what I am referring to, this aspect. So being careful with what you offer also can help prevent regret and self-hatred.
Changing the way you say things is also important. For example: Your friend has to move some furniture, you think you can possibly help. But instead of saying, "Yeah, I can help you, I'll be there tomorrow", you could say, "Well, I think I can maybe come tomorrow, but don't count on me. If I can, I'll be there to help". In that way you are allowing some space if you can't come, but you are also allowing the thought that you do want to come, that the wish is still there. To express the wish is okay, but often not the promise of fulfilling the wish.
And, you know, the regret and self-hatred that follows it is actually easy to avoid. It really is. If you are open, if you are honest, if you are careful, it's not that hard to avoid.
Not, that it's always easy. It's like you have to make a dedication in your life for yourself that you actually want to be a good, kind, loving human being. In general, that's what you all want. Do you regularly remind yourself of this? Do you actually rededicate that wish to yourself, over and over? To reignite this intention that you have, over and over and over every single day of your life, every time you sit and meditate, whatever on a regular basis. Then you are going to find it's really not hard to avoid having regret and self-hatred.