In 1967, the Rolling Stones were instructed to sing "Let's spend some time together" on the Ed Sullivan show, because the actual lyrics ("Let's spend the night together") were deemed too risque for network television.

And so when you watch a video of the performance, you’ll hear them clearly articulate the sanitized lyrics.

While it’s true that Jagger and bassist Bill Wyman engaged in hilarious and impressively acrobatic eye rolling every time the line passed their lips, they most definitely sang “Let’s spend some time together.”

Yet for decades afterwards, Jagger would insist that he and his bandmates had deliberately mumbled the lyrics as an act of protest.

I can so relate.

Not to being a rock star sex symbol.

Editor’s note: great instance of the obligatory touch of self-aware humility.

But to looking back on my past self with embarrassment and even a touch of shame.

“I Can’t Believe I Did That”

It’s commonplace to regret our actions. And not just when we 25. I can replay last week and cringe at things I said and didn’t say; at things I did, and didn’t do.

I recall moments of cowardice, utter cluelessness, and downright mean-spiritedness.

Editor’s note: easy, boy. This is a newsletter, not a confessional.

And there’s something poignant and quite useful about coming to grips with our shortcomings. Without awareness, there’s no possibility for change.

And yet — wallowing in guilt or shame is like touching a hot stove and keeping your hand there.

“Why are you burning your palm?”“So I really learn my lesson this time.”

Aversion can kick off a change process, but it can’t sustain it. As Richard Boyatzis points out in his book The Science of Change, sustainable transformation requires what he calls PEA: Positive Emotional Attraction.

And one of the qualities of PEA is a nervous system tilted toward the parasympathetic —what Boyatzis calls the “renewal” circuit — rather than the sympathetic, which you may recognize as the source of “fight or flight” energy.

If you’re criticizing yourself, your mind codes that as an attack. Doesn’t matter that it’s thoughts and words rather than sticks and stones. Doesn’t matter that it’s coming from inside the house rather than from the outside. (Watch any horror movie if you don’t think that “inside the house” isn’t the most effing terrifying prospect.)

And under attack, your mind activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is all about protection and prevention. In other words, you turtle up — emotionally and often physically (shoulders hunched, head forward, neck tight, eyes and jaw clenched).

In that state, meaningful positive change is impossible.

Looking Back with Compassion

So what’s the alternative to getting down on yourself for your past shortcomings?

Self-compassion.

That doesn’t mean giving yourself a free pass.

Instead, it means recognizing that you were doing what you thought you needed in order to get through a particular experience.

And by “you” in “what you thought,” I’m not talking about your conscious mind. I’m talking about the deep inner programming that you constructed to stay alive and as safe as possible when you were young.

I know you don’t want to excuse any prior bad behavior with psychobabble. But that’s not what this is.

Rather, it’s exploring those hidden forces that compromised your aspirations for your best self so they come into the light of awareness.

As long as they remain inaccessible to your conscious mind, they run the show.

But once you know what they are, you can begin to root them out.

Your Turn

Think about a time when you were far from your best.

If your body responds with some fight or flight energy, or begins to fold in collapse from guilt or shame, simply breathe. (If it feels like too much, then abort immediately and don’t go there without professional support.)

Pay attention to the underlying fear you were feeling at that moment. (It’s there.)

Be curious: what’s the prediction of worse suffering if you had behaved differently?

Once it comes to you, it may seem childish or foolish.

You may have the thought: “But that’s ridiculous. That could never happen!”

Beautiful! That means you’re collapsing the old belief by subjecting it to the light of actual experience. You’re bumping an ancient, unexamined belief about yourself, about others, or about the world that you may have adopted before you could even talk into your episodic memory.

Post Script

Dougald Hine, author of At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All the Other Emergencies, reread a poem that he had written in his 20s and immediate felt embarrassed by his response to the end of a youthful romantic entanglement. He writes:

“I remember reading an interview with Nick Cave, a few years after The Boatman’s Call, in which he sneered at his slightly younger self for making such melodrama out of an ordinary heartbreak, and there was a time when I would have winced at this poem for similar reasons. But I’m kinder towards that young man now, and inclined to think that our youthful longings can be a training for a larger longing, that our ordinary heartbreaks are what carve us into the people we become.”

May we all be kinder to our younger selves, that they might become our allies in pursuing our best, authentic selves today.

My goal for this newsletter is to encourage you to identify what matters most (WMM) to you, so you can get massive traction and move that work forward. The first element of WMM is your vision of your best self (and for teams and organizations, your collective vision of a grand, uplifting purpose for working together).

If you want to share your WMM with me, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Drop me an email howie AT askhowie DOT com and tell me what matters most in your world right now.